The great thing about the game of 40k definitely has to be the social aspect of the hobby. While it is important to be in it at least a little bit for yourself, being able to share all the hard work that you've done over a good game is probably the best moment the game has to offer.
Among other perks, when you start interacting with other players and making friends, you find yourself with opportunities to paint for armies other than one(s) you own, which in turn allows you to grow as a painter without having to break the bank on a new army. Some of my friends have a model or two in their active army that I've painted for them... some have a lot more. Chronicled here are some of the big boys I've painted for a friend's Chaos Space Marine army over the past couple years.
Lucius the Eternal
I don't know why people hate on this model so much. I think the sculpt is a very fitting representation of the endless warrior. Sure he's ugly, but in a good way. He's supposed to be all banged up and ritually scarred and so forth. His armor is sculpted with the faces of those who have opposed him and triumphed, only to undergo a hideous transformation into the man they just stood against.
I love the whip too. It was a pain to paint up and have it look right, but once I figured out the formula, it went pretty fast. The key was to paint the entire whip in one color, in this case red, and then work down length of the cord with the alternate color, in this case blue. Once I had picked out the opposed hues, it was simple to wash and highlight, leaving a nice, neat paintjob. So no more hating, let Luscious... err Lucius alone.
Chaos Sorcerer
My friend runs an army theme very similar to the World Eaters (Khorne heavy), and when I was going through his models trying desperately to find something he didn't have already, it stuck me that he had no sorcerers. So it was a simple matte r to find a nice sorcerer model and paint him up in the theme of my friend's army. His color scheme is darker and grittier, which I tried to push in spite of the fact that the sorcerer can look a little...frilly. Okay, not really, he's a 8 foot tall evil psychic super soldier with a sword the size of my upper torso, but it doesn't change the fact that he's wearing a skirt. I worked around this issue by dirtying up the cloth, and basing it in the intense red that forms the core color of the army scheme.
Slaanesh Lord
I expanded on the ideas of Lucius with this guy, seeing where I could take the idea of an dark elegant warrior among a pack of nearly uncontrollable berzerkers. Just because he worships Slaanesh doesn't mean he can't venerate Khorne as well, as I imagine the idea of "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" would provide at least some primal appeal to a potential champion of the gods. After all, in an age of aliens and super heavy armor, how much higher a level of sophisticated death dealing can one achieve than a mid-battle decapitation? It's the perfect balance of smooth and brutal, which I tried to bring out with the colors of this unique model.
I've been experimenting with black armor colors lately, and I thought it would be cool to see a model that had armor so dark that you could only see the color when it was fully illuminated, fading to black with the shadows. The highly reflective silver trim helps to keep large chunks of dark armor broken up and easy to take in. The turquoise of the blade and cape finally tie it back to the standard noise marines that the army has. I was thinking to use some of the signature red, but combined with the deep purple would have made this guy a little less "epitome of murder" and a little more "red hat society". Funny but not exactly what I was shooting for. But if you want to talk funny models..
Super Bitch of Doom
There just isn't any excuse for this guy. He's complete nonsense and we all know it, and at the same time we all love it. The Super Bitch of Doom (SBOD) is dreaded above all else on the battlefield, because you know there just isn't any recovering from such a toxic level of humiliation as that of losing to the SBOD. I went for the throat on this bad boy/girl with duckies, bunnies, and hamsters on the armor. The colors speak, that is to say they scream, for themselves. Of all the Christmas presents I worked on last year, this one made me smile the most. I don't think I've ever giggled while painting, and it is an experience I hope to repeat in the very near future.
