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I've finally admitted defeat, i've had an Avatar of Khaine for a couple months now, attempted painting it a couple of times and got annoyed with it each time and had to strip the paint off and start again.

I'm now trying my 4th attempt on him but dont want to do it without some advice.
I wouldn't say I'm bad with a paint brush, I just cant seem to do anything I like with this particular piece.

Just asking for some help from anybody who has successfully finished one for how best to pull it off?
Just a note, I play Ulthwe, so would like to get the black and cream colours in somewhere to tie it in with the rest of my stuff. But that doesn't have to be anything much.

I will upload an older picture of my Avatar before I finished his base (kinda bright but all I have on my phone while at work)

I just noticed that I don't have any picture of my Avatar. I'll post it later.

Thanks forsakenmantra, that's the kind of thing I was aiming for.
I was originally the pic on GW's website i was aiming for, which seems to be more or less what you went for as well.
how did you do it?

I attached a pic showing what im aiming for colour-wise.

How were you thinking of adding in the black and cream/bone? it might be difficult to do without it either being lost as part of the overall scheme (like the black in the pic above) or be to obvious that it doesn't fit in.

Let me see if I can remember exactly:

1) Primed the model black

2) Did some light coats of gore red all over the armor of the model almost drybrushing it on in some areas to keep it black and splotchy.

3) glued and painted the model w/o the arms on.

4) All of the inlay cracks were paitned with -> gore red -> blood red -> Darker orange color -> fiery orange -> firely/badmoon yello mix -> white hilights in the thickest areas.
When doing this I made sure to make the lines smaller and smaller for each new color until I was basically drawing a line.

5) Similar paint colors used for the sword and head pieces and shoulder pads.

6) Any white parts were first hit with a light coat of the Foundation paint Astronomican Grey -> then watered down light coats of skull white to keep streaking down.

7) The chest was drybrushed / light pained a dark orange color and the edges were highlighted.

8) Gold places were painted burnished gold and then hit with a wash of delvin mud.

9) The arm is bloody hand is painted blood red and then many many coats of red wash.

10) Any fiery inlay are hit with a light coat of the glossy varnish as well as the bloody hand and the shoulder / head pieces.

To help with blending I use Liquitex Matte Medium, it helps in some areas.

I also hit certain areas of the model with a coat of the red wash to darken the recessed areas.

Interesting side note, when I had finally finished the body for the first time, one of my brushes got some crap on the bristles so I was using some paint remover to clean it and dropped the bottle when putting the cap on all over the Avatar's legs. I had to basically wipe it clean which took off ALL OF THE PAINT and redo 1/2 the model. I was so pissed.

I use Winsor Newton Series 7 brushes for the majority of my painting. 1 & 0 and occasionally a 00.

Another angle of the avatar however blurry from my gakky camera phone.



more complete base work in this picture.

Thanks mantra, ill start on that later.
If I can get it to look vaguely like yours ill be glad to get it done and out of the way

@kyley - i was thinking of just doing them on maybe his ponytail and the cloth between his legs. nothing to mess with the overall colour scheme, just enough to tie him in with the rest of the army

I still have yet to draw anything on his cloak out of fear of messing up. But I got these really awesome .1 and .2 pens that should work.

make sure to post pics with an update

Sorry i've taken so long, its bee snowing and raining the last few day, but I've finally got outside now the weather is holding up to prime the avatar. I'll have a go at him now and post some pictures when I've actually made some reasonable progress

this is how its turning out so far. i've only spent like 20 mins on it so far but i need to do more. any advice?

You can either buy another color of paint, or mix your colors together for blending purposes.

If you want to blend, I recommend picking up Matte Medium, it helps with bending and removing edges.

Here's mine for some inspiration. Man, they always look worse on photos than in real life.

Can't really see mine too good, he kinda gets lost in all that yellow! I wanted him to match the army but i've been having my regrets and may end up doing him again.

I support that decision.

I painted up the forgeworld one but dont have any pics. The paint process should still apply. I painted white in all the cracks, then painted bright yellow. I then used and orange ink wash (heavy) in the cracks and it looks very lava-ish. I then painted the hot metal parts with Scab red, highlight with Gore red, then highlighted with blood red. Finally applied a fiery orange on the top tips. I then used the BAAL red wash twice followed up by a watered down badab black wash. This gave me the exact colors I wanted. Then went and picked out all the bits.

This was a commission for a friend a while ago. I did the lava and metals up to this point. He needed before I could finish for a tourney and later finished the details.

Anung Un Rama wrote:Here's mine for some inspiration. Man, they always look worse on photos than in real life.

I like your paint job, but base isn't making sense. Avatar is burning lava, so snow wouldn't be there. Just saying.

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:

Anung Un Rama wrote:Here's mine for some inspiration. Man, they always look worse on photos than in real life.

I like your paint job, but base isn't making sense. Avatar is burning lava, so snow wouldn't be there. Just saying.

Because I have Snow Bases on my Eldar. I was wondering how it would work with him. If you look closer you can see some brown around his feet. Apperantly the snow is not very high. I'm open for suggestions though.

Try using a wash of yellow paint followed by one of white paint in the joints.
The armour is getting there but needs very thinned down, multiple washes of 1st dev mud, then dev mud + black. Maybe add a bit of baal red in there as well. Don't cover all the armour in this wash - just put it where it needs to go, & feather out the edges of the area with a damp brush (damp not wet) to blend out the colour tranistion.

You're not any where near Portsmouth are you, cause I could give you a tutorial if you are.

If you want to do the "molten lava " look a LOT easier, just get a pure white down in those cracks, and apply an ornage wash. It will work very well and should be quite bright.

Anung Un Rama wrote: they always look worse on photos than in real life.

QFT I was pretty proud with mine until I took this pic now it seems a little disappointing.

This is how i'm doing so far:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooh yeah, i almost forgot to say...Anung Un Rama, yours looks sweet!

The lava-ish effect you did in the recesses looks brilliant Chi3f, how did you get it like that??

Gorechild wrote:

Anung Un Rama wrote: they always look worse on photos than in real life.

QFT I was pretty proud with mine until I took this pic now it seems a little disappointing.

This is how i'm doing so far:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooh yeah, i almost forgot to say...Anung Un Rama, yours looks sweet!

The lava-ish effect you did in the recesses looks brilliant Chi3f, how did you get it like that??

Haha yeah I look at my photos and think "that looks like S**T lol"

The lava I was going to work backwards from white base to dark, but I was short on time and, well, only had black primer lol.

1) Chaos Black Primed
2) Scab Red
3) Red ink recess and around hot spots
4) Blended from Red Gore to Blood Red to Blazing Orange to Sunburst Yellow
5) added in some extreme highlights with Skull White
6) Light armor areas were Commando Khaki then Bleach Bone
7) Metals Boltgun and Badab Black Wash, blended with TinBitz and highlighted with Mithril Silver.

I have the details on my blog http://tinbitz.blogspot.com/search/label/Avatar