Below are three shots of one of a set of Tzeentch Horrors that are being painted up for use in a fully Chaos Daemons army that has been at the back of my mind for some time.
Aims & Model.
The aim here was to create a "traditional" looking horror in keeping with paint schemes illustrated in the old Lost and the Damned Realms of Chaos source book. Whilst the sculpt is very different from the early Tzeentchian horrors, the miniature nonetheless lends itself well to this idea given the appearance of the inner horror emerging from inside the mouth of the outer horror. My first instinct was the one that I went with here -- the inner horror was to be blue, with the outer horror pink.
Painting.
The miniature was painted in two stages, notwithstanding the black undercoat / primer. In the first stage, the blue, inner horror was completed. This was achieved using a mid-blue coat, followed by deep blue inking and dry-brushing in a noticeably lighter tone of the blue coat. The black undercoat is very forgiving here as some recessed areas were not hit evenly with the blue coat. For the outer, pink horror, a base coat of pink was applied followed by an equal parts mix of orange & chestnut ink. At this point, the stretching of the outer skin due to the inner blue horror appeared more obvious, so I decided a multi-stage approach to highlighting was required to accentuate this feature. Firstly, highlighting in pink (the same pink as the original coat) was made, taking care not to cover the recessed areas. This pink was lightened in tone by mixing with white and another layer of highlights applied. The final highlighting layer was made in nearly pure white, picking out only the parts of the outer horror's skin that appeared to be especially stretched (e.g. around the mouth and where the shoulder & elbow of the inner blue horror appear to be pushing against the outer horror -- see the lower photo).
With that done, the final highlights were painted on. This included the tongues (painted white and then a layer of bright red applied), teeth & claws (pure white) and eyes (white dot on a black background -- a very steady hand needed here, if you're short-sighted like me, then take your glasses off / remove contact lenses for a natural zoom!).
Basing is on the usual W40k base supplied with the miniature, covered in two shades of green sawdust with small grey rock bits added. Nothing too clever here.
Evaluation.
Positives: I really like the blue-in-pink concept of this miniature that agrees very well with the traditional fluff surrounding the horrors. I am also pleased with the chestnut + orange ink on the outer pink horror's skin which I wasn't too certain about when I applied it. Pink isn't the easiest colour to work with, but it turned out very well. Painting the inner blue horror first allowed any overspill mistakes to easily be corrected when painting the pink (second) stage. I was also thrilled by the reaction of my sister-in-law (an excellent painter herself; oil-on-canvas that is) who described this as "completely mingin'".
Negatives: Looking at the miniature again, the support strut for the front leg probably should have been removed, but it was left in place to give additional support during gaming & transport and simply painted black. I was bothered by this at first, but have grown to not mind it.
Aims & Model.
The aim here was to create a "traditional" looking horror in keeping with paint schemes illustrated in the old Lost and the Damned Realms of Chaos source book. Whilst the sculpt is very different from the early Tzeentchian horrors, the miniature nonetheless lends itself well to this idea given the appearance of the inner horror emerging from inside the mouth of the outer horror. My first instinct was the one that I went with here -- the inner horror was to be blue, with the outer horror pink.
Painting.
The miniature was painted in two stages, notwithstanding the black undercoat / primer. In the first stage, the blue, inner horror was completed. This was achieved using a mid-blue coat, followed by deep blue inking and dry-brushing in a noticeably lighter tone of the blue coat. The black undercoat is very forgiving here as some recessed areas were not hit evenly with the blue coat. For the outer, pink horror, a base coat of pink was applied followed by an equal parts mix of orange & chestnut ink. At this point, the stretching of the outer skin due to the inner blue horror appeared more obvious, so I decided a multi-stage approach to highlighting was required to accentuate this feature. Firstly, highlighting in pink (the same pink as the original coat) was made, taking care not to cover the recessed areas. This pink was lightened in tone by mixing with white and another layer of highlights applied. The final highlighting layer was made in nearly pure white, picking out only the parts of the outer horror's skin that appeared to be especially stretched (e.g. around the mouth and where the shoulder & elbow of the inner blue horror appear to be pushing against the outer horror -- see the lower photo).
With that done, the final highlights were painted on. This included the tongues (painted white and then a layer of bright red applied), teeth & claws (pure white) and eyes (white dot on a black background -- a very steady hand needed here, if you're short-sighted like me, then take your glasses off / remove contact lenses for a natural zoom!).
Basing is on the usual W40k base supplied with the miniature, covered in two shades of green sawdust with small grey rock bits added. Nothing too clever here.
Evaluation.
Positives: I really like the blue-in-pink concept of this miniature that agrees very well with the traditional fluff surrounding the horrors. I am also pleased with the chestnut + orange ink on the outer pink horror's skin which I wasn't too certain about when I applied it. Pink isn't the easiest colour to work with, but it turned out very well. Painting the inner blue horror first allowed any overspill mistakes to easily be corrected when painting the pink (second) stage. I was also thrilled by the reaction of my sister-in-law (an excellent painter herself; oil-on-canvas that is) who described this as "completely mingin'".
Negatives: Looking at the miniature again, the support strut for the front leg probably should have been removed, but it was left in place to give additional support during gaming & transport and simply painted black. I was bothered by this at first, but have grown to not mind it.
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