Painting Skulltaker

Introduction

My entry for a painting competition: Skulltaker!

Yes, I know that he has a new model. I still think this is great. The looks, not the material. 

Painting

Prime white. Pin to cork, as I wanted to do the base separately, and get to all the inside surfaces with my brush.

I did the basecoats first, to delimit the main areas: Heavy Red skin, Tinny Tin armor and sigils, Black coat and blade.

Spray Varnish

The pinning is not perfect, the model keeps spinning around and I have to stabilize it using my fingers. This resulted in the basecoat coming off at the corners... A rather heavy spray of Munitorum Varnish fixed that.

Matte details (more or less)

I worked on the skin and face first. I did regular eyes, then by a stroke of genius I glazed them Lamenters Yellow. Beady, predatory eyes.

Horns and skulls came next (including the cape, see below).

I also did the bronze metallics, by adding small highlights of Brassy Brass, then Polished Gold.

Medium leather straps (barely visible, holding the legplates) and sword grip.

Chaos blade.

Simple green progression on the tongue: Sick Green, Biel-Tan Green, Scorpion Green.

Freehand skulls on the cloak: paint them using Heavy Charcoal, then highlight Cold Grey.

Paint in eye and nose slits using Black.

Unfortunately, some came out derpy.

I set out to clean them up by chipping the outsides with Black.

I tried to bring them all to the same approximate size.

Silver metallics: there are pins holding his cloak of skulls together, which I painted in Gunmetal, highlighted Chainmail Silver, then washed Nuln Oil Gloss.

Spray varnish

At this point, do a light spray of Munitorum Varnish to protect the paintjob. Don't go overboard, to keep some shine in the metallics. The bronze is fine without much shine, and the silver is somewhat preserved by the gloss vash.

Glossy details (more or less)

For the left hand, a friend gave the idea to have the fire ignite out of blood. Kind of like the Age of Sigmar prayer Blood Boil. So I covered the hand, fingers, skull and spine with Blood for the Blood God!, with a bit of overbrush on the bracelet.

I did very small spot highlights on the bronze and the silver using Silver.

I wanted bright yellow fire, so I started with Fluorescent Yellow, leaving some Dead White showing at the base.

I did the highlight initially with a mix of Fluo Yellow and Filthy Brown, but I disliked the pale orange result.

So I went back to my original recipe with washes: Lamenter's Yellow to fix the paleness, then Fuegan Orange and Bloodletter on the tips.

I did small Orange Fire highlights on  some flames. The idea being that fire is hotter on the inside, and I did not want washes to flow into the recesses.

Yellow saliva

The first time I try Tamiya Clear Yellow mixed with UHU!

Always use a disposable container.

Never use a brush! And let is settle for a bit, otherwise it flows instead of stringifying.

Unfortunately, the end result was not exactly what I expected. The glue needs two points between which to stretch. Otherwise it shrinks back into the small blob visible under the tongue.

Basing

Same corpse bits as for the Bloodthirster. 

Create a mound of home made putty, slot the miniature in (pre-drill a hole in the base), then liberally sprinkle body parts in front of the model.

Dark earth, medium skin, eyes, blond hair (as requested by a friend, to remind him of Ultramarines).

Paint the exposed bone and innards with Pale Flesh, wash Carroburg Crimson.

Blood for the Blood God! Also literally.

UHU glue and Tamiya Clear Red for some stringy gore effect.

Mount on the base using superglue and we're done.

Finished!