ETL V: Go out with a bang!

Alright, one more post about the ETL, and then we’re off to…well, whatever’s next, really 😉

With three finished vows under my belt, I was basically prepared to call it a day, but I couldn’t help noticing that the amount of points I had pledged was still below the 1,000 points mark — by 70 points, to be exact.

Now I didn’t harbour any ambitions to contribute a huge amount of points to the ETL, as there are some other people who have that particular corner covered much better than I ever could. But somehow I did want to read the 1,000 points mark — and as it happens, I realised that I had one last model on my unpainted pile that perfectly fit the bill:

Some of you may remember my first “Thamier-pattern” Obliterator, based on some excellent, custom parts provided courtesy of my fellow hobbyist Thamier (hence the name). Those parts allowed me to finally come up with an excellent Obliterator design that fit my army as well as the outline of what an Obliterator should look like:

Back when Thamier sent me those bitz, he was awesome enough to include enough parts for two Obliterators. But I only ever managed to finish one of them and just couldn’t seem to settle on a final configuration for the second one.

For some reason, however, this changed after finishing my Bloodthirster recently — something must have been shaken loose in the back of my head, and suddenly I knew exactly how to build this guy, easy as that. A short while later, I had the finished conversion in my hands:

And as luck would have it, a single Obliterator can count as a squad and is worth exactly 70 points — just the amount I was still missing! So I decided to finish my contribution in this event by making a fourth and (final) vow. I was really looking forward to finally owning two finished Obliterators of this size and design!

Besides, it was just a single model, right? So what could possibly go wrong?

Unfortunately, the last couple of days have been the hottest days of the year so far in northwestern Germany, with temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius outside. Hardly the perfect weather to be painting miniatures — quite the opposite, actually!

However, I realised that losing momentum was the biggest danger for me, so I soldiered through the paintjob. And I managed to finish the Obliterator yesterday. Take a look:

And here’s a closer look at the weapon arms, spliced together from many, many different bits and kits:

Now it has been pointed out to me by Thousand Eyes and Augustus b’Raass that the armour trim needs some cleanup work here and there — particularly on the leg greaves! And I happily agree — painting this guy in the sweltering heat – and in a slightly darkened room, no less – certainly didn’t do the exactness of my paintjob any favours. But I think those problems should be easy enough to solve with some minor touchups when it’s a bit colder, and I am still reasonably happy with this guy: Now I have two massive juggernauts that can lay down quite a bit of fire between them. YAY! 😉

And with the points of all the models I have managed to finish not at exactly 1,000 points, I think this is also the perfect moment to consider my contribution to this year’s ETL concluded: I’ve already done three vows more than I had originally planned, and while it has been a blast, I think it’s important to end things on a high note. I also don’t want to fail again, like last year! 😉

But even so, I couldn’t be any happier with my performance: Granted, 1,000 points isn’t all that much when compared to the amounts of stuff some of the crazier contributors have come up with, but then I think I have really managed to complete some rather cool models — some of this stuff is arguably my finest work to date:

Another thing that pleases me immensely is that each model is one I have wanted to get painted for quite a while.

And while waiting for the opportunity to purchase some new Chaos Black spray halfway through the event, I actually made the most of the downtime and painted two “bonus models” (that had already been undercoated earlier), in order to keep my momentum going.

The first of those was a berzerker that I had already considered beyond saving earlier: I originally wanted to use the model as a test piece for the Mephiston Red spray paint, back when it was released. So I undercoated it with the – then brand new – spray paint, hoping that the paint would become a mainstay of my World Eaters recipe:

Unfortunately, the stuff performed rather terribly, and I ended up with a test model that was a slog to paint. Everything still looked pretty nice until after spraying, with a nice red undercoat across the whole model. But when I began to pick out the details in different colours, I realised that the undercoat had a somewhat strange, sandpapery texture that made the colours on top behave strangely, turning the whole painting progress into an exercise in frustration:

Now this is about as far as I got with the model:

But when the colour actually started rubbing off in places, revealing the bright red undercoat, I basically abandoned the whole project as a failure — and the half-finished model kept sitting on a sideboard, daring me to finish it at some point.

