Painting the Skull Altar

Introduction

I don't know if I'll ever actually get to play my Blades of Khorne, but hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

Edit: I actually did make it to a couple of games since I initially wrote that, and the phrase holds true.

Spray painting

Prime black, then spray Retributor Armor. I think I oversprayed, as the texture is rough and grainy on the model. Oh well.

Paint the gold

A sort of speed painting, inspired by this. Shade all the gold parts with Reikland Fleshshade Gloss.

Drybrush Polished Gold. I tried with Glorious Gold first, but the result was invisible. Polished Gold is more yellow-y, and it shows. Maybe not on camera, but it is quite visible to the eye.

Lighter drybrush Silver.

Metallic red

I initially wanted to basecoat the red areas with Chainmail Silver, but for the sake of speed, decided against it. Also this might be a test for something in the future.

So this is the gold area, pre-shaded by accident when I washed the trim.

First I tried Flesh Tearers Red, which gave good results on silver. However, I wasn't happy with this result. The red dried matte, with specs of gold in its fabric. I tried a second coat in the middle of larger areas to hide this. This only made it darker, matter, and resulted in weird shadows. I did the two large side structures with this, for completeness' sake.

Blood Angels Red, on the other hand, looks fantastic.

Other details

Traditional silver on the spikes, fins, chains and small Khorne symbols hanging around.

As befitting an altar of Khorne, it has scratches all around. I am unsure how the upper parts got scratched... perhaps a Bloodthirster wrestling match? Anyway, I picked them out with Silver.

I then painted Agrax Earthshade into all the scratches - be it on gold or red.

Lots of skulls and a leather strap, then clean up the gold using Glorious Gold. 

Weathering

I tried to keep this to a minimum. I painted Nihilakh Oxide around the rivets that would be exposed to the rain, some cracks on the upper structure, as well as on the demon faces all around. I painted Gore Grunta Fur into the chains, around the base of the exposed spikes and around some cracks in the silver where rust would gather and flow downwards.

Finishing

Spray Munitorum Varnish at this point - keep it light, so as not to dull the metallic shine.

Finally, apply Blood for the Blood God! here and there.

Finished!