Slaaraask, Ascendant Daemon Prince of Slaanesh

Oh yeah, like I wasn't going to buy this one.

His original name lost to the mists of time, Slaaraask was once a captain in the 28th Company of the III Legion Emperor's Children, one of the most loyal forces in the Imperium. But thousands of years of hiding in the Eye of Terror while leading his own warband, The Carnival of Thorns, has warped and engorged his size to the extreme and has twisted his once regal purple-and-gold Mk IV armour into a parody of itself.

Slaaraask's countless kills and eternal devotion to the Prince of Pleasure in pursuing every possible extreme of sensation has led Slaanesh to elevate him from a mere Traitor Marine to an Ascendant Daemon Prince, giving Slaaraask even more power and ability to spread terror and death.

First off, this model is way bigger than I thought it would be. From the photo on Etsy it looked to be a bit taller than a Primaris Marine. He's actually about three inches tall and fits on a 60mm base, which made him pretty easy to paint over the weekend.

I started by priming him black all over and then basecoating him with Royal Purple. Once dry I mixed the first highlight, using Royal Purple and Pink in a 2:1 ratio, and drybrushed it on with a makeup brush. I added more Pink for the second round of highlights and then painted in Druchii Violet to deepen some of the shadows.

Next up was his skin, which I basecoated with Vallejo Heavy Grey, a kind of warm grey with lots of pink in it. I washed the skin with Guilliman Flesh and then highlighted with a mix of Heavy Grey and Rakarth Flesh until I thought it looked good. I painted in his eyes with pure White and dabbed on a few coats of Pylar Glacier contrast until I got the pale blue look I wanted.

Although the Emperor's Children's purple armour was originally trimmed with gold, I went for silver as I wanted something different. I had to paint all the trim Celestra Grey to give the silver a good basecoat, and then go over it all again with Stormhost Silver, so that was fun. But it looks good.

His warped backpack was also painted Stormhost Silver and then had a once-over with Magos Purple contrast for a cool metallic pink tint. Despite saying in my Charon post that I don't have much luck with purple contrast paints, this time it worked really well.

One annoying thing about Slaaraask is that he doesn't have any Slaanesh icons on his armour, just three basic Chaos stars. I'm guessing this is because of copyright reasons, but as I own a sheet of Slaanesh transfers I was bugged about having nowhere to put them.

The Chaos stars were originally going to be silver, but I thought that I needed some more colours so I painted them Flat Blue and then did my best to layer on Deep Sky Blue and White in a kind of gradient. The eyes in the middle of the stars were done in silver then painted over with Aeldari Emerald.

His whopping sword was painted Heavy Blue and then drybrushed with Flat Blue, Deep Sky Blue and White to get something that I guess could generously be called a gradient. 

Finally, I painted the bony bits sticking out of his armour Sybarite Green and went over them with some more Aelderi Emerald.

Slaaraask's base is painfully basic, embarrassingly so. I just slathered on a bunch of Stirland Mud and built it up here and there to add some bumps, and once it dried overnight I drybrushed on Tallarn Sand and Buff. I dug about in the bits box and found a Khorne Bloodletter skull, painted it with various reds and stuck it in place.

Slaaraask turned out looking bloody great. Amazingly, despite being an Emperor's Children fan since my Epic 40K days back in the early 90s and a Slaanesh fan since the 'Eavy Metal days of the late 80s, this is the first III Legion marine I've painted since getting back into the hobby seven years ago.

And talking of Emperor's Children...

Back in May, me and Alicia took a weeklong trip to California. It was the first time I'd been back in almost five years and so top of my list was a visit (or three) to Brookhurst Hobbies, the store in Garden Grove at which I'd spent many happy hours and dollars over the years.

I originally went in for paints, some of which I needed to stock up on and others I'd seen used in tutorials. I had a budget of about $75 for this, but unfortunately when I'm on holiday little things like "bills" and "the mortgage" cease to exist. So, after picking up the paints I wanted, I also ended up walking out with these:

Yes, that is $248 worth of heretical perverts. After seeing beautifully painted versions of the new Emperor's Children online, as well as being amazed that Games Workshop finally paid attention to the boys in pink, I really wanted to pick them up. I did originally look at proxies on Etsy and bought a few, but luckily Alicia's attitude to me going to a hobby store is to hand me her credit card and tell me to have fun. So I did.

You're probably wondering when I'm going to get around to painting these, and so am I. So, for that matter, is Alicia, 'cos after all technically she paid for these. 

Stay tuned for more!