Avatar of Khaine - Part III (Showcase)

 

Feeling hot hot hot.

Here is the "finished" Avatar, or at least as much as will be finished prior to transport and final assembly. There is an army to which it will belong, but I don't know how the bases there look, so I'm leaving that alone for now. The left arm is also not glued in place for transport reasons, so the final position will be slightly different.

I've had to rush through this project recently to have it ready in time, and that shows in a few places. The freehand on the loincloth is missing (mostly because I know I'd mess it up), the gemstones are done slightly unusual (there are over 80 in total!), however I think overall it came out ok. The lack of base is letting it down, but otherwise I'm happy enough.

The sculpt itself is both incredibly detailed, and yet strangely simplistic. Most of the body is the magma glow, a few pieces of armour, and a face. There's no real complexity about it. Just a lot of gemstones.

To paint all of the gemstones, I opted for an alternative approach that takes advantage of contrast paints:

• Ulthuan Grey over the gem. White could be used as well, but I try to avoid pure white whenever I can.
• Basilicanum Grey over the gem. This is a thinner paint and mostly settles around the edge to give definition to the shape.
• Black Templar, but applied so that the paint is kind of drawn across the surface to pool in the darker areas of the gemstone. This is hard to describe, and it might take some practice, but it helps in creating a transition.
• Ulthuan Grey thinly applied to the opposite area to brighten it up again. A second, strong, edge can also help for the next step.
• Pick your Contrast colour and cover the gemstone. As much or as little as you want.

White reflection dot and 'Ardcoat as normal, and the gemstone is done. Again, this isn't quite as nice a result as using more traditional acrylic paint methods, but it's a lot faster when there's so many to get done.

The armour is also something surprisingly simple:

• Morghast Bone over the entire armour.
• Seraphim Sepia as recess shading.
• Skeleton Horde (very similar to Seraphim Sepia actually) glazed into shadowed areas. Contrast paints work well for glazing.
• Wraithbone glazed as a midtone and initial highlight, with a second pass for extra highlights.
• Screaming Skull as a very thin glaze for extra highlights, but this wasn't done much here.

The trick is really using the contrast and shade paints to take advantage of the sculpt's details. With a smoother surface this would actually be much more difficult, but the model has a rougher texture to it that makes it easier to give extra interest to the light and shadow.

And that's the painting highlights. Of course it's not a step-by-step, and there are other areas that I could mention (the greys used for the head and hair for example), but that's all fairly obvious. The paint used doesn't matter, the end result and general colours are more important and visually apparent in the photo.

Final note on the loincloth: that was almost entirely airbrushed. White gives a speckled finish sometimes, and in this case I actually wanted that to make it look more like cloth material and less like vinyl. A very subtle red in places was done to tie it into the rest of the model, as glow reflection from the body, but I kept it to a minimum to not ruin the look.

And now to pack up the model for transport!

-- silly painter.