And that moment had finally come! So I thought “What the heck?” and gave the model another try: I repainted the armour with my new red recipe and persevered, because I really rather like this particular conversion and didn’t want to abandon it completely, and here’s what I ended up with:

Now this is hardly my best work – and it couldn’t be either, given the damage done by the original undercoat – but this guy is at least presentable enough now to take his place amongst the rank and file, and I am pretty happy that I’ve managed to finish the paintjob, after all!

The other additional model I painted is one that I am really happy with: An icon bearer for my Traitor Guard that I had wanted to finish for quite a while:

As you can see on the – mostly painted – model shown above, the conversion was based on another Tempestus Scions model. The head from one of the Dark Vengeance cultists champions creates a very palpable Blood Pact vibe (which was quite intentional), while the use of some WFB Skaven bitz creates a pretty cool, almost asian influence.

The icon was painted to resemble flayed human skin, and it goes without saying that it needed a suitably gruesome design added on top. So I broke out the Tamiya Clear Red and ended up with this:

Nothing says Traitor Guard quite as clearly as a crude heretical symbol daubed on in blood, wouldn’t you agree? 😉

What’s really cool is how this model finally rounds out my first squad of Traitor Elites, arguably creating one of the best squads in my entire collection:

So when I include those two “bonus models”, that actually brings the number of models I have managed to complete during this year’s ETL up to…eight. How auspicious, indeed! I certainly hope Khorne is pleased…

So yeah, I am really happy with the outcome!

But wait, there’s more: In addition to the stuff I managed to complete myself, there’s also the fact that fellow hobbyist Augustus b’Raass chose to honour me by naming an absolutely brilliant World Eaters Contemptor for his growing Khorne Daemonkin force after me.

Meet Ancient Ka’Ruat of the World Eaters’ 59th assault echelon, ladies and gentlemen:

model converted and painted by Augustus b’Raass

 

model converted and painted by Augustus b’Raass

What an utterly fantastic surprise! And quite an honour, too! Make sure to check out Auggie’s ongoing WIP thread over at The Bolter & Chainsword, by the way: That guy is on fire!

All things considered, this has been a really enjoyable – and successful – ETL for me! Best of luck to those hobbyists who are still working on their vows and/or are planning to finish even more models for the glory of chaos! I’ll be watching your amazing work from the sidelines while offering snide comments every now and then 😉

It goes without saying that I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback, so feel free to drop me a comment! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

ETL V: Thirsting for paint

With another – fairly big – model recently finished, my motivation to actually get stuff painted still showed no signs of dying down: a feeling that was both unfamiliar and rather exhilarating, to be honest.

And so I decided to finally go all-out and vow the big guy as my third (and possibly final) ETL vow. Which big guy, you ask? This big guy:

The model was assembled quite a while ago, and in all fairness, both the Skulltaker conversion and the bestial Daemon Prince were test runs for this piece, above all else. Everything built up to this, so I felt it was finally time to get some paint on this bad boy.

What’s more, owning and painting a Bloodthirster seems like a special thing for me, because when I received my very first issues of White Dwarf a long time ago, along with the 5th edition starter box of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, one of the issues had a feature on the – then brand new – metal Bloodthirster:

And I instantly fell in love. This model felt like a revelation, like the ultimate goal to be attained in this hobby. I just couldn’t get over how cool it was. It also seemed completely out of my league…

And yet I did pick up one of those metal Bloodthirsters, after all, as part of a job lot I purchased from ebay a couple of years ago. I even started to clean and assemble it, but there was no longer any fire in it, somehow. Some parts of the model have arguably aged rather poorly, and I just couldn’t seem to get back the warm and fuzzy feelings from seeing that first Bloodthirster.

Until the new Bloodthirster was released, and I was in love: While the alternate builds did have some visual shortcomings, the Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury seemed like the perfect update for the old model, and it finally gave me the opportunity to make this old hobby dream of mine a reality!

