Painting a Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne

Introduction

I was undecided whether I want to paint more Bloodletters at this point, but then came along my first remote, online painting competition. Now with all the COVID lockdown type stuff happening, time was running short, and I decided against both a more complex miniature and too much experimentation going on. Enter this old Finecast Herald of Khorne, now called a Bloodmaster.

Preparation

This model is from my old eBay days. It has seen a few battle reports before being retired to my pile of shame. I had originally primed it with the intent of painting it, I just never got around. Now as I inspected it, I noticed very heavy flash all over. I cut it all off with my hobby knife. The horns have gotten slimmer and more angular, but it's not otherwise overly visible. Except the right hand, but there was nothing I could do about that.

Base

I triple checked the official Age of Sigmar base size list document to confirm its 32mm base. I glued the model on a small base to give it height, and glued that using plastic glue to a 32mm.

Of course I forgot about the FAQ. It's actually on a 40mm base. I chopped up the 32mm base and plastic glued the remnants (see the thin layer above the new base) to an old 40mm base.

Now to exploit that height! I created a small elevation using home-made putty, then filled it up using skulls. Lots and lots of skulls. There are few resin ones, but mostly they are from the GW skulls set. A veritable treasure trove! I made sure to include all types of mortal skulls, including beastman, ork, kroot, genestealer, and t'au. For variety, of course.

I then applied superglue all over the rim of the base, as well as around the skulls, to make sure everything sticks. 

Prime white and get to painting.

Painting

The first few stages were easy. Skin and dark earth.

Tongue and eyes (with a helping of Cassandora Yellow).

And the purple lightning sword. Which looks funny with the Khorne symbol beneath, but I rolled with it.

But then I got to the skulls. The one thing (well, one of two) I don't like about my Skulltaker (spoiler alert, not yet published) was how the claws, horns and skulls are all the same color. I decided on some experimenting.

First, take the skulls painting tip, and apply it diversely.

• Heavy Brown, washes, highlight Heavy Brown and Khaki
• Khaki, washes, highlight Khaki and Bonewhite
• Bonewhite, washes, highlight Bonewhite and Off White
• Off White, washes, highlight Off White

I did some superhighlights as well where needed, e.g. Bonewhite after Khaki, or Off White after Bonewhite.

But there were a lot of skulls, and I wanted even more variety. So I appealed to my growing collection of Citadel Contrast paints. 

I followed the painting tip again, but changed up the colors: Wraithbone, overall Skeleton Horde, 2 successive layers of Snakebite Leather, then another overall with thinned down Snakebite Leather on some to ease the transition, then finish off with Nuln Oil. Finally, highlight using Bonewhite. (I tried Wraithbone, but it's too pale.)

I applied this to the ork skull's fangs, the bird skull, the goat skull, as well as a few human skulls, the claws and teeth.

I then got inspired by the thinned down Snakebite Leather I had, which I used to basecoat some more human skulls, then carried on with thinned down Cygor Brown, then Nuln Oil and Bonewhite highlight.

I achieved the last bit of variety using Nazdreg Yellow on some parts. This includes the goat horns, the claws on the feet, the fangs in the ork skull.

Finally came the metallics: brass and silver. 

Light leather straps.

Medium leather grip.

Paint the rim black (which I already did, but it rubbed off at the bottom) and spray lightly with Munitorum Varnish.

On a friend's suggestion, I did a very light drybrush of Heavy Violet across the skulls and the leg, where the sword's light would shine. 

Finished!