Bloodthirster, Greater Daemon of Khorne

This is a first for me. I painted a model for a friend of mine. It wasn’t a commission, since I didn’t get paid anything, even though I slaved over it like it was my own. I got squat for all the toil and trouble and skill and art that went into building and painting this monster. Nope, nothing, and it sits in someone else’s house. I bet he even tells his friends that he did it. Feel guilty yet Ted?

Okay, so Ted brought me the model and asked me to paint it. He loves WH40K and has an entire Chaos Space Marine army. It’s a mighty army of unpainted pewter. It had never defeated my Tyranid Swarm 532, so I took pity on him and told him I’d make it for him.

The piece is big and heavy, and not surprisingly didn’t go together easily. I pinned all the pieces together with wire. I broke a drill bit drilling the wings it (that cost me $8.00 Ted). Ted asked me to discard the loin cloth, so I cut that down to just the skull codpiece. I had to build up the base with Magic-Sculpt because one leg is significantly shorter than the other. I was considering putting a dead body of some kind under his feet, but I couldn’t figure out what to use.

I primed it black and built up the reds from darker to lighter shades, finishing up with Liquitex Cadmium Red. The armor is brass with gold highlights. I painted the Demon’s hair blond because Ted’s hair is blond. The wings were drybrushed blue to bring out the details.

I wanted the whip to look menacing and abominable so I went with a traditional leather length over the ornate handle but then went with a sickly, organically weird tip to suggest the demonic origin. The axe was straightforward. Caius insisted that I put some blood streaks on it. So I did.

I tried to make the skulls bone like the horns and talons, but I couldn’t get the colors right. I grew impatient and decided to go with gold. It was a good call because not only did the color match the rest of the piece, but several of the skulls on the beasts belt, were poorly cast and smushed. This particular Bloodthirster likes to have his trophies dipped in gold. It’s all the rage in Hell, don’t you know.

I didn’t concentrate on clean lines or smooth shadings. I went for more of an impressionistic approach, using color boldly where it belonged. This was deliberate - I wasn’t being lazy. I think it came off very well

I really liked this piece and was sad to give it up. Sorry about the poor photos, if I had it, I'd take more pictures of the piece!