So I hit the ground running and make some excellent progress with the skin in a very short amount of time:

I realise I must probably sound like a broken record at this point, but Duncan Rhodes’ painting tutorial saved the day once again: It had already worked really well on the two previous models, but it waseven more fantastic when used on the model it was actually intended for! What I ended up with was a brilliant amount of depth and variation to the skin — and mostly by drybrushing on different hues of red, no less!

At this point I felt the need to reward myself for painting the entire skin in a single day, so I indulged myself and finished the face:

With the skin finished, the next task was to carefully block out all the leather straps, piercings and various ornaments covering the Bloodthirster’s body. But I was happy enough with the way the skin had turned out that my motivation carried me all through this slightly tedious task:

I also finished the wings, and even though I decided on a fairly minimalist approach, they still turned out to be a lot of work: The entire membrane area had to be painted black once again, before I could drybrush the wings with a lighter grey, and getting the black paint into all of those nooks and crannies was quite an exercise in frustration 😉

Up until this point, I had followed Duncan Rhodes’ tutorial to the letter, but I decided to go for a slightly different approach when painting the metals and armour plates, mostly because I wanted them to look similar to both the bronze areas on the rest of my Khornate army and the armour plates on my recently finished Skulltaker conversion:

So I went with black armour plates and bronze trim on my Bloodthirster as well. However, something unexpected happened at this point: I had originally planned to add the full set of available armour plates to the Bloodthirster: the breastplate, two vambraces, two armour plates on the upper thighs and one skull-shaped shoulder pad. However, while test-fitting the armour, I realised that it ended up covering much of the red skin, and especially some of the areas that I was particularly happy with!

So in the end I decided to lose some of the armour plates — which is probably a first for me, but there you have it 😉

This left only the whip to be painted, and unfortunately, this turned out to be a drag quite on par with painting the wings: all those damned little spikes… Anyway, there was obviously no stopping me at this point, so I soldiered on and ended up with this:

Not bad, not bad at all! Now you may have noticed that the whip is missing that flaming eight-pointed star — I carefully cut that off and shaved the remaining whip down into a point, as the ornament just seemed a bit much to me, and I preferred the “classic” look of the whip tapering down into a point.

So the last thing on my list was to come up with a suitable base, and it was clear that a model of this stature deserved something a bit more involved. The base also needed to accomplish several things at the same time: I wanted to create a bit of an elevation for the Bloodthirster to jump off from, and I really wanted to feature some big symbol of the Imperiums’s shattered might. So let’s just take a look at the finished model, shall we?

I give you…

Ghor’Lash’Kharganath, the Gorelord, the Ever-Wrathful, Chosen Hunter of Khorne

Quite a beast, indeed! I am especially happy with how he resembles Mark Gibbons’ incredibly iconic piece of Bloodthirster art:

Artwork by Mark Gibbons

Let’s take a closer look at the base I’ve built for the model:

The elevation at one end of the base was created by glueing three bases on top of each other, with the bases getting smaller towards the top, creating a layered incline. This was then covered up with GS, and I added cork, sand and ballast on top. Since the Bloodthirster attaches to the base at one very tiny point, it was important to make that connection rock solid, and the surface of a plastic base was sure to bond well with the Bloodthirster’s hoof.

Regarding the symbol of the failing Imperium of Man I wanted, I think the shattered shield really fits the bill, wouldn’t you agree? 😉

In a bit of an in-joke, the bease also features another helmet from the Golden Legion, my DIY Astartes Chapter created for INQ28:

And finally, I really liked the idea of the earth itself reacting to the daemon’s malign presence where his ironshod hooves touched the ground — hence the bloody bone spikes jutting from the rock. And in the middle of it all, the Bloodthirster is ascending from a pit of boiling blood on a pillar of fire:

The flames were painted with the help of Garfy’s excellent tutorial here. It’s an effect that is surprisingly easy and incredibly satisfying to pull off!

