Marax the Fallen: Birth of a Chaos Dread, pt.3

This series of posts chronicles my first Chaos Dread conversion. Last time on “Birth of a Chaos Dread”: the finished pose. Now it’s finally time to get this bad boy painted!

I have to admit that I was kind of scared by the prospect of having to paint this model: I had never painted a Dread before, and I had found the task of painting my Defiler to be very exhausting. But I wanted to use a completed Dread in a game against cousin Andy, so I forced myself to get to work.

I’ve stated before that I am – at best – an okay painter. Still, painting is not really my favourite hobby activity. And while I like looking at completed models well enough, the way there often proves to be a chore. To make things even worse, the model forced me to work in multiple sub-assemblies (lower body, upper body and both arms), which I hate. But had I glued everything together in advance, I would never have been able to get the thing painted.

Anyway, I applied my standard World Eaters formula: An undercoat of GW Chaos Black, then a basecoat of GW Mechrite Red for the red parts, GW Boltgun Metal for the silver parts and GW Tin Bitz for the trim, the exhaust muzzles etc. The base was basecoated in GW Adeptus Battlegrey.

Then the red and bronze parts as well as the base were liberally washed with GW Devlan Mud. The silver received a generous helping of GW Badab Black. The base was also washed with Badab Black after the first Wash had dried.

Then I lightly drybrushed the bronze bits with GW Dwarf Bronze, so that a highlight formed on the raised parts. The silver was further shaded with Badab Black until it looked suitably dark and grimy. Subtle highlights were then added with GW Mithril Silver. Finally, I layered a fairly  thin coat of GW Blood Red over the red parts of the model. And as a last step, the edges of the base were highlighted by drybrushing with GW Skull White.

That left only some details. The bone was basecoated with GW Dheneb Stone, then washed with Devlan Mud and finally highlighted with GW Bleached Bone. The lightning claws were painted in a mixture of GW Chaos Black and Vallejo Halcon Milenario Turquoise – by far my favourite colour for giving some pop to my World Eaters (GW Hawk Turquoise should work equally well, I guess). The highlights were done in pure Halcon Milenario Turquoise. And so, without further ado, I give you: Marax the Fallen.

You may have noticed that I added another bit or two, for example the bones on his right shoulder (from the Kroot kit). I thought it would make a nice trophy, in addition to supporting the position of the model’s arms.

I also added a bit from the Ogre Kingdoms to symbolise the World Eaters’ legion badge. This way, the left shoulder slightly resembles a Marine’s shoulderpad in that it shows the legion’s heraldry. That particular bit is also really great for World Eaters icons, vehicles or even Terminator storm shields! I painted the small continents with Tin Bitz.

Contrary to what I was expecting, the model was a joy to paint! The slightly larger scale compared to infantry models was a blessing and made painting really relaxing. I was able to finish Marax in a single day, without ever getting fed up with him.

Of all the conversions I have done, Marax has been drawing the most positive comments from people at the FLGS. And indeed, I am quite proud of how the model turned out! On the tabletop, you really don’t want to have that thing reach your lines 😉

Some timer after I completed this model, I stumbled on GuitaRasmus’ fantastic Khorne and Nurgle thread on Dakka and noticed he had done a pretty similar conversion. This goes to show that my idea might not really have been that original to begin with 😉

Seriously though, check that thread out! It’s awesome!

While my paintjob clearly doesn’t match GuitaRasmus’ flawless execution, Marax has been a great success for me. And I can only recommend the Dread kits to everyone: They’re a joy to work with!

Anyway, thanks for looking! Next time on “Birth of a Chaos Dread”: the fluff.