Crimson Slaughter: which red color to use?

I’m currently painting my Execution Force models, and as I’ve finished all the cultists (yeah!) I’m now focusing on the Chaos Space Marines. They are three plus the Chaos Sorcerer, the background of the game tells us they’re from the Crimson Slaughter chapter.

When looking at the official artwork of the game, I realized they’re painted using Mephiston Red, which is also the base color of the Blood Angels chapter.

That color looks like a warm red, a red that’s closer to orange than to blue. It’s a great color when you want to paint clean/bright models in red, but for Chaos force? Is it really good?

I don’t think so and I wanted my Crimson Slaughter forces to look a bit different from the Blood Angels, to contrast with them at first glance. I also wanted them to look darker than loyalist Space Marines, they’re corrupted, their armor color should show that, or at least suggest it.

I decided to go with Khorne red as my base, and I really like the result. That color is very similar to Mephiston Red but with a blue-ish tone. When you base your model with it (with two thin coats applied on a Chaos Black primer, as always) you get a … crimson tone! This is perfect. That red looks like a Mephiston red shaded with Nuln oil, directly out of the box.

Once the base coat is done, I then paint the armour details with Baltazar Gold and all I need to do is to shade the whole armour with Agrax Earthshade.

Highlights work very well then with washes of Khorne Red. It’s also possible to finish the highlights with small touches of Evil Sunz Scarlet to get a sharp finish.

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Severin Drask, the Chaos Sorcerer

Once I finished the three Chaos Space marines, I took the boss of the game, the sorcerer. This was really fun to paint! With such a detailed model, you really want to paint separately the main parts: the base, the head, the body and the cloak should be painted separately.

This will ease a lot the painting and will avoid you lots of trouble when accessing all the details. On top of that, I think it adds to the pleasure of finishing the model when you come to a point where you realize you’re ready to glue those parts. This gives a final touch to your work, and as a reward, the model takes instantly life. This is really true when you add the head to the body, obviously.

In my case, I did a mistake and glued the cloak to the armour before painting the model, I really wished I didn’t, but that was too late. It was not a huge mistake, as I managed to work around that, but clearly the painting would have been much easier without that cloak!

Anyway, I’m happy with the result, I think it’s the first time I finish such a big model, and I’m quite happy with what I achieved here. I’m aware this is just basic tabletop painting, no free hand (or so few) but I’m happy with the rather clean finish that I have here. I think I did some progress in the last weeks, I realized I stopped using dry-brushes recently and that might be related… Hmm, troll? Huhu.

Well, enough talking, let’s see some pics of the crazy Severin Drask, the guy who wants to open a Warp hole so big it will slurp the whole solar system.

The renegaded are all there!

Yes, I’m really happy, with this session finished I have painted all the renegades of the Execution Force box, that means all 15 cultists and the 4 Chaos Space marines (well, OK, I still need to paint the familiar, but this will be my candybar when all assassins are done!).

This big milestone deserves a family picture!

See next time with the Assassins painted.
Happy painting to you, dear readers.