Bloodcrushers of Khorne

[Will Vale]

Hi folks,

 

My lovely wife brought me back some Games Workshop Khorne figures from Europe when she was on a conference trip a couple of years ago. Nothing says "I love you and thanks for looking after our child for a month" like an offering of skulls to the brass throne of the Blood God.

 

They've been languishing for a while and given that I've had a run of assembling miniatures lately I put these on the pile to build. The Bloodcrushers are heavy-metal-and-magic cavalry mounts ridden by demons that have a hint of Giger about them, and there are three in the box. I've built them as the command variants, so I have a champion, standard bearer and musician. Like most recent GW plastic kits they fit really well.

 

 

I haven't changed any of the poses, but I have drilled and pinned the rear hooves so I could position them a bit more dynamically. I was slightly distressed when the CA I used to fit the paperclip on the champion's steed (rearing up) found a crack in the plastic and split the hoof in two, but I cleaned it off and re-made it with Tamiya solvent so it's good as new. I then re-fixed the wire with 5 minute epoxy which should give a less fragile bond in any case.

 

I've started painting with some Alclad layers on the underbelly mechanics - I worked up from copper to pale gold, and added some hotmetal red to reinforce the copper and glancing pale burnt metal highlights.

 

 

The overspray will get blacked out, I'm probably going to do the armour plates in a dark blotchy gloss red to match the Bloodreavers I painted a couple of years ago:

 

 

and the demons will probably be in a purple-orange like this Flesh Hound:

 

 

At the moment they're all in primer though, as is the chap on the left who is an Exalted Deathbringer. 

 

 

More progress as and when!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[Procopius]

48 minutes ago, Will Vale said:

 

 

 

 

 

Please tell me that's not the extent of their heads. 

[Will Vale]

Ah the heads, I have inexplicably failed to photograph them but they do exist!

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Made a bit more progress on the headless horsemen - I washed all the metals with GW Seraphim Sepia and then cleaned up the overspray with a couple of coats of thin black paint. I also had to paint in a few bearings which the airbrush didn't find. I also picked out the raised Khorne icons, which are a bit too gold and not brassy enough at the moment.

 

 

I went a bit further with one model to see just how crappily I could underpaint the armour and get away with it. I used a hog bristle brush to messily stipple Codex Grey on the edges of the plates and raised areas, and then repeated a smaller stipple of Dorn Yellow and a drybrush of the same. At which point it looked horrific. 

 

This was followed with (I think) five glazes of Bloodletter, using a hairdryer to speed things up. That gave a reasonable depth of colour but caused a couple of problems - it's deposited some little lumps of what might be badly ground or out-of-suspension pigment, and it tends to make the recesses redder. I've knocked off some of the lumps with a cocktail stick and painted over others, but they're not all gone yet. The second problem was easier to deal with - I brushed thinned black paint into the crevices and blended it back out with a wet brush.

 

The edges of the plates then had a highlight of Blood Red -> Wildrider Red -> Fire Dragon Bright and I blocked in the trim again with black. Last of all, I applied Badab Black wash up to the trim and blended it out to give a gradient to the edges of the plates.

 

 

It's not perfect but it was really fast to do so I'm happy. I'm also going to give it a glossier finish which will make the blacks richer, and some bright highlights and hide a lot of the issues for me.

Really need to get those heads in progress since they'll be having a similar finish.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

 

[Andy Moore]

Love what you've done with the armour Will. Do you think those engraved sigils could do with some fine edge highlighting to make them pop a bit?

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

Ha, you're the second person to suggest that. I'm intending to make the recessed runes glow in a fiery way so I'll deal with the edges when I find out if that works or not

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I had a bit of time last night so I painted the smaller runes to see how they looked. These are two coats of thin white paint in the recesses, some tidying up with black on the edges, and then Lamenter Yellow and Bloodletter to create the fiery colours.

 

 

I didn't want to paint a cheesy glow around them as they can't really illuminate the surface they're on from underneath it, but I did add a bit to the mottle around them in the end as though it might be glowing through the armour.

 

I'm not totally convinced at the moment, I think I'll try adding some darker reds into the cooler areas of the runes, and maybe bringing the glow out onto the surface more as though there's energy getting out. Hopefully that will let them make more sense?

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Spent another hour or so refining the runes and adding some magical "arcing" around and between them, which I think works better? Still a bit odd but probably good enough to carry on and do the front ones in the same way?

 

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Crayons]

Looking really good Will. I especially like the paint effect on the armour. For me, the arcing on the runes kind of distorts them, neat effect, but it makes it hard to figure out what it is exactly.

[Will Vale]

I agree with you, but I think it looks like they belong a bit more than in the previous pics? It's easier to make out in person as the relief is deep and that makes the shape easier to read.

 

I wonder if they need a brighter highlight around the edge? I've painted them with hotspots and cool areas, but if they were generally hotter then the edges could be brighter? I guess I'll see when I've done the front ones.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Will

[Will Vale]

OK, so I did the front icons and the hooves, added some more edge highlights and a thin layer matt varnish to the armour and fire to bring it together.

 

 

I tried to keep the fire a bit smaller so as not to distort the shape of the front icons, hope it worked?

 

Now I have to decide whether to keep it matt or add back some gloss varnish for the not-on-fire bits of the armour - I liked how that looked on other Khorne models so will probably go ahead and do it.

 

Also need to find and paint the head

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Long painting session this afternoon with my daughter at the end of the Easter holidays. She's almost finished a Tau pathfinder and I've done the head for the current Juggernaught:

 

 

Same technique as the other areas, but neater as it's more important.

 

I like it a lot save two things - the molten nostrils don't quite work yet, and the silver shins probably need to be re-done in the red as the lightness hides the flow of the legs IMO. Oh yes, and the metals are just base-coated so a lot to do there.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Andy Moore]

He's looking excellent Will. I agree about the shin armour - would look better in red. Are you still going to gloss the armour? I think it would make the armour look richer, and maybe give the runes more definition.

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

Thanks Andy, will repaint the shins tonight. I am going to gloss the armour but I needed to flat it first for the runes. You're right that it'll be richer and should light more interestingly too.

 

Just need to be careful to blend it around the runes so I don't get any nasty edges.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I repainted the shins, finished up various things and gave the base a basic (ha!) paint job so I could take this along to our local GW's painting competition. Unfortunately it didn't count for any of the categories, but my daughter won a prize for her Pathfinder so we didn't go away empty-handed

 

 

The armour now has a couple of layers of Klear brushed on avoiding the recesses and the flaming icons, which I think gives quite a good effect. It's not super-obvious in the light box but looks nice in person.

 

 

I've done some more work on the metals (especially the face blade thing) but there's more required there - I'll get the Vallejo Liquid Metal out and add some really bright highlights in due course. Plus a bit of blood on the face is de rigeur for the forces of Khorne!

 

Probably time to paint the rider now, or bring the other Juggernauts up to this stage.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

[LotusArenco]

SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

 

Proppa job mate.

Your paint jobs on this (and the Ork) have made me want to rekindle my love/hate relationship with GW. (I’m one of those old farts who can remember when 40K first came out)

The GW plastics seem to have gotten a bit better these days, but I do wish they would stop mucking around with their paint names. I’m reading through what paints you’ve used and can’t make head nor tail of them.

 

Mart

 

Oh, and whenever someone accidently cuts themselves at work, I still cry out ‘Blood for the Blood God’

[Will Vale]

I've still got my Rogue Trader paperback so I can also claim some level of old fart status I think

 

The new plastic kits are amazing although I would worry about playing games with some of the spindlier models! I haven't had any breakages transporting stuff though so maybe it's OK with care?

 

The paints all got renamed a few years ago, and they changed everything about them at the same time. I think the new line is fine and I mix and match with my older paints without issue, but some people hate the new stuff. They haven't changed anything since then at least! The GW shops should have a conversion chart from the older names, but nothing is 100% identical so it's easier just to pick colours by eye.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[LotusArenco]

12 hours ago, Will Vale said:

I can also claim some level of old fart status I think

Apologies for a minor threadjack…..

 

A blast from the past for some of you old gits more mature ‘Greybeards’.

Circa 1988.

And still useable!

 

Mart

[Will Vale]

Nice, you could probably make a mint on eBay

 

I gave away my old paints when we emigrated but I've still got some period minis lying around. I took new photographs of most of the painted ones a year or so back:

 

 

There are more in the album if you click through

 

I really ought to paint some of the metal Orks, there were some amazing models in that range. I also ought to redo the pics now that I have a slightly better set-up.

 

Cheers,

 

Will