In this wargame base painting guide we're going back to the creation of time and space to paint some Planetary Temple bases worthy of the Slann and the Old Ones. In this example we've used a 32mm sized base and a colour scheme of deep jade decorated with precious stones.

This colour scheme is inspired by the new Idol of the Old Ones for Age of Sigmar Warcry, and uses basic techniques like drybrushing and fine lining. We're aiming for a deep green stone look, embellished with bronze metal and crimson jewels reminiscient of Lizardmen, Slann, and Seraphon.

You will need:

• A stiff-bristled brush for drybrushing
• A fine brush for appying details

Colours we used:

• A black undercoat (we used cheap car primer)
• Some deep greens (we used Citadel Incubi Darkness, Citadel Kabalite Green, and Citadel Sybarite Green)
• A metallic paint (we used Citadel Brass Scorpion)
• A gemstone paint (we used Citadel Khorne Red)
• A black wash (we used Citadel Nuln Oil)
• A neutral colour for painting the rim (we used Citadel Abaddon Black)

We're starting from a black undercoat as we want to keep the colours dark and muted. Drybrush your first dark green onto the base, giving fairly even coverage all over. We've used Incubi Darkness which has an otherworldly blue-green tint.

Don't worry about getting any in the recesses as we'll be tidying that up later.

We're applying the next layer, Kabalite Green, in two stages. Firstly, take your drybrush and tickle the more detailed areas of the base. You want to leave some areas of the base darker to help build that sense of depth.

Secondly, with the same colour, fine line around the recess edges. It doesn't have to be too neat, as the drybrush layer will help blend the edge highlight into the rest of the base.

The final stage of the green is take the lightest colour and highlight the most extreme edges and corners. This can be a bit fiddly, so take your time. You could also dot the corners if that's more comfortable than longer brush strokes.

We're going to add decoration to our jade stone, starting with the metalwork. We've picked a deep copper, but you can experiment with different metallic colours to get the shade you're looking for.

Taking your fine line brush again, simply paint over the top of any raised details you want to be metal. We'll be hitting this with a wash later to blend it into the base, so don't worry about being too neat.

For our precious gems, we've tried to colour match the inspiration piece and keep them dark and muted. We've simply painted them with a crimson colour (Khorne Red) and we'll be hitting them with a wash later.

If you wanted them to stand out a bit more, you could touch their apex with a lighter red or cover them in a gloss varnish to catch the light.

We'll be hiding our mistakes and consolidate our colours with a targeted application of Nuln Oil. Firstly, apply it in the grooves of the base to darken them and help tidy up any drybrush marks that may have appeared in the first few steps.

Secondly, run the wash across the top of the metallics and paint round the gemstones. This should help form a darker outline around these elements to help them both stand out and blend into the base a bit more.

If you need to tidy up the rim with black to hide any mistakes you made earlier, now is the time to do it. 

And you're finished!

What do you think? Would you like to see it in different colours, or on different sized bases? Let us know in the comments below or through our social accounts.

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Pick up your own Planetary Temple bases here and make the Old Ones proud!