In today's wargame base painting guide we're venturing into the Silver Tower to conjure up some Tzeentch themed Buried Ancients bases. In this example we've used a 32mm sized base and classic blue, pink and yellow colour scheme associated with the Changer of Ways.

This painting tutorial uses Contrast paint to lay down the basic colours, and some careful fine lining to pick out the detail on the eyes and pulsing magical runes. We've gone for a mostly blue and black colour scheme for the base to match the Silver Tower board game, with yellow, green and pink used as spot colours.

You will need:

• A fine brush for applying details
• An old basing brush for applying washes

Colours we used:

• A white undercoat (we used cheap car primer)
• Blue for the stone (we used Citadel Asurman Blue Contrast and Citadel Blue Horror Edge for the highlights)
• Black wash for the rubble (we used Citadel Black Templar Contrast)
• Dark brown wash for the wood (we used Citadel Garaghak's Sewer)
• Varying shades of pink for the runes (we used Citadel Screamer Pink, Citadel Pink Horror, and Citadel Flayed One Flesh)
• Green and yellow for the eyes (we used Citadel Moot Green and Citadel Flash Gitz Yellow)
• Black for detailing the eyes and painting the rim (we used Citadel Abaddon Black)

We're starting from a white undercoat as we want our contrast paints to do the heavy lifting. When using contrast paints, we often use a 'reverse onion' technique - painting in layers, starting from the lowest layer and working up. We're starting with Asurmen Blue to create a vibrant stone colour.

The first three steps can be applied without waiting for the previous one to dry, as a little bit of bleed between the washes can help blend the colours and textures together.

The Buried Ancients range are strewn with a variety of detritus so there's lots of fun textures to work with. We want the focus to be on the stone floor and its runic patterns, so we're painting the rubble and wood with dark colours. 

Black Templars Contrast gives a nice dark grey look reminiscent of a pile of coal.

The final step is to paint any fallen timber in dark brown. We're using Garaghak's Sewer Contrast, which is quickly becoming a favourite over Agrax Earthshade for grimy brown washes.

Layer it over the top, and don't worry about being messy at this stage. The colours will blend together as they dry, and we can tidy up any mistakes as we paint the details later.

Grab your fine lining brush and lay down some colour in those recesses. We're aiming to recreate a pulsing magical force that concentrates around points of interest, such as near eyes or where the runes overlap.

Starting with Screamer pink, fill the entire recess. Don't worry about going over the lip, we can tidy that up later when we highlight the blue. Once the first layer is down, go back over in Pink Horror, but taking care to only run down the middle of the recess and leave some of the previous layer showing on either side.

Finally, take your lightest pink (we've used Flayed One Flesh) and carefully dab it in areas we want to be brightest - namely intersections and near where we want our eyes to be.

It's fine if it's a bit messy. We're aiming for something that looks like malign, crackling energies when viewed at 4 foot away on a tabletop rather than from 6 inches away from your face as you paint it.

The penultimate task is to paint the gemstones on our Buried Ancient bases to look like malicious avian eyes, as the Architect of Fate is always watching. We've started with a simple base of Moot Green, with Flash Gitz Yellow over the top. 

We've very roughly blended two together by applying the yellow in two or three thinned coats, increasing the saturation of yellow in the direction we want the eye to be looking.

When everything is fully dry, apply a single black line for the pupil. Don't forget to mix up the orientation and direction of your eyes to give them that creepy chameleonic independent focus.

The final detail stage is to highlight the base stone with a light blue, we've used Blue Horror. This step isn't necessary, but it helps hide where you painted over the lines in previous steps, and helps to give the blue stone more depth.

We also find that Contrast Paints can rub off or fade at the most extreme edges if you handle a miniature a lot, so applying an extra non-contrast layer on corners or prominent edges can help keep your paint job intact without worrying about a varnish.

The final step (and arguably the most satisfying) is to finish the base by painting the rim. We favour two thin coats of a dark colour that complements the overall base colour scheme, usually black, dark grey, or dark brown. Here, we've used Abaddon Black for the same reason we used dark colours in step 2 and 3 - to keep the emphasis on the blue stone and yellow eyes.

Some people don't do this step, but we believe that painting the rim of the base is like framing your favourite poster or wall hanging - it fully finishes off the look by tidying, containing, and presenting the artwork you've invested in.

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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Grab your own set of Buried Ancients bases here, just as planned...