I finally made some noticeable progress on my Berzerkers tonight, as evidenced by the picture above. First of all, I’ve experimented with how much I was thinning my Mechrite Red, and I think I’ve found just the right balance to let me get a good coating in just one or two passes. I also got to work on finishing up my first Berzerker and getting his color balance just right. I was worried that the Badab Black wash had darkened the mini too much, but after building the color back up I got just the effect I wanted. My process was:

1. Put down a layer of Red Gore, making sure to leave some of the washed edges showing for contrast.
2. Then, put down a 50/50 blend of Red Gore and Blood Red, although not quite as broadly.
3. Highlight with Blazing Orange.

I’m still working on getting my highlighting properly thinned; I think it was just a bit heavier than I would have liked in this case. Still, for my first attempt, I’m pretty pleased. I’m also happy with how the brass turned out. Highlighting the Dwarf Bronze with Shining Gold gave me just the effect I was looking for: something not as bright as gold, but that had a similar look from the right angles. After that was done, I dotted the eyes with Scorpion Green (or the Vallejo equivalent, Scorpy Green), and I ended up with what you see above.

There are still a few details left, like the hoses on the backpack and some cleanup on the bolt pistol, and I need to paint the base. Other than that, though, I’m pretty much done with this one. Now that I have my Mechrite Red technique figured out, I can get the other three (I tested on a fourth) basecoated and get this unit cranked out in the next couple of weeks.

Painting on my Berzerkers has been going slowly. Partially, this is because I’ve been replacing some of my brushes and purchasing new paints. After painting red details on my Tau, I have to say that I’ve been unhappy with Vallejo’s selection of reds in their Game Color line. GW’s reds seem to be somewhat better, and the Mechrite Red Foundation paint is particularly nice. However, it’s still hard to paint it over black priming, it seems. I’m still trying to figure out the right paint-to-water ratio to thin the paints to the point where I don’t lose detail but I get a solid coat. So far, it’s still taking two or three thin coats to get a decent red with Mechrite Red. Yes, I know – using more thin coats is better than using one thick coat, but it’s a slow process, especially with reds.

I’ve been working on each of the four Berzerkers one at a time, and each one’s in a different stage. One just has Mechrite Red, one has some Boltgun Metal details, one has the metal details and some Bestial Brown where I’ll be laying down Dwarf Bronze, and the final one has been bronzed, followed by a wash in Badab Black. Speaking of the Bronze, I’m still unsure of how it’ll look for my brass, but I’m withholding final judgment until I start getting some Shining Gold highlights onto it. I’ll try to get some pictures soon, both of my Tau and of my Chaos Marines, as I’ve finally resolved my lighting issue. I recently picked up this studio-in-a-box kit from Amazon (for about $20 less than it’s currently priced at), and I’ll be trying it out either tonight or tomorrow. I’m very excited to see what a difference it makes.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and during a little bit of downtime between holiday outings, I figured it would be proper to put down some red paint onto something. Fortunately, I had some Khorne Berzerkers primed and ready to go, so today kicks off the start of my second army painting project. I’m breaking the army down into small, manageable chunks, rather than trying to paint whole squads in one pass; I’ve done that before with units of a dozen Fire Warriors, and it nearly burned me out. For Berzerkers, since I run them in squads of 8, doing half-squads at a time seemed perfect.

Here, I have three normal Berzerkers, and a Skull Champion (he’s the chap with the power fist). They’ve been primed in Duplicolor Black primer – a fantastic primer, by the way, and reasonably priced – and a basecoat of Mechrite Red Foundation Paint has been applied. I’m going for an inside-to-outside paint job, so I’m going to get the base armor painted first before I start painting the brass details. Sadly, GW no longer has Brazen Brass available, but I think a combination of Dwarf Bronze with Shining Gold highlights should give me a similar effect.