Painting Haarken Worldclaimer

I purchased this model more as a collectible when visiting my so far first and only official GW shop. I wanted to try out a fancier looking black armor for some time now - and it's looking pretty good. I'll never start a Black Legion army, though.

Painting the armor (phase 1)

Prime Retributor Armor, then paint gold but apply all highlights by drybrushing.

I then blocked in all the armor panels, with regular Black because I thought that would cover better than Black Templar. Well, it did not cover well.

About 2.5 layers of Black and another of Black Templar later, the panels are black. I needed a break.

Spear blade (and claws)

Experiment with a colored metallic as well as Army Painter paints by basecoating with a mix of Plate Mail and Pure Red.

Coat Carroburg Crimson.

Then re-apply the basecoat as a thick edge highlight around the blade edge.

Mix in Plate Mail twice for successive highlights. Still not shiny enough, so I diluted Plate Mail with Lahmian Medium and applied as a glaze.

Too shiny! Pull it back into the red spectrum with a coat of Bloodletter.

More details

Paint silver elements and skulls. Paint the dead marine as an Imperial Fist. Paint the wasteland around on the base, slop over with the drybrush a bit over the dead marine.

Paint the spear handle as leather. Paint the armor joints and the Imperial Fist shoulder pad trim as black.

Jump on more silver details such as the chain holding the string of skulls and the service studs in the skulls. Also do the aquila on the dead marine as blue/green silver. Even more resemblance to Zsombicus! Finally, the eyelenses are a dot of silver with a coat of Blood Angels Red for Haarken and Flesh Tearers Red for the dead marine.

Follow up with a red loincloth and some heat coming from the demonic mouths and grills inspired by this fiery dress.

Finish off the grills with Silver overbrushing  to color the blades.

Black armor (phase 2)

Disclaimer: I'll never do this again, even though it looks pretty good.

I traced the outlines of all the panels with successively less and lighter blues. Start with Night Blue.

The gradient is Night Blue 1:1 Heavy Blue, Heavy Blue, Heavy Blue 1:1 Wolf Grey, Wolf Grey.

The first layer goes all the way around, then less and less, leaving the low points highlighted. The final color is applied only by dotting at the peaks with a 00 brush.

Finishing off the dead marine

Do the freehanded Fist icon - look at Zsombicus.

I like the laurel wreath a lot better than the winged skull, so steal that from Danicus.

Now mess everything up by sponging in Charred Brown.

Highlight the tears using Chainmail Silver.

Finished!