Saint Sickolas

If you have one primarch, you have a centrepiece model. If you have two primarchs, you have an incomplete collection...

So I guess this was always going to happen.

I'm always apprehensive about painting big models, so I took on a couple of new tactics when I acquired Mortarion a month ago:

• I was just going to paint him to enjoy myself, and not go for 'box art' perfection.
• I wanted him to feature in the narrative campaign finale, so I had an immovable deadline.

And, for once, it worked! I had a grand time painting Mortarion, and managed to get him painted up over a fairly leisurely fortnight. A very different experience to my other two god-tier models - Magnus the Red and the Lord of Change - who both took a lot longer and required a pause in between to recover my nerve.

For Mortarion, I opened up my box of tricks and cheats: overbrushing the armour, layering the roves, technical paints over metallics. All very fun and produced a much better outcome than the effort expended.

• Armour: Death World Forest overbrush, Nurgling Green overbrush, Zandri Dust drybrush, Althonian Camoshade wash
• Armour trim: Screaming Bell, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Cloaks: Xerus Purple base, Agrax Earthshade wash, Daemonette Hide layer
• Smoke: Thunderhawk Blue base, Ulthuan Grey blend
• Weapons: Mourngfang brown, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Metal: Leadbelcher, Agrax Earthshade wash, Typhus Corrosion wash, Reza Rust drybrush
• Mutated flesh: Screamer Pink, Agrax Earthshade wash, Reikland Flesh highlights, Druchii Violet glaze
• Scythe: Zandri Dust base, Screaming Skull drybrush, Skeleton Horde contrast
• Wings: Mournfang Brown base, Wraithbone base, Skeleton Horde contrast, Garaghak's Sewer details
• Horns: Dryad Bark, Zandri Dust drybrush
• Wings: Ulthuan Grey, Lamenter's Yellow glaze
• Nurgle's Rot effects

The only tricky part is that Mortarion doesn't really have an obvious place to hold, which can make things awkward. And his nurgling cherubs on chains seem very fragile.

The wings were a little cheat that I was especially proud of, not least because they were the ones that seemed most intimidating.

Keeping them on the sprue (with only the minimum number of tabs holding them in place) I sprayed them with a rattle can of Mournfang Brown, then gave the lower halves a lighter rattle can spray of Wraithbone (to give them that airbrush fade on a rattle can budget). Then a glaze of Skeleton Horde contrast and picking out some of the sinews with Garaghak's Sewer contrast. Done!

I guess there's nothing stopping me from Angron now...