And here’s a closeup of the axe blade, another area that I am really happy with:

Lots of Army Painter Dark Tone and Vallejo Smokey Ink were used to darken down the blade and make it look suitably sinister and tarnished, and I am really happy with the finished effect!

And with that, my first Bloodthirster was finished. I am not going to mince words here: I am incredibly happy with the model! From a purely technical standpoint, this is very probably my finest paintjob to date. And when I look back at my hobby life and remember salivating over that classic metal Bloodthirster all those years back, it also feels like things have really come full circle, in a way: Owning and painting a Bloodthirster felt like a true pinnacle of the hobby back then. And here I am now, with the, arguably much superior, successor model finally painted to the best of my ability. Go me! 😉

Plus this also means a third finished ETL vow. Very nice!

So yeah, that’s it for my brand new Bloodthirster! I would love to hear your feedback, of course, so drop me a comment or two! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

ETL V: Avatar of the Hunt

With my first vow for the current ETL V event on The Bolter & Chainsword finished, I found myself in a mostly unprecedented situationof still feeling very motivated to keep painting stuff — certainly not something that happens to me a lot, I can tell you! So I actually found myself considering a second vow, and my glance fell on a long running backburner project of mine. This guy:

A bestial Daemon Prince built all the way back in 2013. Many of the thoughts that went into the model as well as the actual building process have been documented here and here, but just to give a short recap, the model basically started when I found myself in the possession of both a WFB Manticore and some leftover Maulerfiend limbs. My idea for this somewhat haphazard collection of parts was to create a grotesque, feral creature that would serve as a very different kind of Daemon Prince, in keeping with the background of my World Eaters: I was inspired by a throwaway line in Codex: Chaos Space Marines about the elevation to daemonhood basically signifiying and unending life of servitude. And I also thought of Angron’s ascension at the tail end of Betrayer, an event that leaves the tortured Primarch even more bestial and doesn’t exactly transform him into a darkly angelic creature…

So I came up with the concept of a Daemon Prince that embodied both the 4th assault company’s strong theme of the Hunt and their fear of letting go, of losing control and of completely turning into mindless beasts, and that’s where this model came from.

Alas, it had been sitting at the bottom of a box since an unsuccessful painting attempt last year. This is what the model looked like when I dug it out of its shameful temporary abode:

The dark brown you see on the body is proof of the fact that I didn’t really know what I was doing last time around — but at the same time, getting the skin right would be instrumental for this particular paintjob. But something was different this time: Not only was I motivated, but I already had a daemonic skin recipe that had already worked its magic once:

That’s right: I would be using the skin recipe from Duncan Rhodes’ voideo tutorial for painting the Bloodthirster again, this time on a far bigger model.

And in fact, the recipe worked just as wonderfully this time around, leaving me with this promising result after only a very short amount of time:

The skin was an absolute blast to paint. The oily metal emerging from the arms and legs, though? Not so much — Due to the way the machine parts are woven in among the muscle, this was both a finicky and exhausting part of the model to paint, and I was really glad once I was finished with it!

Even at this early point, I gave some extra attention to the creature’s mouth area, as that part would become really hard to reach with the ears and horns attached to the sides of the head. So I made sure now that the mouth cavity was suitably wet and glistening 😉

By far the trickiest question was to figure out what to do with the armour plates: The bronze trim was a no-brainer, but I didn’t want to go for predominantly black armour in order to avoid the Black Legion look. I also tried to paint them red (my old red recipe, even), but the result just lacked contrast when compared to the skin. And then I realised that all bronze armour plates might end up looking very Khornate: Now I have this image in the back of my head of the red parts of the armour turning into blood and running off during the Daemon Prince’s ascension, or boiling away as the daemonic brass underneath becomes visible. And in any case, since this guy was basically a just for fun project, I might as well try some new stuff, right? So with that decision out of the way, I was able to finish the model:

As you can see, I painted the patterns etched into the shoulder pads with Tamiya Clear Red — I didn’t want to risk a silly looking OSL effect here, and the blood seemed like a nice fit.

