Slaves to Darkness | Azazel's Bitz Box.

My next model for Ann’s “Paint the Crap You Already Own!” challenge is this Chaos Champion of Slaanesh from the Slaves to Darkness releases of 1988. This particular model has been sitting around, somewhat part-painted for …I dunno. 15? 20 years? A hell of a long time. When I say part-painted, I mean I’d done a rougher vesion of the turquoise armour, and based it on a 25mm square base with green railroad flock. 3 or 4 years ago when I was doing some of my other old, unfinished chaos models I fished it out of the figure case and it’s been sititng on a tray on my painting desk ever since, with no real sense of urgency to work on since I didn’t really like the figure. After completing the Dwarf the other week, I asked Marouda to choose three figures for me to work on completing next. She chose this figure, no doubt because the various shades of Aqua and Turquoise are “my favourite colour” as well as another two – both of which are still WIP and one of which led to a block of 5 being worked on sort-of-together.

I kept the aqua-turquoise armour, and went with a brass for the helmet, which had sat, primed white since I could never figure out what to do with it. The bondage glove and sock went from the dark purple that they were basecoated in to something with much more pronouced highlights, and the crest stayed in the original yellow, but with more emphasis on the highlights and shading. The corset and right bracer had enough in common with the right pauldron in terms of sculpting that they all got the same treatement – pearlescent red (which you cannot see in the photos at all) with a subtle red wash. The other metal accoutrements also got given the same brassy treatment as the helmet, as did the metal furniture of the weapon. Red gemstones and that was mostly that.

The shield, naturally had to be one of the original plastics from the era of the sculpt. I went with one of the smaller “chaos” shaped shields in the end, as the main issue I have with a lot of them is that they end up covering a lot of the hard work you put into these lovely classic sculpts. I followed the same overall palette that I used on the rest of the model, with a freehand rune of Slaanesh that looks a little reminiscent of a dancing humanoid figure, due to the angles. I also gave the crescent on the end a bit of a crab-claw shape, as a nod to the daemonettes. Gloss varnish on the steed’s tongue for a nice, extra-slick look.

So thanks to Marouda’s choice (which admittedly was greeted with “that one??”) I have another model in that camp I rather like adding to – models I pretty much disliked, didn’t want to paint, and now have a real fondness for as finished pieces. Yeah, I’m happy with this one.

I’ve completed a few more of the old Realm of Chaos Beastmen that have been hidden away, part painted in figure cases for years or decades. This trio feature a pair of duplicate sculpts, both with broken weapons, both repaired in different ways at different points in time, and a variation on the same sculpt. These three of course are Slaangor – that is, beastmen dedicated to the Lord of Pleasure, Slaanesh.

The two on the ends needed their weapons repaired. The original weapon was a mace shaped into the rune of Slaanesh, as you can see on the beastman on our right. I attempted to repair it into it’s original form by making a replacement using another model with the same weapon to create a simple mold with Oyumaru and then greenstuff (kneadatite) for the part – then pinning it onto the stub. It turned out nicely on the front half, and rough as hell on the rear. I did this a couple of years ago. For the other model, I did it a few days ago using the pick end from a Chaos Marauder and simply pinning it onto the end of the broken mace, in order to differentiate the two models a little more.

All three were incredibly garish when I got them out of the case. Here’s an example of some of the flaws I used to make in terms of composition years ago. As you can see, I could still freehand just fine, but I apparently thought that there was a need to use all of the colours on way too many models. Speaking of freehand, please enjoy the four photos of this model, showing off some of its many tattoos. There’s also a rose you can’t see on the upper inner left thigh, as it’s now covered by the shield.

I think the updated and completed version is a pretty solid improvement over the overly-garish (unfinished) attempt from years ago, while keeping the best elements of the original paintwork…

Here the three are alongside the other Slaangor that I painted awhile back. It’s on a larger base because I decided that it was a Champion of Slaanesh. You’ll note that all three sculpts share the same base. Keep this in mind next time you see someone bitching that GW’s new digital sculpts reuse elements.

Once again, these are Jes Goodwin sculpts, though these aren’t amongst the strongest of his work. As with many of the figures of the day, they’re not particularly dynamic, and these ones are also particularly “flat” sculpts.

Azazel's Bitz Box.

Painting, Modelling, Miniatures, 1:6, Games… Whatever else I find interesting.

Tag Archives: Slaves to Darkness

Realm of Chaos: Champion of Slaanesh (“Paint the Crap You Already Own!” April 2020 Challenge) (Jes Goodwin, 1988)

Realm of Chaos – Slaves to Darkness Beastmen VII: Slaangor (Neglected Model September ’18)