How to (speed-)paint Bloodletters properly red

How do you paint Bloodletters properly red as most highlights tend to turn them rather orange. It is quite tempting to say a quick apologetic prayer to the Blood God and just go for white or bone colored Bloodletters. It even has the added bonus of red showing up quite well on white. But I personally like my bloodcrazed maniacs looking red. So for those interested here's my technique. It's a very quick way to get these guys painted.

Do you have a minute to talk about our lord and saviour Khorne?

I like to speed paint these kinds of units. In the case of these Bloodletters I was extra motivated by the fact that I just wanted to finish them. They'd been languishing in a (by now classic) Warhammer Fantasy box in a closet. As I've been working on reducing my backlog I decided it was time to get this box out of the shame-zone. I assembled them on a Thursday evening, picking an icon over a banner to save myself time freehanding. I stuck them to 32mm bases because they look better on slighty larger bases.

Don't mind the Crimson Fist squad in the background of the image, I hated my paint job so much they've been dipped in Biostrip already. 

On Friday evening I primed the group with Vallejo German Red Brown Surface Primer. The most basic trick to painting a proper red is the base color. Red over white turns pink and red over black turns 'gloopy' (not really a color, but there you have it). Red needs brown to work so starting out with a brown, especially a red brown, makes life easy. I've been using Vallejo Surface Primer from an airbrush for quite some time now. It gives me a very thin and sturdy layer to work from. Although the first hour after application it is rather fragile. You need to blow dry it a bit directly after applying and then give it a night to properly cure. In the background you can see another speed painting project in progress while I was working on these guys (cliche silver Necron Warriors).

As an extra step I filled a few hideous gaps in the heads that I missed during assembly with Vallejo Plastic Putty.

The next step to painting a proper vivid red is applying a subcoat of white. I just put Vallejo Model Color White in an airbrush and went for a zentihal+ spray. With a proper Zentihal spray you hit the models from an angle above (where you think the light comes from). This tends to obscure a lot of lower details (the chests of these hunched over Bloodletters for instance). So for my first layer I go for a 'Zenithal stage light. I hit from the sides as well, carefully hitting every detail I want with a bit of white from a (more or less) angle to keep some shadows going.

I spent a bit of time looking at the original RoC Bloodletters. Snakelike monsters with small blades. Then I looked at the models between these and back then. I'm glad they leaned a bit closer to the originals for these daemons.

After applying the white it is time for the first layer of red. I've used Vallejo Game Color Bloody Red here. Thin this layer down with Flow Improver (or Airbrush Thinner) and be careful not to get the red on too thick. You want the white to show through. For those of you going 'hey shouldn't that be pink!' It should, but the white has a bit of the brown layer showing through, alleviating this (I think). Anyway go for a thin layer. Paint has a tendency to go slightly more opaque as it dries. So a thin coat covers more than you'd think at first. If you still think its too thin after it dries, you can always apply a second thin coat. Scraping paint off on the other hand, is not a very attractive option.

There's something wonderfully destructive about srpaying blobs of white on models that looked reasonably nice just before. 

After congratulating yourself on a splendid red paintjob, break out the white again and give extreme details another blast. I mostly focused on their faces, hands and backs. I recently say the pharse 'faces and bases' as a universal theory of making models look good. Sounds rather legit. This time it is wise to stick to true zenithal lighting. Hit the models from above. No cheating and spraying from the bottom up or sides!

Now that is what I like to call red.

After the second coat of white apply another thin coat of red. By now the red should be popping out like a 'towering inferno in progress' fire alert.

Adding a wash the get the details to the surface.

Next up I hit the lower halves of the model with a very thin spray of a thinned down purple. Just to make them look a bit more interesting. I made sure to apply the purple thin enough to allow the red to shine through. After that I mixed 1/3 Nuln Oil, 1/3 Agrax Earthshade with a mix of 1/3 Matte Medium/Water/dish washer (50/50+1 drop*) and gave the models a reasonably intense wash. I used a brush to take away the worst pooling.

*I invested in some dropper bottles to have a mix like this handy.

Adding brass to make Khorne smile.

Next I painted all the things that needed a bronze or gold metallic look with Scale75 Decayed Metal (my favorite color du jour). At this point I forgot to take more pictures (of course) so the rest will be down to the written word. I washed the gold/brass parts with Agrax and gave them a drybrush with GW Runelord Brass. Then I spent a lot of time agonizing over the color of the swords. I did not really want to go for fiery orange, blue would look odd, green would make for great contrast but also make little sense from a story perspective. In the end I decided to go for a clean silver metal look. After all the blood god can be expected to hand out truly sharp objects. I applied a metal to a sword and it looked awful. So I shrugged and painted the horns and swords Vallejo Nato Black. Then I used the same white subcoat technique on the swords. This time I applied orange followed by yellow. After the swords dried I added a thin layer of Tamiya Clear Red to tie it all together.

Now this would be a proper moment for you average villager to hide under the bed.

With the swords done I lightly drybrushed the faces with an orange just to make the details stand out a bit more. I picked out the eyes with white followed by yellow. I gave the eyeballs a line of Nato Black to make the stares more menacing. I spent a glorious bit of time adding blood to the banner and picking out the skulls. I applied Minitaire Ghost Tint Purple to the tongues (a GW contrast color would do here as well). I also painted teeth and fingernails GW Ushabiti Bone and gave them a quick wash of Agrax.

The blad on the bottom left shows off how wonderful Tamiya Clear Red can be.

And with that I painted ten Bloodletters. Total time spent: two evenings, a Saturday afternoon and a bit of my Sunday morning. I'm quite sure Khorne does not approve. After all I could've been outside screaming bloody murder while waving an axe about. But that wouldn't really get any models finished now, would it?