The team at Warhammer Community interviewed me for the Age of Sigmar Open Day in 2018, where I won gold in both of the painting competition categories I entered. You can read the whole article here, or keep reading below.
Richard Gray had great success at the Golden Demon event that took place at this year’s Warhammer Age of Sigmar Open Day, bagging himself a gold in both of the categories he entered – not bad for his first time at this particular event! Here he talks us through his choice of miniatures and how he went about painting his entries. If you’re looking to try your hand at Golden Demon (or any other painting competition, for that matter), you’ll definitely want to read on!
Richard: Entering the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Golden Demon was a new experience for me as I usually paint Warhammer 40,000 models for competition, especially models that feature plenty of opportunities for freehand. I’d missed the previous Golden Demon event for Warhammer Age of Sigmar, so I was very excited to see which models other people would enter. I’m a big fan of the Nurgle range and was immediately drawn to Rotigus, the new named Great Unclean One character. The model is as amazing as it is massive, and features a bewildering amount of detail, so I knew it would be a challenge to paint.
One thing I really wanted to try with Rotigus was to make him unique and colourful, while still keeping that wonderful Nurgle theme. To achieve this I went a bit wild with some of my colour choices, particularly on the hood and staff of the model. I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I went about painting the hood, so here’s the answer: I used Abaddon Black, Lothern Blue and Ceramite White, then glazed the recesses with Mephiston Red to get a lovely dark red and light blue contrast. The main details were Lothern Blue painted on in a textured effect (which was basically just me wiggling the brush as I applied the paint). I then added more and more Ceramite White to the Lothern Blue to pick out details in this texture.
The staff was a veritable rainbow of corruption, starting from Abaddon Black and Rhinox Hide at the bottom and then going through Mournfang Brown, Trollslayer Orange, Moot Green, Lothern Blue and Ceramite White. Once blended together, I went over all of the details and picked them out with lighter versions of the colours.
I was originally going to paint the skin smooth, but with my penchant for detail it really wasn’t exciting me. After a bit of thought, I decided that a pointillism* effect would be perfect on the skin as it would make it look textured, almost like a frog. Once I’d painted a large patch of dots I realised the terrible challenge I’d set myself as the surface area of Rotigus is huge! This was compounded by the fact that the effect had to be layered on. First of all, I had to paint the skin a pinkish colour (I went for Cadian Fleshtone), with all of the highlights and shadows painted on. This worked as a base for the dots, which I then made one tone lighter than the colour of the base tone they were going over. The deepest shadows were pure Rhinox Hide, so I just mixed in a small amount of Cadian Fleshtone for the dots in the deep shadows. The lightest dots were Ushabti Bone on top of a Kislev Flesh highlight to save having to mix a colour. When you have a model this large to paint, then anything to make life a bit easier is a must! After all of the dots (I gave up counting, so don’t ask!), I had to glaze the whole of the model using Moot Green, focusing more on the shadowed areas whilst being very subtle on the lightest skin areas. The result is that there is quite a large, but subtle, tonal and colour range on the skin.
My trials continued during the week leading up to the competition due to the change in the weather. It became very hot, and with my painting lamps adding to the heat, my paint was drying a little too fast. This proved to be a real challenge, as I still had nearly half of the model left to paint! As is usual with Golden Demon, I’d massively overestimated how much I could paint in the time available. On a couple of occasions, I even considered giving up, as it seemed an insurmountable challenge, but I’m incredibly happy I stuck with it.
By the day of the competition, I was a little sad that I hadn’t managed to finish the model in the way I had wanted. In particular, I’d hoped to paint the two Nurglings that can be attached to the model – especially the one that sits on his belly and has the censer billowing daemonic smoke!
Regardless of that, I was excited to see how Rotigus would go down. There were some amazing entries in the cabinets, with some impressive Greater Daemons of Tzeentch and an imposing version of Morathi. As the day came to a close, we all gathered around the stage for the Golden Demon results. As the three Monster category winners were called out in reverse, my heart rate rose as my name wasn’t called for either the bronze or silver award – fortunately it was because I had won gold! With a big grin on my face, I climbed onto the stage to claim my trophy.
To top my day off, I also received another gold trophy for my entry in the Unbound category! This was quite a shock, as it was an older Lord of Plagues model that I had painted and hadn’t originally been intended as a Golden Demon entry. Nurgle had indeed smiled on me!
Despite my victory, the day after the competition, I went straight to work painting the Nurglings for Rotigus. Now they are snugly sitting in their intended place, I feel the model is complete. I’d like to thank the event organisers and Golden Demon judges for a great day. I’ll definitely be painting some more Warhammer Age of Sigmar models now that I have a taste for it!
Thanks, Richard, and congratulations on your pair of gold trophies! If you think you’ve got what it takes to win a Golden Demon (or two!), then check out the Events Calendar, which details all the dates and locations that the various competitions that will be taking place throughout the year.
* A painting technique where dots of colour are used to form an image, blend into different tone or, in this case, create a texture.