Painting the daemonhost Cherubael

Introduction

The "yin" to Eisenhorn's "yang", his best asset and corruptor, the most tragic plot twist ever... I give you Cherubael! There were less experiments done on this model compared to Eisenhorn, but it was still a long journey (at times, it felt like a slog) to paint this guy. 

Painting

Prime in Wraithbone.

Flesh & skin

Start by blocking in some areas with the base paints. Then paint the largest area that is kind of underneath the rest: the flesh. Look to these plaguebearers, but do fine glazing highlights thanks to the wet palette and no Athonian Camoshade finishing. He's just a corpse, not a plague demon.

A book bound in human skin.

The other is mostly metal bound, so I painted the areas underneath with Gryph Hound Orange, then highlighted Heavy Skintone and Elf Skintone.

Sackcloth

Basecoat the sackcloth hood and pants Beasty Brown. Then paint about the top 80% Deathclaw Brown. 

I tried the next step with pure Elf Skintone, but it was way too light and bright; so I instead mixed it into the previous mixture. This is an edge highlight on any sharp edges, small fray marks on the same edges, and also this crosshatching pattern on any larger, top-facing areas.

Highlight the patterns Pale Flesh.

Mix Flayed One Flesh and dot the middle of the intersections.

Dilute Athonian Camoshade with a bit of water and tint the shadows. This makes it look dirtier, but also brings the tone in sync with the flesh.

Smaller details

I started off the pustule as for the Plaguebearers. Basecoat Heavy Goldbrown, wash Carroburg Crimson, re-establish the base tone. But the red wash was lost due to the surrounding skintone, so I went round with Blood Angels Red. It is also quite big, so I settled on a gem effect, using Sun Yellow, Fluo Yellow, then Fluo Yellow mixed with Dead White, and finally white spot highlights.

For the purity seal wax, basecoat Volupus Pink, then Basilicanum Grey. Highlight Warlord Pink, mix with Squid Pink, then final highlights and script pure Squid Pink.

Paint the black leather (shoes, bracers, belts) with 2 in-between mixes instead of 1, and make the final Cold Grey highlight cross-wise, for that extra frayed look.

Basecoat the eyes Dead White, then paint Aethermatic Blue. Then another layer of Blue on the cheeks and sides for some sweet OSL. Then paint the center of the eyes white.

Scrolls

Paint the scrolls by wet blending Bonewhite and Heavy Brown. Then edge highlight Bonewhite, and glaze on the highlighted areas (shine a lamp on the mini from above to see where).

Same procedure on the open book.

On the closed book, just wash Agrax Earthshade, then another layer just around the edges, then edge highlight Bonewhite.

Freehanding

Break out the Black Templar and Blood Angels Red - time to go freehanding!

I learned a lot from this and applied it all. Large gothic letters and smaller script, well defined Inquisition symbols... 

... chaotic symbols in the book - this is the Malus Codicium, after all...

... and written out, the name Godwyn.

I managed to sneak in those gothic letters even in these hard-to-reach areas, behind the chains.

Advice/things learnt:

• put the Contrast paints on the palette, makes the flow easier to control. Water can be added for  additional thinning;
• rotate the miniature at will, as long as you keep the script lines roughly horizontal;
• try to paint your design on practice areas, first;
• two colors are much better than one.

NMM gold 

See Eisenhorn. 

NMM silver

Also see Eisenhorn. This was tedious to do on the chain, highlighting each link in two places; but it was still not too bad.

Finishing

Add Blood for the Blood God! where nails had been driven into the flesh. I purposely put this on before the varnish, so that it would dull it down a bit.

Base

Inquisition base, with NMM gold as above.

Finished!