Stage 12

Now that the Wickerman was glued firmly to the base I sprayed the whole model with a white undercoat. The undercoat didn't cover the wood too well but I knew it would be soaked up. But I didn't want to smother the wood detail.

Stage 13

I then had a dilema about the colour of the wood. I had Coat d'Arms paint 218 Wood Brown but it just looked to bright. So in the end I opted for colour 534 Dark Leather.

The whole model was painted including poking the brush into the chest cage and covering the victims.
I was very aware that I would have to try and paint the victims through the cage bars but would worry about that later. By covering them in the same paint as the rest of the model I was hoping I'd only have to highlight the parts showing through the bars!

Stage 14

This is what the model looked like once completely covered. You can just make out a different brown colour on the base. This was the Wood Brown colour that I felt would have been too bright.

Stage 15

Once the base coat was dry I started to dry brush the entire model with colour 228 Buff. This was a little too bright so I mixed it with the Dark Lether for the first dry brush and lightened it a bit for a second layer.

I went back to the Buff colour and painted the chopped ends of the logs which had the lighter internal part of the wood showing.

Stage 16

Next up I started painting the leather straps binding the Wickerman together. For this I used colour 116 Barbarian Leather. It contrasted well against the wood.

I also started on the rocks on the model base. These got a coat of 501 British Khaki and a dry brush of 517 Desert Yellow.

Stage 17

Now onto the last, you can see in the picture how well the leather straps came out against the wood and also how much of the real wood grain remained after several layers of paint.

I won't lie to you and say painting the victim inside was easy, it wasn't. I ended up having to touch up some of the wood that I got paint on while painting the victim. The victim it's self was done by just dry brushing over the brown base coat the victim got at Step 13.

Given the difficulties I think painting the model and the victim before constructing the cage might have been a better idea?

The Finished Wickerman

And so the finished model complete with flocked base.
Quite frankly considering I started building this model with no experience of doing anything similar or a wealth of visual inspiration to aid me. It's a miracle it came out the way it did!
I'd even go so far as to say it is probably one of the most unique models out there. There are more pictures of the Wickerman in my Scenery gallery and you will see it crop up from time to time in my Fantasy battle gallery.