With all 8 of the Bloodthirsters cleaned and ready for assembly, I figured I would take a few minutes and make sure I had the right "red" for the force. I suppose you can paint a Bloodthirster any color you want as evidence by the Forge World picture above. Even a pale white, the guy looks mean.
For this project though, my Client wants the classic "red" look to his models. It's the color that immeditely comes to mind when you think of Bloodthirsters and Khorne. Stick with the colors associated with an army and you get all the extra baggage too. In this case, it's all good stuff. Make them look like people think they should and they will fill in the rest to include all the associated fears that go along with them.
Even though the models are ready for assembly, I mentioned before that this project neds to be done in very deliberate steps and there's no "guessing" what to do next. That being said, I sat down the other evening and painted a few "test" arms from my bits bin to make sure I had something I liked.
I need the paint scheme to be simple and effective at the same time. I've got 8 of these monsters to paint and if my technique requires 30 plus coats of paint, I'm in big trouble. I need to be able to pull out all the detail on the models and not spend 12 years on one model. A combination of washes and transparent layering is how I'm going to do it. That and maybe a final line highlight in key places for effect.
The arm on the far left is the one I'm going with. The others were "failed" experiments that I stopped once it had strayed too far from what I had in mind. It's actually similar to how I painted some Blood Angel Space Hulk Terminators a few months ago but I've changed the formula slightly to give me a richer red in the end.
My Project Link: Bloodthirster Bloodbath
Additional related links:
How I paint the red on my Saim-Hann
