I picked up the base 2nd edition set, and am working though painting the monsters. I'm having a bit of a dilemma though. Usually when I paint things, I like to stick mostly to the original color scheme. I'll add a bit of my own flair here and there, but I try to make it easy to spot them on the shelf if you are just looking at their card.

I want to make the master monsters stand out in some way though. I would like the thing I do to be consistent across all the monsters I have. I feel like I could do this two ways:

1. Make all the monsters basically the same, but add extra details or red to the master vidmate mobdro word counter

2. Make the master monsters completely different than the others

I am leaning towards number 2 right now. I painted up my zombies, and I made the master one purple instead of green, and gave him different color rags. It looks pretty good. The only issue with number 2 is for monsters that come in pairs. I need to make sure it's obvious which one is the common and which is the master, but also making sure they all look like they belong.

How do you paint your models?

I'm on it, and I would make the master not "totally" but partially different, depending of the group,

Hybrid sentinels : master red, minors green (in skin), Fire imps yellow and red for the masters, etc ... About some other groups, like Wendigos, Ice wyrms, etc ... masters will have a "purple blue" more color skin. Ogres, Trolls, etc ... will have a darker skin, and different color scheme on their outfits.

But i'm far from finishing, I'm still learning and I missed the poor Avric

Here is how I did mine.

I matched something like a cathegory to them and kept a consistent Master theme, like The Undead , Demons, Humanoids and Beasts. Minions are always more common. Undead matsters glow teal-green. Demon masters are in green flames. Humanoid and Beasts are in white-ish clothing or pale skin (like Azog in The Hobbit movies)

I guess snakes and tentacle monsters could be another cathegory.. maybe purple masters, but I would need to repaint some so.. maybe another time (Plague Worm, Naga, Chaos Beast, Merriod, Carrion Drakes)

I have a contrary streak. When painting masters, I avoid red. I try to swap or add a color to their scheme, and then band the base in that color.

For example, my master cave spider has a green tattoo on its back and a green ring on the base.

If I can’t think of a fitting color to add, I will default to a red ring on the base. I will attempt to add different details if possible. My master broodwalker has a blood paint smeared on its clothing (because it’s supposed to be “fresher” than the minions).

Here's an option C ...

Rely primarily on the base rim to indicate monster ranking. So red-rim is your master and black/white/beige is your minion (minion rim being up to personal preference).

PRO
* Gives you more flexibility with how you paint your miniatures. Applying red to EVERY master can have the counter-intuitive affect of diluting the importance of the masters.
* Likewise, you can just paint a few some different schemes and make the more impressive looking ones the master

CON
* You have to decide how you're going to paint and color each miniature group. It can also be less readily apparent which is the master at a glance.

Either way, if you read the lore paragraphs for these creatures they'll frequently have a hint regarding how the masters (the more powerful ones) should be colored. For example the cave spiders are said to have red-markings on the back of the leaders, so you can prime and paint them, then take the best looking one and add the red marking.

I am inconsistent, because I prefer to assess each monster group individually, but generally:

For monsters with clothes/armor:

• Master's armour is golden (or has more golden details)
• Master's clothing is a different color (usually crimson)

For reptile-like monsters, I tend to use a completely different color for the masters (or, in the case of Carrion Drakes, I swapped the base color scheme), e.g. my master Naga is blue with silver spikes, my master Chaos Beast is crimson, my master Bane Spider has a different color pattern, etc.

For 2-units groups, I often just go for 2 different painting approaches, eg. my Elementals, Ynfernael Hulks and Meriods are painted in different ways, with nothing really screaming "this one is a master"... but they are easy to tell apart.

In the rare cases where the details I change are too subtle to easily tell apart the master from the minions, I just paint the base rim red and call it a day. I've done this with Razorwings, Plague worms and even the master Ice Wyrm.

I put them in a shallow tray of water and then prime them with a spray paint primer. Then I paint the minis. That way the base is masked and stays unpainted.