Speaking of the shoulder pads, one thing I want to point out is how I’ve included several visual elements that hint at the Daemon Prince’s Astartes roots, in spite of his animalistic look: The shoulder pads, the fused remains of the Astartes backpack on the shoulders and the sockets appearing on the Daemon Prince’s body where he used to be connected to his power armour all hint at the fact that this creature was once a proud Space Marine:

And what’s more, the chains emerging from the creature’s mane (actually the transformed Butcher’s Nails implants) and the jagged Triumph Rope scar crisscrossing its torso are both remnants of its previous life as a World Eater:

I think that all of these elements make for some rather neat visual storytelling, really. But even so, I do of course realise that the model is a bit of an acquired taste, as there is a misshapen, overmuscled look to the creature. Let me just clarify though that his was very much an intended effect: Like I said, the idea for this model was to show how a World Eater, at the height of his madness and bloodlust, maybe wouldn’t be transformed into a darkly angelic figure, but into a feral daemonic beast.

Here’s a closer look at the model’s face, an area I am especially happy with:

I actually really love the Manticore’s face, both for the amount of animalistic rage it exudes, but also because it’s such a dead ringer for the Behemoth, an iconic recurring enemy from the Final Fantasy series of video games 😉

So all that was left was a base for the beast, and I had already constructed a base that would make it look as though the Daemon Prince were barreling forward, almost on all fours, and/or reaching down to crush one of its pesky opponents with its massive paw. So here’s the finished model, base and all:

The Curse of Daemonhood

Not a single World Eater, no matter how deranged after millennia of warfare or driven to madness by the bite of the Butcher’s Nails, could ever forget the moment of Angron’s ascension. The image of the tortured Primarch transforming into a daemonic god beast amidst a howling vortex of balefire was permanently seared into the World Eaters’ collective memory at the climax of the Purge of Nuceria. For some, Angron’s transformation became an example to be followed during the millennia of the Long War, his new form the ultimate reward for a life of slaughter.

The members of the 4th assault company, however, regard Angron’s fate as something far different: They see no boon in the ascension to daemonhood, but rather feel a lingering fear at the possible changes wrought on a mind stripped of that last shred of humanity after a lifetime of rage and bloodlust: The muscles swollen with daemonic power and warped into something grotesque. The Butcher’s Nails transfigured by the powers of the warp into the shackles they always were in mortal life. The blood turned into hellfire, pumped through a monstrous body by the beating of an eternal daemon heart, forever bound in service to the Lord of War as a true Avatar of the Hunt.

No, Angron’s ascension has not been forgotten by the warriors of the 4th. It marks a pivotal moment in the legion’s fate. And to those willing to look, it serves as a grim reminder of a fate not far removed from the curse of spawndom.

I am actually really surprised at how much I actually enjoyed painting this big lump of plastic! And what’s more, I believe the colours and recipes used on the Daemon Prince and Skulltaker conversions will factor rather heavily into any additional daemons that may be in the cards for my army — for instance, after two successful test runs, you can expect the recipe for the skin to appear again on my Bloodthirster (*wink*wink*nudge*).After all, this recipe has really served me rather well so far, wouldn’t you agree?

For now, however, I am mostly happy about having finished an unexpected second ETL vow — and another long running project! Huzzah! 🙂

It goes without saying that I would love to heary any feedback you might have, so feel free to drop me a comment or two. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

ETL V: Ex-ter-min-ate!

Hey everyone, after last week’s rather unpleasant events, let us return to this blog’s main subject, as I show you the next finished model for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt.

Having spent most of last Thursday and Friday watching the news of Brexit hollow-eyed and with a constant sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I decided I might as well try to transform my sadness into something more productive and started working on my converted Kastelan:

Now this model was originally built shortly after the release of the Kastelan Robots, in an attempt to transform into one of them into a particularly Khornate battle engine — and I believe I have definitely succeeded in that regard. And after sitting on a shelf for quite some time, the model was now ready for some paint, in time for the ETL event over at The Bolter & Chainsword.

