Painting a Chaos Soul Grinder for Warhammer 40K

My next challenge. Matthew and Benjamin earned their orange belts today at their dojo and as a reward, I told them I'd buy each a small boxed set. Benjamin chose a set of Tomb King skeletons and Matthew wanted a Soulgrinder (he has to give me $15 to make up the difference). We picked these up this afternoon from the store. My goal is to get the Soulgrinder assembled and painted by next week. Matthew wants the standard box art look, so it should go together pretty fast.

Step-by-Step

Saturday. Got most of the subassemblies clipped out and assembled. It was 10PM when I started, so we didn't get much done on day 1. However, I can already see the kit will need a lot of filing and filling.

Sunday - I must say that after putting the newer plastic kits together, I've been spoiled by how well the Games Workshop kits go together. The Soul Grinder is NOT one of the newer kits ... grrrr. The upper body of the soulgrinder assembled pretty nicely, but none of the leg halves seems to really want to fit nicely together, so they all required a lot of filing, scraping, and filling, which I finished up in the morning. You'll notice that I've kept all of the pieces separate. I did this for ease of painting, but in hindsight, I should have glued the legs into position before priming. In this case, the ease of assembly would have outweighed the ease of painting gains. The leg and arm shields as well as the upper body would have stayed separate.

As soon as the filling putty dried and was sanded down, I primed the entire figure black, then gave all of the metallic pieces (most of the figure) a very heavy drybrush of Citadel Tin Bitz and then VMC Gunmetal with a #10 brush. The upper body and hoses got a basecoat of Mechrite Red (Foundation). Most of this was applied with a #4 flat brush. The edges were cleaned up with a smaller brush. The spine was basecoated in Dheneb Stone (Foundation)

Monday - Basecoats almost done. I should be able to assemble the legs tomorrow night and then wash everything either tomorrow or Wednesday, which will give me 2 days for highlighting and details.

Tuesday Morning - Glued and positioned the legs. Because the ball joints were primed, this required some scraping and green stuffing. As mentioned earlier, I should have attached the legs first. Oh well. The upper body is still detachable. The fit it pretty snug, so I probably won't end up having to glue it at all.

Tuesday Night - Gave the figure the standard Paynes Grey wash and then started on the brass trim for the plates with VMC Brassy Brass.

Wednesday Night - Highlighted the skin with Citadel Blood Red, Citadel Blazing Orange, and a little bit of Citadel Golden Yellow. Most of this was applied with a #10 flat brush. I used a little bit of VMC Glaze Medium to thin the paint and extend the working time. I also got through most of the face (Reaper Polished Bone for the teeth, Scorpion Green for the eyes, Bestial Brown and Bleached Bone for the horns) ... need to give the teeth some Devlan Mud and then another highlight of Reaper Polished Bone. Tried out the shin plates for fit ... still need to give the edging some Devlan Mud and clean up the black. After that, I think all I have left is the sword, the tubing, and highlighting the sliver.

Thursday - Finished washing the brass edging on the plates with Devlan Mud (Wash) and broke out the Rub n' Buff for the sword and face on the arm plate as well as for highlighting the metal. The hoses on the body were done with Scorpion Green and then washed with Thrakka Green. The cables were basecoated Scorched Brown, highlighted with VMC Brassy Brass, and then washed with Devlan Mud (Was). After today, I think I will seal tomorrow afternoon and assemble the plates and then call it done.

Rub n' Buff is an interesting product that bears mentioning. It's a wax that's used in antiquing. You typically apply with a sponge applicator. I buy mascara sponges at my local drug store, but you can also use a piece of foam from the blister pack. It gives a very nice, smooth metallic finish. Here's a close up of what it looks like. I used the flat and tip to apply the wax to the large surfaces on the arm plate and sword and the flat edges to highlight the curves of the blades and the hard edges of the chassis.

Friday Morning - Glued the plates to the legs and arms. I think I still want to add some washing/tinting to the pistons and all, but I'm essentially done and within the desired time frame.

Post Mortem

As mentioned in the intro, the lower half of the model is a pain to assemble. The upper part was OK. All in all, it's an interesting model to paint because of the mix of organic and mechanical. It's nice that the upper body fits the chassis snuggly without gluing so that you can swap out for a Defiler if you wanted to. In hindsight, I would recommend gluing the legs in place before priming and painting. I did them separately because I thought they would be hard to get to, but that just isn't the case. You should however, leave the shields off and attach them at the end.

Notes

Last updated	6/6/09
Author	Michael Kan
Pre-requisites	None
Related Articles	None