Bloodcrusher and Herald of Khorne

This model was one of the ones in the Daemons codex that excited me and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and see what I could produce. It will serve one of two purposes quite readily: a herald of Khorne mounted on a juggernaut or a bloodcrusher of Khorne. Indeed, I've used the miniature in both guises. An army list with such a herald can be found here.

Aims and Model.
The model is pretty good looking - the herald is screaming out some orders at the top of his voice, his hellblade is held aloft, and he looks like he can't wait to get stuck in to some unfortunate real-space adversary. Putting the miniature together required some easy and some hard steps. I found the juggernaut to be reasonably easy to put together, apart from the collar which was just plain fiddly. The herald was slightly tricky to position on the back of the juggernaut, but once the correct placing was figured out, it wasn't so bad. The head of the herald required some pinning however. I think it must have taken me (maybe) upward of two weeks to construct this miniature before I even got around to the painting stage. I didn't want any conversion on the miniature either - just a classic looking bloodletter herald of Khorne on a juggernaut!

Painting.
After undercoating in black, drybrushed the mechanical looking parts of the juggernaut with some silver. Then, I basecoated the red areas of the model using mechrite red foundation paint. From here on in, my painting method followed my usual bloodletter painting scheme in the main part.

For the juggernaut, I was careful with applying the basecoat so that it left a thin line of black undercoat showing through around the edges. This can be seen on the side shots of the juggernaut where the red areas meet the gold / brass edging. Speaking of the gold, this was painting in pure shining gold with a steady hand around the edges. Highlighting of the gold was accomplished using a blend of gold with skull white, up to almost pure skull white. Highlighting of the red parts was done in a red / blazing orange blend (both on the juggernaut and the bloodletter herald).

The iconography was painted in pure skull white for a sharp, crisp looking contrast with the bulk of the red. On the body of the juggernaut, I started to paint on faint Khornate symbols - perhaps akin to what can be found in the main rules book for those Khorne Possessed Marine miniatures (which is what I used for some inspiration).

Basing.
On the base, I've used some pillars from Hirst Arts Castle Moulds range. If you've not come across Hirst Arts before, I'd encourage you to take a look - the parts that the moulds make look awesome and you can easily construct awesome looking fantasy and futuristic landscapes easily.

Significantly, they also paint very well. After undercoating in black, all that is required to to drybrush in steadily whiter colours to achieve a decent finished look. Very quick and easy in my opinion.

I've positioned the broken pillar to try to make the miniature look more dynamic. The idea being that the juggernaut has crashed in to the pillar with its left shoulder and toppled down further the ruins! Or maybe the herald has had a swipe with his sword? Either way, I like the way that the base has turned out. The rest of the base is covered in fine black lode stone. Some small amounts of green scatter finish off the scene.

Evaluation.
Positives: I really like this miniature and have used it extensively in my daemons armies. I'm particularly happy with the base and the overall feel that the miniature exudes!
Negatives: The faint orange Khorne symbols on the juggernaut need more work yet.