The model is basically as tall and wide as a Contemptor, as you can see in this picture:

So I included it in my ETL vow as a Counts-As-Contemptor — and indeed, that is also the role the model will likely be filling if it should ever see the tabletop.

But before that, I had to get the thing painted. I took off all of the chaotic armour plates for this, in order to give me access to the model’s body, and interestingly enough, this made the model look almost like a standard Kastelan for most of the painting process:

But fortunately, as the armour plates came back on one by one,…

…the model started looking increasingly chaotic again 😉

From a technical perspective, I decided to work over a coat of Leadbelcher spray paint, and as it turned out, not only did this make for a really good base for the red I added on later, but it also made sure that all the internal workings of the machine could simply be left metallic, which makes for a pretty convincing look. It would have been really difficult to get back into all those little nooks and crannies with a brush, so the silver undercoat turned out to be a very good call!

This strategy, combined with a motivation fueled by a particularly mixture of sadness and madness saw me complete the model in record time. Take a look at the finished Khornate Kastelan conversion:

Thanks to a bitz drop from fellow hobbyist Helega, I was able to add a cool wrist-mounted gun to the Kastelan’s right forearm, courtesy of one of Pertuarbo’s guns: I will admit that the thought of using it on the model felt frivolous for maybe half a minute, but it did solve two problems at once (adding some bulk to that hand and wrist and finding a way to feature an integrated weapon in spite of the hammer), so I decided to go for it.

As you can see, I also added some decals to the model, in order to underline its nature as a machine even more. In fact, I couldn’t help myself and had to add a really ancient decal from the early 90s’ plastic Khorne Berzerkers:

Let me tell you, that decal sheet still holds some of the best Khornate decal designs, even today!

And here’s a closeup of the model’s entirely humourless face:

All in all, I am really rather happy with the finished model. And not only does this mean one less unpainted model, but it also marks the completion of my first ETL vow:

Together with my Skulltaker conversion and Lord Dumah, the 4th assault company’s Apothecary, that’s a cool additional 500 points for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt!

But wait, there’s one last thing: I am still looking for a snappy name for this new combat automaton! And although I have already received quite a few cool suggestions on various forums, I would really love to hear your ideas as well!
I’ll be needing both the pattern designation for the machine as well as the name of this particular model, so I’d love to hear your suggestions! Please refrain from going Age of Sigmar levels of cheesy on me, though 😉

And of course it goes without saying that I would also love to hear any feedback you may have! As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

ETL V: The doctor is in…

With my first model for this year’s ETL successfully finished, I found myself quite motivated to continue! Next in line was a model that I had actually attempted to finish several times — enough times, to be honest, that I was almost prepared to consider the model itself jinxed 😉 The model in question is the converted Apothecary/Chaos Lord I built for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt almost two years ago:

It’s a fairly involved conversion, combining parts from no less than four models from the Dark Vengeance boxed set: The torso of a Ravenwing Biker sergeant and the legs of a CSM Chosen were spliced together to form the Apothecary’s body, with arms from a different Chosen and the censers from the backpack of the limited edition Interrogator Chaplain added for good measure. Anyway, all in all, I think it’s a pretty elegant conversion, if I do say so myself, and one that reads both as a World Eater and an Apothecary — plus it should really make for a rather convincing Counts As version of Fabius Bile as well 😉

In the interest of full disclosure, this isn’t even the first version of Apothecary Dumah I’ve built: He is one of my older characters, and a first model for Dumah was built all the way back in 2010/2011:

As you can see, the original version really played the whole Grim Reaper-angle to the hilt, but when the time came to paint the model, the whole concept just seemed a bit too on the nose for my taste, so I rather built a new version put more focus on a detached, slightly sinister feeling, instead of merely going for the Skeletor look 😉

Anyway, back to actually getting the new model painted: This was actually made quite a bit more complicated by the fact that I would also have to come up with a slightly tweaked recipe for the red parts of the armour: So far, my World Eaters colour scheme has always been heavily based on GW’s old Blood Red colour, but with this particular shade now OOP (and no direct replacement readily available), I would need to find a new approach to painting red. After messing around with some of the new red colours, I found a recipe that gave me a fairly convincing shade of red (albeit one that looked slightly different from the red on my older models). Take  a look:

Under the given circumstances, I am really rather happy with the result. The red still retains a certain vibrancy – in fact, it’s actually even brighter than the old version – while also seeming suitably gritty for a follower of Khorne. And I also made sure that the rest of the paintjob, particularly the bronze areas and detail work, matched the rest of my army to create a sense of visual coherency in spite of the slightly different red.

