Hobby Table: Skaven Rat Ogres

This time around I have a pair of Skaven rat ogres fresh off of the hobby table. These particular sculpts are from the Spire of Dawn set that came out at the beginning of Age of Sigmar as a re-release of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th edition starter set. Unfortunately, the set is no longer for sale as the other half of the box was High Elves, which no longer exist in the Age of Sigmar game. Games Workshop still sells some rat ogres, but the models are old and frankly look bad. 

Ordinarily, I'm not a fan of the "official" style of painting the Skaven mostly with skin with only some patches of fur, opting instead to paint them with fur over the majority of their bodies. I've actually already painted two of my ogres this way, which you'll see below. But this time I decided to try the patchy look, especially since rat ogres are supposed to be mutated abominations anyways. 

Painting these isn't as simple as some of my previous models, purely because skin tones can be hard to get right over such a large area. But I think I managed to pull it off. 

The skin was painted in the following manner:

• Basecoat with Kislev Flesh, and make sure it's dry before moving on. 
• Wash with Reikland Flesh Shade, and be careful not to let it pool in any crevices and that it dries smoothly over the skin (avoid patches). 
• Highlight with Kislev Flesh on the raised areas of the skin. Leave any crevices or areas that would naturally be in shadow alone.
• Highlight with Flayed One Flesh on the highest ridges of the model and where light would be coming from directly above. Less is more here. 
• Bruises on the skin are achieved by washing with Carroburg Crimson. 
• The tail is a basecoat of Barbarian Flesh washed with Reikland Flesh Shade and highlighted again with Barbarian Flesh. 

The rest of the model was much easier to achieve, it just took a while due to the number of colors needed. 

• Armor: Crystal Blue base washed with Blue Tone and drybrushed with Shining Silver. Some dots of Ryza Rust are used to give some spot colors. 
• Fur: Oak Brown, washed with Agrax Earthshade and drybrushed with Skeleton Bone. 
• Bandages: Matt white washed with Soft Tone. For some bloody rags, I added spots of Red Tone.
• Warpstone: Moot Green base and Green Tone wash.
• Metallics: Brass Scorpion drybrushed with Shining Silver
• Blade: Plate Mail Metal Base, drybrushed with Shining Silver, washed with Green Tone and then drybrushed with Moot Green to get that warp stone glow. This is much more noticeable on my older model below. 
• Tabards: Lava Orange base, Matt White highlights on the raised edges and then glaze the same Lava Orange over the white to make easy highlights.
• Eyes/Cables: Pure Red base.

Here's that comparison to the typical style I use for my Skaven. The fur everywhere is usually a better look to me, but on the rat ogres I think the skin actually looks pretty good. It definitely gives more contrast, which lets more of the details shine through. It's a lot more colorful though, so doesn't quite achieve a dark gritty look if that's what you're after. The darker tones also let the warpstone glow pop out a lot more too. I think for now I'll stick to fluffy Skaven.

What do you think? What style do you like to paint your Skaven in?