With the Showdown at Retribution Two Player Starter Set recently released, are you undecided on how you want to paint your Nikolai Tesla?

Daz has been hard at work painting up some miniatures and has taken the time to provide us with a step-by-step on how he painted the ‘head’ of the Union, Nikolai Tesla.

Follow the steps below and your Nikolai Tesla will be looking great in no time!


Step 1: I started off by giving the model a base coat of P3 Khardic Flesh. This is a nice neutral tone which will allow us to easily change and add new tones as we go.

Step 2: I gave the face a light wash of 50/50 P3 Bloodtracker Brown and Vallejo Skin Wash (watered down to 50/50). I guided this into the recesses of the head, particularly the eyes.

Step 3: I roughly sketched in the mouth, moustache, eyebrows and eyes with P3 Umbral Umber. Don’t worry about making a mess at this stage as we’ll come back and tidy up with later steps.

Step 4: The eyes and teeth are sketched in with pure P3 Morrow White. Once again, don’t worry if it’s not perfect, we’ll tidy up as we go. You may notice that currently the left eye looks like it’s been punched sideways. Not a problem.

Step 5: I then used Umbral Umber to place the pupils, and “move” the eyes by adding tiny amounts of Umbral Umber onto the side of the eye I’d like to “delete”, to bring balance.

Step 6: The first highlight was applied with a 50/50 mix of Khardic Flesh and P3 Mouldy Ochre. This brings a more natural yellow to the highlights.

Step 7: Then I added more Mouldy Ochre to the mix and reduced the highlight area to the forehead, the nose and the cheekbones.

Step 8: White is added to the previous mix and once again I reduced the highlight area.

Step 9: The final highlight I added is with pure white, concentrating on the forehead, bridge of the nose and chin.

Step 10: Next, I painted the hair in with Umbral Umber and highlighted the moustache and eyebrows with a 50/50 mix of Umbral Umber and white.

Step 11: The hair was then highlighted the same way as the moustache, however the highlight areas are considerably smaller on the hair to represent shine.

Step 12: The final highlight of pure white was applied to the highest parts of our previous highlights to further simulate shine.

Step 13: Finally, the cheeks, lips and nose were given a glaze of P3 Sanguine Base to add a little flush of colour and we’re done!


Here we have the finished result, a fully painted Nikolai Tesla by Daz.

Make sure to keep an eye out on the Warcradle Studios blog for more updates on Daz’s progress with the Showdown at Retribution Two Player Starter Set miniatures.


Pick up your own Showdown at Retribution Two Player Starter Set at your FLGS or at Wayland Games online, and start painting your Enlightened and Union forces.

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