One “special effect” I really wanted to add to the model was to paint the various vials on his belt and inside the massive syringe adorning his Narthecium gauntlet as though there were liquid sloshing around inside of them — this has been a favourite effect of mine ever since JeffTibbetts’ included  a similar effect on his Imperial Knight’s chainsword arm.  Anyway, I was fortunate enough to come up with a fairly effective result, especially given the tiny size of those vials. Take a look:

Since I basically had to “reverse-engineer” Jeff’s original effect, I thought you might like to read a mini-tutorial for painting this kind of liquid-filled vials on your own models. So here goes:

 

Mini-tutorial: Painting glass vials containing liquids

Disclaimer: There’s probably a thousand ways to do this, and may approaches that are ultimately better than mine, but it’s a quick and simple recipe that has worked rather well for me so far. And like I said, thanks must go to JeffTibbetts, as it was only after seeing the aforementioned effect used on his “Queen Bee” that I began to wonder how to achieve something similar myself.

I’ll be using a turquoise colour scheme for this, both because it’s a recurring spot colour in my army and because it produces a result that resembles liquid-filled glass vials reasonably well. This should really work with any number of different colours, though. The three colours I use are Vallejo’s Halcon Millenario Turquoise, black and white (any brand will do for these last two, obviously). And now for the actual steps. I made a diagram for you:

Step 1: Mix your main colour (turquoise in this case) with a drop of black to take away some of the pop. Then paint the entire vial using this colour. Adding the black is optional, although in my case the stock turquoise was *very* bright and stunning, so I needed to take the edge off a bit 😉

Step 2: Add more black to the mix and paint the lower third or so of the vial in this darker colour. If you are doing this while the paint is still moist, you may even be able to pull off a bit of wet-blending here.

Step 3: Use your original main colour and paint the area immediately below the upper third of the vial with this. What you want here is a gradient moving from the original turquoise to the much darker mix at the bottom. Again, if you are fast enough, the efffect will look all the more convincing. But if the vial is very small,the effect will work even without any wet-blending involved, so feel free to take your time.

Step 4: Add a drop of white to the turquoise and paint a thin line at the top of the layer from step 4. This is our “waterline”, so to speak.

Step 5: Add even more white to the mix (until there’s only a hint of turquoise in there) and use it to paint thin vertical lines along the vial to suggest light reflecting off the glass. Don’t overdo it! One or two thin lines are enough. They also need to be really thin, lest they end up covering all the paintwork underneath.

That’s it — you can now add a generous layer of gloss varnish to make the vials look even more like glass.

One last piece of advice: The above recipe is intended for vials that are perfectly straight. If you know in advance that your vial will be held at an angle, make sure to align the waterline accordingly: Unless there’s a lot of speed (and/or centrifugal force) involved, the waterline should still be parallel to the ground, even when the vial itself is not! Like on these vials that appear on the arm of my Chaos Knight:

Anyway, adding smaller tweaks like this was really what helped me to transform this model into something special, although I am also reasonably happy with the tweaked red recipe I managed to come up with. So without further ado, here’s the finished Apothecary Dumah:

Unfortunately, the lighting in the pictures eats up quite a few of the subtler red higlights, making the armour look flatter than it actually is — you’ll just have to give me the benefit of the doubt here 😉 Beyond such small technical issues, however, I really think he’s quite the character! And finally finishing him after such a long time (and after several attempts, no less) does feel pretty good!

