How to paint Daemonettes (quickly & for beginners)

I'm continuing the "How to" series, showing off 2 squads of Daemonettes.

 

Introduction

In the spirit of the series, I'll keep the techniques simple and efficient, bringing the girls to a good standard in a short time, and keeping them looking as canonical as possible. I didn't need a trick to tell the squads apart when working on the Seekers. For the Daemonettes, the differing element will be the hair color.

Getting to it

 

Step 0. Extract your models from the sprues and glue them together. Not detailed here.

 

Step 1. Prime your models in white

I've used the same technique for skin color as on the Seekers, so the white primer is important.

This time however, I didn't have full control over priming. One of the squads was bought from eBay, and they were already primed in black.

Step 2. Purple wash

Copy-paste from the article concerning the Seekers:

I don't have a purple light enough to work as a skin color here. I didn't know about advanced techniques (such as layering) back when I painted these models; but even if I did, I was looking for a fairly quick way to do this. (And probably so are you, if you're reading this.)
So here goes: heavily water down Hormagaunt purple until it reaches a wash-like quality. Then apply generously to the model.
I don't have a picture of this, but take a look further down. You can see this color on every model, where skin is visible.

This obviously does not work on models primed in black. I did not want to strip the primer off, because it looked like a thin layer of good quality paint. So instead I painted over a layer of white (well, a couple of layers actually) and hoped for the best.

Step 3. Basecoat

The colors of Slaanesh are purple, pink and black, so I went with the theme.
Bright purple claws complement the toned-down, light purple of the skin. I've alternated between the two purples when painting instruments and banners.
I've painted the armor black on the leathery areas and silver on the metallic parts. I've also used silver for jewels, bracers and anklets.
I used grey for the claws on the feet, as well as some loincloths for diversity.
I painted some of these girls along with the Seekers. It was only natural to use the paint mix concocted for the Seekers' hair for the first squad. The second squad got fiery orange hair.

The squad prime in white.

 The squad primed in black.

As you can see, the black primer doesn't really show, as long as there's enough white to cover it up.

Step 4. Black wash

The trick here is not to bathe the models in black wash. Use an old detail brush for this process, and deliver the wash only where it's needed: claws, armor, hair, face, eventually other crevices on the body.

This pops out the details - eyes, mouth, ears, armor patterns, jewels etc, without darkening the overall skintone.

Step 5. Finish the basecoat

Just a quick sidestep here, to coat the bases in green.

Step 6. Drybrush the hair

Under a generous coat of black wash, the hair looks filthy and messy. A quick drybrush will give back its shine. I used blood red for the pinkish hair, so it got a bright red tone; I just used the original orange color for the other squad.

Step 7. Highlight the details

There are a couple of things to do here.

First, the black wash toned down the red eyes. Using my finest detail brush, I put a spot of paint in the center of each eye.

Edge highlight the claws on the legs.

Edge highlight the claws, instruments and banners using their respective colors (mostly purple). Don't overdo this; it's more like an overbrushing.

Highlight the metallic parts. As with the Pink Horrors, I used a detail brush to put spots of the original color (in this case, chainmail silver) in the center of each detail. This is unconventional (reverse edge highlighting?), but I think it looks good for metals.

Step 8. Drybrush the skin

I really did this just to even out the skintones over the two squads. They were primed using different paints (not just different colors), and it kind of shows through. Also, I were uneven with the black wash, and overly darkened the faces on some girls.

First, I mixed a very light purple (about evenly from Hormagaunt Purple and White):

Then, using an old detail brush, I applied a heavy drybrushing using this color on the all the areas where skin is showing.

It had the desired effect, darkening the skin where it was too white and brightening it up where I got too much black wash on.

Step 9. Basing

I have really stepped up my basing with these girls. I wanted to achieve a woodland terrain, with grass, earth and small bushes - a different approach to the sandy hills of the Pink Horrors.

First, I put on spots where the earth would be showing through. Use an old brush to apply patches of PVA glue, then sprinkle on the flocking.

Once I did this with all 20 of the models, the first ones were already drying. Shake them well to get the excess flocking off.

Then comes the grass. I don't really like this shiny grass that I've got, as it has an artificial look. However, since Slaaneshi Daemons are supposed to exude an aura of pleasant hallucinations, I think it makes sense that their immediate environment is bright and clean. I applied PVA glue to the rest of the base (even to the center of larger patches of earthy terrain), then doused the models in flocking.

Finally, the bushes and undergrowth. I have this flocking which I wanted to create trees with:

It was perfect for the job. The plastic bag actually contains small pieces of flocking. I applied thick patches of PVA glue on the bases, then stuck a piece of terrain on each patch of glue.

Step 10. Sealant

I applied matte varnish on the models, and PVA glue as sealant for the bases. Again, this looks fishy when applying it:

But it dries to a transparent coat and looks fine. It also had the added benefit of soaking through the bushes and drying to a hard finish.

Step 11. Take pictures of the finished squads

Red squad:

Orange squad:

And the whole troupe: