Getting the frost-bitten-brass look right on the vanguard warband meant three failed washes before the fourth one worked — and the difference between wash two and wash four is smaller than I'd like to admit.
The brief, self-imposed: every model in this warband should look like it's been dragged through a glacier and kept fighting anyway. Brass gone green at the joints. Ice creeping up the boots. Nothing pristine.
What didn't work
- Straight verdigris wash over bare metal — too even, reads as "painted green" instead of "corroded."
- Snow flock everywhere — buries the brass detail the whole scheme depends on.
- White drybrush as the final step — flattens the contrast the wash spent an hour building.
What did
Verdigris only in the recesses, applied like a normal wash, then a second pass of thinned white only on upward-facing edges — rivets, shoulder pads, blade tips — to fake frost catching the light instead of snow sitting on the model. Airbrush for the base coat, brush for absolutely everything after.
Six models in. Fourteen to go before this warband is tabletop-ready. Photos once there's a full unit instead of one lonely vanguard standing on a painting handle.