Archaon the Everchosen on a huge f#£*ng beast
This is THE biggest model I have ever painted to date and for any foreseeable future. I started the project more than two years ago, as part of a Warhammer Chaos force I have been painting on a friendly commission. I started out with the best intentions of wanting to do my very best on this absolute beast of a piece, but ended up with a half finished project that sat dormant on a shelve for years.
My humblest apologies Dark Master, I kept you waiting for years. Take what ever is left of my soul and throw it away for eternal damnation.
The Beginning
After spending many hours looking at other peoples work on the internet, I settled on a paint scheme that wasn’t to far from that of GWs own, using the same dark blue tone for the beasts hide as I had used on several other parts on models in the army. It is a Khorne army, which means a lot of red, but I wanted to do Archaon in a color that stands apart from the rest of the army, but still fit in. Doing a primary color that I had used as a secondary color on other models, is a great way of tying the piece in with the rest of the army. And if I remember correctly, Archaon is Undivided and serves no particular chaos god, which is also resembled in the model that has three heads, each representing Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch. Sadly Slaanesh is missing, which I suspect is because GW had concerns about the PG rating of their toys at that time.
The Illness
All hyped up and super eager to paint, I went to work with my airbrush. I finished the leathery parts of the wings using mostly airbrush first, but then I realized that the sheer size of this model was going to be a challenge in itself. Paying attention to detail but also having to paint a huge surface, is like sweeping the deck of an aircraft carrier with a toothbrush. To remain in the terminology of aviation what happended next was that I simply stalled. I ran out of momentum and however many hours I poured into this beast, I couldn’t see any progress. Worse even yet, I started suffering from a sort of tunnel vision, where I was unable to visualize how I wanted the finished piece to look. Usually, when I paint a normal sized model, I sort of figure stuff out as I go along, as gradually the piece begins to resemble a finished model. That was not going to be the case with Archaon. I had a plan for doing a fire/lava effect in the recesses of the beasts’ hide, but it meant I had to do several layers of blending white and orange in very, very small parts of the model on many, many numerous places. So eventually Archaon hit the shelve of work-in-progress models. (AKA the place that projects go to die).
The Cure
So for the next year and a half, it just sat there on my shelf, starring at me with its cold grey unpainted eyes. I started other projects along the way, but still, it loomed in the background as a constant reminder of my own failure. Worse yet, this was a commission piece. Deals had been struck, oaths were sworn and signed in blood. In the end, I think what saved this project and forced me to finish it, was actually knowing that someone had an expectation of me finishing the piece. So I made a decision, that this piece, was not going to be the master paintjob, to rule all other paintjobs. This piece, however, was going to be finished. And so instead of having a goal of doing my outmost, I set a goal of simply painting every part with a traditional basecoat, shade and a simple highlight. Gradually as I could actually begin to see progress on the model, my desire to finish it came back. Another important turning point was when I listened to an episode of the podcast; trapped under plastic, where they talked about how to paint entire armies. The realization was that, just as with armies, you need a consistent look, but can get away with not doing all the detail as long as there are some parts of the painjob that stand out, parts that draw the attention of the eye such as a bold or contrasting color. So for example I painted Archaons sword in a bold bright flame effect, whereas the rest of Archaon himself is just a simple two metalic color painjob, with a layer of Nuln Oil.
And so finally, when all the parts were painted I decided that the model is done. There are still parts of the model that I could easily invest several more hours in, but honestly, on such a large model I don’t think anyone will notice.
As a final warning for other painting entusiasts, that want to test their skills and gamble their sanity on this model, I will say this: Wear protective glasses! The claws on the wings of this thing are razor sharp and on numerous occasions I nearly gouged my eyes out.
Slowlypainted 