Painting A Soul Grinder Part 1: Torso

Finally had some time to get started on this beautiful model - I think it's very visually impressive, and it is probably my favourite current Chaos model (apart from maybe the Demon Prince, for pure customisation options). I decided to go for a dark green colour scheme for the torso, with silvery/bronze colours for the armour and some dark red plating here and there as a spot colour. In this post I will show you what I have done so far and what steps I took to get there. The torso isn't quite finished, I haven't done the face, the bone or the metal on it, but I am pretty happy with how the actual flesh has turned out.

First I basecoated the model in Chaos Black, and all the mechanical components got a layer of Boltgun Metal. I followed this with two slightly thined coats of Orkhide Shade from the foundation range, to give me a dark green base on the flesh.

After the Orkhide Shade and Boltgun basecoats - it just means
that the recesses will actually be a very dark green instead of pure black, which
I find does help it look better in the long run - black often looks too unnatural for me.

Next, I drybrushed over this heavily with Dark Angels Green to pick out the details, leaving the Orkhide Shade showing in the recesses.

This is it just after the Dark Angels Green - it makes a huge difference

This was followed by a 1:2 Bleached Bone:Dark Angels Green drybrushed to pick out more of the details, followed by another in a 1:1 ratio.Finally, I did two washes of Thraka Green to tie all the highlights together and help blend them to look more natural.

This is after the highlights and Thraka Green wash, but
before the 'ripped' flesh has received all of its highlights

For the 'ripped' flesh, I painted them first in a 1:1 ratio of Bleached Bone:Dark Angels Green before the washes, followed by highlights in 2:1 and 3:1 ratios. This then had a Thraka Green wash applied just to those areas. This was to darken the recesses of these areas, while still keeping them paler than the rest of the flesh.

As a start to the armour, I did a 1:2 Chaos Black:Red Gore coat on the plating that is going to be dark red, and a all over Gryphonne Sepia wash to all of the metal components that were previously just Boltgun Metal.

This is the current state it is in - the ripped flesh has been lightened and highlighted, and the claw has had its heavy Gryphonne Sepia wash and the plating has been painted dark red. 

I still have the details on the torso, like the spine and the showing metal cables, as well as the connectors at the bottom and the head of the beast to do, and will try to make time to do more work on the machine parts of this model, but so far I'm happy with how he's turning out - a nice alternative to the usually red Soul Grinders!