Burnt-out Horror

An experiment with a little bit of a different painting technique produced this burnt-out looking horror of Tzeentch.

Aims & Model.

The aim of the model was to produce something that wasn't a standard pink or blue horror of Tzeentch and could potentially be used as a Herald of Tzeentch, or a horror in a troops squad with the bolt of Tzeentch power.

The concept is simple: I want a horror that looks burnt. There can be multiple narrative justifications for this. Perhaps a spell has backfired in its face on the whim of Tzeentch? Perhaps it is made out of flame? Perhaps it materialized from the Warp and fashioned itself out of combustible materials?

Painting.

This model represents one of those times where I think it is very important to use a white undercoat. Usually when painting miniatures and canvas, we want to work from darker colours up to lighter colours. This is one of those instances where the inverse is true. (I'd also advocate using a white undercoat where the desire is to bring out strong & bright colours).

To get that burnt look, I stated with a layer of white. I tried to get the white in to all of the recessed areas. In the final model, they are going to be the "hottest" areas that the eye can pick out. Then, I layered progressively darker colours on top of this, taking care to paint less and less in the the recesses and less surface area with every layer out. The colours were approximately ordered yellow, orange, red then black with some intermediate blending.

The final pure black layer was drybrushed on to the surface. These are the "coldest" parts of the horror.

For some reason (blue colours being thermodynamically hotter than white), I decided that the mouth & tongue should be shades of blue. That done, the only remaining details were to dot the eyeballs and make certain the claws were black.

Evaluation.

Positives: A good idea and a neat experiment. This horror certainly stands out from the pink and blue crowd.
Negatives: This model didn't go well! To explain, I'm unhappy with several aspects of the painting execution: (1) the amount of white showing through on the front of the miniature; (2) the blue mouth; (3) the blue tongue. However, all of these facets are correctable with a little bit of additional work. And of course the model needs to be appropriately based yet.