Sergeant Crooks – Painting Guide

Sergeant Crooks is one of the Baker Street Irregulars who in this twisted setting are the Hench men of the notorious criminal mastermind that is Sherlock Holmes aka the Kingpin. Every devious criminal mastermind needs a man on the force and though Holmes has many in his employ it is Crookes who, more than any, is willing to show his dubious allegiance, standing side-by-side with the Baker Street Irregulars in scuffles.

I haven’t been able to find any painted examples of Sergeant Crooks so I’ve just had to make things up as I went along. Obviously he’s a police man so blue needed to be the predominant colour so I decided to go with a few different shades and keep things simple.

As is pretty much the norm for me now the first step was to prime the model and I did this using Vallejo Black Surface Primer (74.602) for a first coat. I then went back over the model using Vallejo Grey Surface Primer (74.601) at about a forty five degree angle to start to build up some shadow and highlight areas.

Coat and Helmet: For the clothing I decided to start with the coat and my plan was to give him a darker coat with lighter clothing to offer a bit of contrast. I started with a very thinned down Vallejo Signal Blue (71.091) which was the darkest blue I had on the rack. Because I had thinned it down so much I needed to apply several coats to get an even coverage. This was then followed by a couple of washes with Citadel Asurmem Blue Wash and then a thinned down Secret Weapon Blue Black Wash. This gave me a nice dark blue as a base and I applied to the same process to the helmet. I then used Vallejo Turquoise (70.966) to do an edge highlight before a final highlight on the areas that would naturally catch the light using Vallejo Light Turquoise (70.940).

Shirt & Trousers: Because I wanted these to be lighter than the coat and because I liked how it worked as a highlight I decided to use a thinned down Vallejo Turquoise (70.966) in a couple of layers to get a nice even coverage. This was then highlighted with Vallejo Light Turquoise (70.940). Then the help darken the overall look I used a couple of coats of Citadel Asurmen Blue Wash.

Details: For the sergeants strips I used Vallejo Off White (70.820) as a base and then highlighted each strip with Citadel Skill White. For the belt, pouches and the straps on the shield I used Vallejo Beasty Brown (72.043) and then highlighted this with Vallejo Desert Yellow (72.763). I then used Citadel Reikland Flashshade Wash over these areas. Buttons and fittings on the helmet, shield and mace were done with Vallejo Bright Brass (71.067) which was highlighted with Vallejo Polished Gold (72.055). For the boots and gloves I wanted to go with a sort of black leather feel so I started off with Vallejo Heavy Charcoal (72.155) which I then highlighted with Citadel Dawnstone. I then gave it all a wash with Citadel Nuln Oil Gloss Wash to darken things down and leave that bit of shine. For the other metal areas such as the head of the mace and the speaker I used Vallejo Gun Grey (71.072) which was then highlighted with Vallejo Chrome (71.064). Everything was then given a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil to dull it all down a bit and give it a more dirty appearance.

Shield: I wanted a more metallic look for this so I started out with a thinned down coat of Vallejo Gun Grey (71.072) which was then highlighted with Vallejo Chrome (71.064). Next up I applied several layers of thinned down Vallejo Signal Blue (71.091) got get the blue colour but still keeping the metallic feel. The fitting, shield boss and bolts were all done using Vallejo Bright Brass (71.067) which was highlighted with Vallejo Polished Gold (72.055).

Base: I went with cobble base which I thought was fitting for this sort of character. I primed the base using Vallejo Black Surface Primer (74.602) and then gave it a dry brush of Vallejo Grey Surface Primer (74.601). I then did some edge highlights using Citadel Dawnstone. To add a bit of contrast is used a mix of Vallejo Dark Green Wash (76.512), Rust (76.506) and Dark Yellow (76.503) to randomly add some colour to some cobbles. As a final step I applied some streaks of Secret Weapon Sewer Water along with some streaks of Secret Weapon Baby Poo.

Full Paint & Weathering Product List:

Washes: