Converting and painting Word Bearers Chosen

I bought the Chaos half of Dark Vengeance some time ago - only the Chosen are left to do something with. I updated their gear for 10th edition, then painted them as Word Bearers.

Conversions

Need to bring them up to date with the usual setup: plasma pistol + power fist, plasma pistol + pair of accursed weapons, 2x combi weapon + accursed weapon, bolter + accursed weapon, chaos icon.

Chop off the bolt pistol, glue on a plasma pistol.

Combi-weapon: shave off the top of the bolter, glue on a plasma bit.

I thought the rest were fine...

But I remembered to put a plasma pistol on this guy. I shaved off the exterior of the thigh.

Also shave off that side of a grav pistol (shhh! don't tell anybody) and glue on.

I took the opportunity to glue on basing bits.

I decided against mounting a flag pol on any of those fancy backpacks. So instead, I took this plastic rod I had and glued on a random chaos icon. I'll pin it to a base.

Painting

First, apply the basing material and go through the messy drybrushing steps.

Then, Speed painted Word Bearers armor. 

After, the miniatures seem very complicated and hard to paint; so I started with whatever details were clear:

• Painting the chapter icon of the Serrated Sun
• medium skintone including one preserved head and several demon faces. I also painted all the tentacles, but used Carroburg Crimson instead of Reikland Fleshshade
• Green plasma coils also power weapon power cells
• improvised some brown tones for the leather details, similar to Medium leather but based on what browns I had on my wet palette

At this point I just couldn't postpone painting the cloth. I usually do white but I wanted something different "just because", so I experimented with blues. Basecoat Heavy Blue (for covering power); Grey Seer trim.

Coat Coelia Greenshade.

Highlight Hoeth Blue/Ghost Grey. I'm not sold here, perhaps a different basecoat would work better.

This is the weirdest axe I've ever painted. I first blended the red into the metal, but then decided on a fleshtoned demon face. Carroburg Crimson on the flesh and metal. Highlight Silver.

With the cloth done, surprising little remained.

• Painting eyes
• Bone lots and lots of little horns, teeth etc all around

Coat the weapon grips Sigvald Burgundy; highlight Breast Cancer Pink.

With the huge eye in his forehead, and very small actual eyes, I decided on dropping Aethermatic Blue into them.

With most of the demon faces already painted flesh tones, I just had this Plaguebearer remaining. I started Heavy Green for covering power, then highlight Dead Flesh. The transition was too stark, and Athonian Camoshade still wasn't enough help. Creed Camo worked better. I blended it out into the red armor. Blood Angels Red eyes, Volupus Pink/Breast Cancer Pink tongue.

Basing

Paint the marble pieces of statues. Finish off the cobblestone colored base with the final drybrush.

Finished!