The Captain

Very nice. I love how your colors complement each other on Zelata's robes, and the shiny metal attracts the eye just well enough but not too much. The grass on the wolf's base looks kinda unnatural, and the wolf looks maybe a bit boring with just the one color, but it's perfectly serviceable on the gaming table.

To continue with a long and proud tradition of these threads, I didn't see one for Valeria yet. Although the model's clothing isn't quite faithful to what Howard described in Red Nails, I tried to paint her colour scheme as closely as possible to her description. I had a lot of trouble figuring out the belts and buckles on her waist - astigmatism makes miniature painting kinda difficult...

Ah, N'Gora. From a barely-mentioned minor character in a novella to one of the major players in the game. He's kinda cool. I'm not very experienced in painting dark skin; I only discovered a good recipe recently, too late for this fellow or my Picts. But it shall suffice.

Zelata is really a very cool character despite her very brief role in the Hour of the Dragon. She's wise and mysterious with just a hint of hidden power. Camera wouldn't focus on the wolf's nose. Wolf was painted simply with several layers of washes over white basecoat. I like how well that worked out.

Not much to say about him. Simple miniature, simple paintjob.

Here's my "vanilla" Bêlit. Camera focus is a bit off from her face, and despite two attempts to straighten the spear it still looks like a banana. I painted the other Bêlits as well, will post photos of them later. I painted them all at the same time because I wanted a consistent tone for the ivory skin Howard describes in Queen of the Black Coast.

Yep, something's wrong with the poor guy's face. That includes something extra in my photo of him, because theres no green stain on his face around his mouth in real life. I didn't bother painting any OSL effects for the fire - I'm not good enough with OSL to make it look "just right" so it's safer to leave it out.

Here's my Conan. Decided to keep it simple.

Yeah, Citadel's shades are pretty good and easy to use, and they have a nice selection of colours as well. I use their purple to shade all sorts of things, including gold, skin colours and even yellows.

I usually let the brush-on primer dry for an hour or so before painting on it, but you can probably start sooner if you need to. Me, I prefer not to rush. It's not uncommon for me to apply a quick primer on a model in the morning before leaving for work so I can start painting right away when I get back home. I think Strong tone is still best for shading yellow/orange, but you can dilute it with water for a softer tone if you feel it gets too dark as it is. You could also use any paint you like and dilute it into a wash consistency so you're not limited to just the shades you find ready in a pot. I use whichever plastic lids or disposable plastic spoons I have handy (or baking paper) as disposable palettes when mixing paints/washes.

Are you referring to the big pot of quickshade where you dip your model, or the dropper bottle washes? I use the latter all the time, spread with a brush; the former tends to leave a too glossy and patchy result for my tastes. It's a nice, natural brown that can be used to quickly shade (ooh!) many colours, and if you're going for a quick and easy "one shade for them all" method, Strong Tone is among the best options there is. I painted my entire Conan King Pledge very quickly using AP's Strong Tone wash as a cheat for shading. For a more "artistic" result I tend to mix purples and dark turquoises into my shadows, but that's for painting contest stuff rather than board game pieces. And although I'm a bit late to the topic, I very much prefer Vallejo Model Air acrylic-polyurethane primers. You can actually use a regular paintbrush to brush them on your models (so you won't need an airbrush), and it's very fast because the primer is very thin compared to regular paints. I find it almost as fast to brush on the primer than to use a spray can - and if priming only one or two models at a time, brush-on primer is actually faster because then I don't need to set up my spraying box on the balcony and spend minutes dancing with the spray can shaking it. The acrylic-polyurethane has worked very well for both Conan and Mythic Battles: Pantheon miniatures. I usually prefer black primer, but you can use grey or even white for a brighter, more vibrant end result. I mix and match Citadel, Vallejo, Army Painter, Formula P3, Coat d'Arms and Reaper while painting - most paint brands have good stuff, and it mostly comes up to a matter of personal taste which brand works best for which task.