I’ve had the character in the back of my head for quite a while, so it shouldn’t really surprise you that I’ve also come up with some background to match the model — or rather, the model was actually conceived to match the background in this case:

Apothecary Dumah, Chooser of the Slain and Keeper of the Seed, Primus Medicae of the World Eaters’ 4th assault company

The presence of Lord Dumah could be one of the most important reasons for the ability of the 4th to still function as a fairly coherent fighting force, for it is due to his art that the company still has access to a way of replenishing its ranks instead of being left to slowly bleed out over the millennia: Apothecaries are a rare enough breed in the traitor legions, and especially so among the World Eaters, whose Apothecaries have succumbed to the bite of the nails for the most part, abandoning their former battlefield role in favour of bloodshed and insanity.

During the times of the Great Crusade, Dumah served directly under First Apothecary Fabrikus, and he was among those tasked with duplicating the archaic and little-understood neural implants Angron had been outfitted with on Nuceria. While working on the task of implanting an ever increasing part of the legion with those “Butcher’s Nails”, Dumah became aware of their debilitating nature and began in-depth research into the possibility of mitigating the negative effects of the implants.
Yet there was little tolerance for this kind of experimentation within the legion, as the Red Angel himself regarded any attempt at tampering with the function of the nails as a way of compromising their effectiveness and purity. So this line of research was quickly abandoned by all but a few Apothecaries, while the legion fell deeper and deeper into madness and bloodlust.

Ten millennia later, Dumah still serves as the 4th assault company’s Primus Medicae and has earned the epithet “Chooser of the Slain”, as his task is twofold: As a dark, Grim Reaper-like figure, he moves among the fallen and chooses which geneseed to harvest from fallen World Eaters and which to leave to rot, because it is too twisted and curdled by corruption to be safely used for implantation any longer. And he looks for those fallen enemies whose prowess in battle and martial honour have made them eligible for being inducted into the XII legion – either by being granted the kiss of the nails or, in very rare cases, a full conversion to an Astartes in the first place.

When off the battlefield, Dumah still continues his experiments with the aim of countering the nails’ degrading effects, and he feels that he is coming closer to a possible breakthrough with every generation of new implants and with every harvested progenoid. The only question is if there will still be enough of the company left to profit from his eventual success…

 

So here’s the comparison picture showing the different red recipes, like I promised:

The Terminator Lord in the middle uses my original recipe, based on the now OOP Blood Red. The Lheorvine Ukris conversion on the right uses a somewhat more experimental version of the recipe I used for the Apothecary: It’s slightly closer to the original colour than the red on Dumah, admittedly, but it’s slightly more messy and less elegant as well, so I think I may ultimately be sticking to the new recipe, after all.

Anyway, here’s the finished recipe, for all those of you who may be looking for a similar outcome:

• basecoat with Khorne Red
• wash with Army Painter Strong Tone
• add a layer of Mephiston Red
• add some highlights with a 50:50 mix of Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet
• glaze with Bloodletter
• selectively apply some Druchii Violet into the recesses
• add some final highlights with almost pure Evil Sunz Scarlet

As for the ETL, my first two models re now officially finished. Yay!

So that means two done, one to go, right? 😉

With another chief officer of the 4th assault company now finished, I also took some new photos of the various Huntmasters of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, and sharing these with you seems like a great way to wind up this post!

So, first up, a picture taken against a black background, including all the individual characters’ names:

And here’s another picture, taken against a brighter background, that arguably does a better job of capturing the colours as they look in real life:

In a way, these picture really serves as a short visual history of my last five years in the hobby, as the first of these guys must have been built shortly after I got back into the hobby in late 2010/early 2011, while the most recent one (Dumah) was finally finished just now. Anyway, I am still very happy with this collection of blood-crazed murderers, as you can probably imagine! 😉

It goes without saying that I would love to hear any feedback you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

EDIT: As Archangel very helpfully pointed out in the comments, the fact that the pictures were no longer expandable by click was a problem, especially for the group shots. So I’ve gone back through the post, and now clicking on each picture should take you to a full size version of that image again — I am not even sure why WordPress changed this in the first place…