For a person who doesn't actively own a chaos space marine army of his own, I sure do paint a lot of chaos space marines. This is mainly due to the fact that I have a friend who owns a lot of unpainted miniatures... like a lot a lot. There are also occasions where he has money and I have time to paint; I would definitely blame these factors for the current situation.
Before we dive into the nitty and the gritty of individual squads, I have to give much respect to people who have painted whole armies of these dudes. It isn't until you paint a chaos space marine that realize just how many little spikes and trimmings they have, and how much of your time said spikes and trimmings take up. I swear 1 chaos marine = 1.5 loyalist vanilla marines in terms of painting time. This may or may not hold true for some of the other loyalist chapters, I'm thinking robed dark angels are by far the fastest to paint while the new space wolves and blood angel kits definitely might come closer to a 1:1 ratio. Anyways, my point is, chaos space marine generals give yourselves a pat on the back for a job well done. Just finishing an army of these guys is a monumental task.
Noise Marines
I. HATE. PINK.
There, I said it. I'm a modern man who is comfortable with his masculinity, but by the cruel star gods I hate this color. It's not so much the hue itself, that I can take or leave provided it is used sparingly and in the right context. But painting pink has to be one of the most painful experiences I've ever had in this hobby. It just doesn't cover, and yes I was stupid and tried to cover black with pink. Actually I take that back, I didn't even try to cover black with pink, because I built it up over several layers of foundation paints before I finally tried to apply the pink, and it still didn't cover correctly. Oh well.
I think the main problem is that as a person who only really has access to GW paints, I'm forced to use a very old tentacle pink that I'm sure isn't mixed up very well anymore. I'm actually looking forward to the day that thing dries up so I never have to use it again. I can just picture myself sitting in front of the paint pot with it open and a hairdryer on full blast.
My advice to those who want to paint pink: prime white. The only way you're going to get a smooth, vibrant finish is over a smooth vibrant white.
This was when I first started hitting the aforementioned trim and detailed bits of the armor. Even though I was fortunate enough to have the model primed black, hardline highlights took a lot of extra time. The hawk turquoise provided a nice contrast though, and the addition of a little green here and there really pushed things forward. In the end I had the super-high contrast I was looking for, grumbling about pink aside. I set the noisy boys aside and turned my attention to...
Thousand Sons Rubric Marines
A much welcome breath of fresh air from the Noise Marines, the Rubric Marines were clad in a lovely blue. This not only made the process of painting faster, but also much more enjoyable. Painting golden trim on the armor really showed me just how detailed even the basic chaos space marine can be. Even though I was painting in a very measured and consistant pace, it seemed like every time I turned a model over I would find another patch of trim that I had missed the first time through. Since my gold trim takes a whopping 5 steps to paint, I seeing double by the time I had everyone fully trimmed out.
Speaking of trim, I wanted to take a moment to point out the trim on the crest of their helmets. The horizontal stripes would have been nearly impossible if it wasn't for micropens. I know some people like to be hobby snobs and insist that it's a pale imitation of a 100% acrylic paint job, but I must say I don't know how paint could have compared in this situation. The problem that you run into with these older sculpts is that things aren't as crisp as they used to be, and what should be a very nice neat row of colored stripes ended up looking a bit messy, even after a careful repainting. A single pass with the micropen straightened it all out, leaving things looking very well organized and showing the good paint job that was always there. It's like Ray Charles said when talking about music (paraphrasing), it doesn't matter how you made it, it only matter how it sounds.
Obliterators
Talk about coming out of left field with this one. I took these guys on thinking they would be a cakewalk to paint. Sound the buzzer, because that's a big fat wrong answer for me. I didn't understand just how difficult these guys are to get right until I had to do it myself. Blending skin directly into armor and making it look like anything besides a big blob of crap is not a simple task. If anything, I'd like to try it one more time to see if I couldn't do a little bit better after everything I've learned. Still, it was and still is an amazingly entertaining proposition to paint a guy like this. The insane nature of obliterators really shines here, bristling with weaponry they conjure out of nothing simply because they can. It was a fun paint scheme, though the biotech is still new to me. Maybe some day I will give it another try, but for now, we'll just stick with what we know: Armor.
Chaos Dreadnought
Now THAT is what I'm talking about. Big old robot with big old guns stomping around on a big old base. None of this frilly dark eldar nonsense, just several tons of rawr and go git 'em.
The model itself is the world eaters dreadnought from forgeworld, as are the arms. I have to say of all the models I've seen from forgeworld, the dreadnoughts are my favorite. Whoever designs those things has a talent for bringing the walking robo-coffins to life (har har) in a way I have yet to see from GW's plastics, impressive though they may be in their own right. The base is actually from a sample tile I got in a white dwarf mag advertising the warhammer fantasy campaign system. Those mini landscape markers make great additions for basing.
The only thing that drove me crazy about this piece was the hour of scrubbing I had to do to clean the model.
If you've never painted forgeworld models, you need to read this:
Forgeworld models are resin, and when they are done being case they are coated in a special releasing agent that lets them come out of the mold without being damaged. This is well and good, but forgeworld does not clean the release agent from their models, and if you don't do it, it's almost guaranteed to ruin your paint job. All you need to do is give a good scrub with an old toothbrush and some warm soapy water. I recommend dish soap, as that has the strongest cleaners in it to cut through the tough, greasy shell. Once you've given it a once or twice over, you're good to go, but make sure you hit every angle.
If you don't, there's a chance that the paint will not adhere completely to the release agent, causing it to roll off when your trying to work. Even worse, there's also a chance that it will initially accept the paint, but it will randomly flake off later when you think you're done. This is almost the worst feeling in the world, just watching your hours literally fall off the model. I'm shaking my head just thinking about it. My point: don't let this happen to you.
So another group of chaos hit the proverbial dust, too bad they would be used against me in the future, but such is the price you pay for working for others. At least I got to lose to some pretty models.
