Painting Dryads

When people want to paint their miniatures, they often turn to White Dwarf for
ideas on how their models should look.  For Dryads, this is a terrible mistake.
The Studio Dryads are one of the worst examples of GW's cartoon look - have
you ever seen a tree with blue bark and green heartwood?  

I consider my method to look better.  Undoubtedly theirs are better painted,
and this will show on inspection, but how they look on the table is what
really matters.  GW's look like cartoons - mine look a bit more like bits of
wood...

Most importantly, this method is quick and easy.  Anyone can master it, and
you can churn out a veritable horde if you like - and time spent on painting
is very much an important issue for a lot of people.

Paints - Bestial Brown, Bleached Bone, Dark Angels Green, Black Ink, Flesh Ink,
Emerald Green, Putrid Green, Skull White.

For these models I decided not to use an undercoat.  Now, this is perfectly
safe for plastics - despite what you may have been told, paint will stick to
a non-undercoated surface (what else is the undercoat going to stick to?), and
tends not to rub off.  For metals... it can be problematic.  What I did was 
firmly attach the Dryads to their bases (just twist the tabs a bit), and then
hold them only by the base, or by the base and one single pivot point (usually
a claw on a raised arm or something similar).  If you use a pivot point, don't
bother painting it until last.  Paint rubs off metal easily enough, but only
when not fully dried - after that, you have to apply a certain deliberate amount
of pressure to remove it, and you can always varnish the model anyway.

Anyway, apply the Bestial Brown to all bark surfaces, without filling in the
details.  Then paint all heartwood Bleached Bone.  Ignore the fact that they 
contrast too much and look the wrong colours right now, they will be altered
later by the inks.  Paint the claws Bleached Bone as well - I have found that
black claws (as for monsters) look out of place, and so do red claws (which
also look ridiculous).

All the Dryads have clumps of moss on them - base coat these Dark Angels Green,
or even Chaos Black if you like (but what you do later doesn't work as well on
black).

Now, wash all the bark with Black Ink, and all the heartwood with Flesh Ink.
For the heartwood, you might want a slightly lighter shade - just blow the wash
off and into the crevices at the edges once you have applied it, so that it 
alters the colour a lot less.  This is quite a useful technique to know if you
use washes a lot, especially when doing the wings of something like a dragon...
With the Black Ink, drown it if you like.

When all of this is dry, drybrush the mossy spots with Emerald Green.  Apply the
Putrid Green to the eyes.  Then lightly drybrush the claws with Skull White,
enough to change the tone, so that they look like a light wood.

Three of the Dryad models have what could be taken as hair.  For an evergreen
look, base it with Snot Green, and then drybrush with Putrid Green.  For an
autumn look, which is the theme for my army, base it Crimson Gore and then 
drybrush VERY carefully with some shade of yellow (I used Bad Moon Yellow).

And there you have Dryads, painted quickly and simply, and looking good.