SBS: Champion of Khorne

Hi Jungle,

time for another step by step that fits the mood of the studio move thingy:

Chopped off heads can only mean Khorne.
Well, it is funny I was painting this guy up in the middle of 2018 and now I am mainly in the mood to paint peaceful sculpts. So writing about this feels a little bit ironic for me as I am sick of chopped off heads. It is still a very cool bust by Hera Models, sculpted by Raul Garcia Latorre.

You can drop a vote on him via 
https://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/17772
if you like to do so!

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Well,
back to chopped off heads then instead of singing birds and beautiful animals that are close to extinction. I was actually starting to paint up this bust by taking two chopped off heads and gave them a start during a private coaching to explain how to build up skin colors.

Two chopped off heads that belong together, basic colors of hair and skin applied.
Great thing when painting rotting flesh is that you can bring in tons of variety. They are allowed to change in their appearance. Just saying: Look at them right now and look at them later.

... but there is a third one. Another dead skinton variety applied. You see, most of them are started desaturated. No reason to saturate the dead. Saturation means life.

While painting these I also decided to make the great Champion of Khorne - the wasteland champion in chopping of heads in a certain amount of time -  in a more demonic looking flesh look. Instead I managed to paint him like a smurf with his basic colors, but the plan was still to get him there later on. A guy that once used to be a barbarian, but the gifts of the dark gods make him turn slowly.

I can tell that in the beginning of the paintjob I was quite confused. Not only chopped off heads, but arms, hands and legs and other bones. I would understand if he is a man-eater, but he just likes to impress the girls with his looks, it seems and this justify his ways, of course.

Basic color were applied. I am really fast in sketching in main colors in the meantime. Sometimes I use a wet in wet application here and there to see first effects of shadows and highlights (for example the fur). I went for true metallic metal on the armour parts with plain silver as the plan was to tint it reddish later on.

Ok, now.
To make him look more kornish I had to to tint the armour red now. In the meantime I also touched other elements like the chopped off arm remains, highlights to the smurf skin. You see I am actually tackling everything that confuses me. So starting off confused can be helpful. You quickly see what you do want to change and change it to a better solution.

It is pure gore there, but also fun to create these different nuances of decay. Sometimes I also felt I wanted to puke.

Giving him a touch of purple to the horns and the slow change in his human-to-demonic appereance I finally knew that this character has some serious issues with his mom.

Even I touched texture of the leather in this stage I was still confused. I was putting the bust away and continued painting only on the chopped off heads. I mean you know what you got in front of you there. Hair and decayed flesh and stupid looking faces.

It was a true joy to place them in place to the butcher's area on the bust.

You can see on my thumb many of the colors I have used on the heads. I decided to have the kings face mostly intact as it was also meant like this from the sculpt and it shows that he just recently started chopping off heads in complete kingdoms.

Only with the chopped off heads the true character of the bust arrived in place. A fierce looking guy with actual a numb look in his dead eyes. Chopping off limbs and heads makes you numb I think, but yelling "For Khorne!!" at the same time makes it legit.

Starting to work with desaturated reds in the open decayed wounds.

Slowly working more saturation on the reds it also helps to define several areas. For example finding out that he is not only chopping off stuff but also likes to rip faces from bones and attach them to his armour. What a guy! Quite angry or filled up with mother-issues. Well, purple and red glazes to the face and he will quickly turn into a more serious not so smurf-looking guy.

I brought back a little bit of blue from below to show the cold chaos wasteland ice deserts. It also connects everything from below.

With increasing contrast in the blue parts from below I was able to work out my light situation much stronger. Applying contrast by including deeper blues in the shadows, while at the same time starting to paint cold highlights into almost everything.

This guy was craving for some demonic attention in form of the demonic eye in his chest. I mean this is why he is chopping off all that he encounters. I made him glow out of his chest with Magenta.

To finalise my vision of "Kingdom Chopper" I worked on details. Darklining between leather bands, gently touching a glaze of a certain color here and there, making the magenta glow from below ... glow. More. Also in his armour.

You can now see it in his eyes,
he is ready to chop of some more!



I can say the most fun I had was playing with these many skintone variations. It is a great bust for it if you can stand the smell of decay while painting it. It was interesting to show this bust to my mum and try to explain, believe me.

It has been a brutal paintjob, as the bust was calling for it.
I can not explain it. I was not able to paint this fella up in a calm mode, I think you can see that. I think my biggest mistake was in the beginning: Painting him smurflike. That made him angry and so brutal. I enjoyed painting the king's chopped off head the most. All the color game I was able to pull off there was pure color joy. Not really subject related, but color joy.

And somehow also a brutal step by step :D


Hope you enjoyed it anyways!

Keep on happy painting!
Roman