Painted Chaos Lord

He's done! My Black Legion Chaos Lord will destroy you all! ... at least he sure looks like he will. He's easily one of my more menacing looking models, and the paint-job didn't diminish that any. Please note that the SM helmet and Tyranid skull have been painted to match my other armies. That's right - things are getting personal.





Painting
I've seen a lot of tutorials on how to paint black armor. Most of them involve simply highlighting the edges with shades of grey. For my Chaos Marines, that looks far too clean. While that is a direction I would go for Black Templars or DA Ravenwing, for my Black Legion we need a less pristine look. The black armor areas were basecoated in Charadon Granite. It's a very deep brownish Gray. It won't look right at first, you just gotta believe. Follow it up with a healthy dose of Badab Black wash. This will make it almost black, yet still allow you some depth that you wouldn't get by just highlighting edges off of a black basecoat. Now, when the wash is dry, highlight the edges with Codex Grey.

All gold details were extremely simple. It was just Shining Gold followed by a very heavy Devlan Mud wash. That's it. My metals and Reds were also followed by a Devlan Mud wash. It has ended up muting his entire color scheme, which is awesome for him. I wanted him to look ancient and antique, and this is what it has done.

His cape was Mechrite Red. I painted the border trim and the central design in Dheneb Stone. Eye pupil was black. After I painted these things, I first washed it all in Devlan Mud. Following that, I gave it a few thin layers of a very watered down Codex Grey. I wanted this to look like an old, faded and tattered tapestry. After the color was muted sufficiently, I gave a little more watered down grey along the edges and bottom to really bring that faded and tattered image out.

Oh yeah, and did I mention he's magnetized?











I also magnetized the shoulder-pads separate from the arms. Why? So I can replace his normal shoulder-pads with ones bearing a specific god's mark:

I currently only have one for Khorne. I need to order some more blank pads. Also, I'm debating swapping this one out for one of the Khorne-specific termainator pads offered by Forgeworld. I'll let you all know if I do go that direction.

Daemon Weapons

Oh, you didn't think I'd make a Chaos Lord and not do daemon weapons, right?
I have plans for making 5 total. One for each god, then one Undivided. Below are the three I have currently done: (Undivided, Nurgle, and Khorne. In that order)

The above weapon is Abaddon's sword Drachnyen. Shame on you if you didn't recognize. ;P
The blade was based in Iyanden Darksun, then washed with Leviathan Purple (weird, I know). I highlighted with 1:1 Iyanden Darksun:Bleached Bone, then with 1:2 ID:BB, then finally a very light highlight of Skull White. I wanted this weapon to look suitably daemonic, yet not use colors typically aligned with the other gods. This left out pink, purple, red, brass, blue, green, brown. Since the undivided icon is usually a yellow circle with 8 arrows, I decided to go yellow.

For Nurgle, I wanted a cool and interesting looking blade. I didn't want to go scythe because GW doesn't make good looking scythes and that's what everyone else does anyways. This sword was taken from the cold dead fingers of a pewter Tomb King with Sword and Shield. It was based in Tin Bitz, drybrushed with Boltgun Metal, then washed in Thraka Green and Devlan Mud. I mixed together some Blazing Orange with Bestial Brown, sprinkled in some baking soda and applied that to flat areas as rust. It's a trick I picked up from Santa Cruz Warhammer.


It's not Khorne unless it's an axe. This bad-boy comes from the Chaos Space Marine Khorne Lord. It was based in Brazen Brass, then washed in Baal Red. Then I drybrushed it heavily with a 2:1 mix of Bleached Bone:Mechrite Red and washed it again.

At a later time, I made this Tzeentchian daemon weapon. Check here to see how it was converted.