The 40 Minute BSB

I recently popped this up on Twitter:

SKULLS FOR HIS SKULL THRONE!!! The last #miniaturemonday from me today, a Khorne BSB painted in approx. 40 mins! twitter.com/BKellyCS/statu…
— Benjamin Kelly (@BKellyCS) March 11, 2013

...which led to some pretty nice comments. Thank you all for the lovely words - this has to be my favourite!

@bkellycs 40 mins.You swine!:)
— Da Skwire (@DaSkwire) March 11, 2013

As promised, after the jump, is how I did him...

I know it's been a long time since I properly posted on here. Trust me when I say I've been very busy with real life and work, and what little free time I have had I've poured into my writing over on http://evalaria.blogspot.co.uk, my little story project. I'd be honoured if you'd check it out and let me know what you think!

But enough shameless plugging, on with the meat of the matter. The Warriors of Chaos Battle Standard Bearer painted in 40 minutes. I chronicled the whole thing with photos, (so perhaps the painting took slightly less than 40 mins...?) so this will be a picture heavy, words light blog. 

Here's the model in it's unprimed colours. The main body is the recent 'Warriors of Chaos' Chaos Lord with the blade of his spear removed. Onto the flat top was pinned a small part of a skaven banner I had lying around, then one of the resin banners available from the Games Workshop Website.

And here is where the fun begins. Over a black undercoat, the entire model was drybrushed with Mephiston Red using the large flat drybrush. This dried in seconds.

Over this, I drybrushed Kindleflame, again with the large drybrush. The trick here is making the brush SO dry that you think there's no paint on it. As an idea, I've not washed the brush for the photo.

The entire model was then liberally doused with Carroburg Crimson.

 Gold detailing was then base coated with Balthasar Gold and the Large Brush.

This is where I realise things could have been faster. The bone and flesh was then base coated with Rakarth Flesh. You'll see, I actually go back and do more of this later, wasting time... tsk tsk...

Then the cloak was base coated with Incubi Darkness...

...and the Bloodletter and blood base coated in Khorne Red.

At this point, all of the bone, the blood and the gold was washed with Agrax Earthshade. I did also wash the face in Reikland Fleshshade at this point, but forgot to take a picture...

The cloak was then washed in Athonian Camoshade. Lots of washes, all done neatly around each other.
I don't usually recommend this as if washes mix it can be horrid having to base coat all over again. If you're exceptionally careful and neat it can be done to shave off painting seconds, however!

Here we go... there's the "Whoops, should have base coated these areas earlier on..." step I mentioned earlier...

Next up was the base itself, base coated in Mechanicus Standard Grey as I'm going for a northern wastes, snowy-rock look.

And here's more of that "If I'd base coated all of this initially, I wouldn't be doing another Agrax Earthshade" step. It sounds silly, but if you're going for a speed-paint, this feels like FOREVER waiting for it to dry... especially when I knew I could have done it all about ten minutes ago if I'd properly checked before moving on. Well, live and learn, I guess.

And more dry paints! I've come to love these paints so much! Here I use Golden Griffon and a Medium Drybrush to highlight all of the gold areas.

...and Hellion Green on the cloak. The colours of the paints in the pot are severely disarming - they look so bright, but then come out so well on the model.

Eldar Flesh was then very lightly drybrushed over the fleshy areas. Normally, I'd use a Small Drybrush here, but mine wasn't to hand...

More dry paints! This time, Terminatus Stone on all the bone areas, including the banner pole.

Kindleflame was then applied over the gore and Bloodletter head on the banner...

...before liberally glazing all the gore and the head with the eponymous Bloodletter Glaze. This just serves to tie those colours together and to bring some vibrancy into the reds.

Finally, the stonework on the base was drybrushed in Longbeard Grey. Eventually, I did go back and add some snow to the base too to really tie it in with the rest of my force, but I think the model's fine here.

In honesty, the real tricks are using the dry paints neatly (you really can't take off too much); and the glazes and washes to tie it all together. The only 'skill' you can learn here is to be very neat with your washes, using a good quality wash brush, and loading the correct amount onto your brush to cover and flow without running. If you can manage that, you can wash several areas at once.

And there you have it! One Warriors of Chaos Battle Standard Bearer in 40 minutes!

...It could have been 30 if it weren't for those meddling kids me forgetting to base coat parts early on and having to go back to them later...

Anyways, hopefully I'll have some more posts up soon - hope you've enjoyed!