When I started collecting Age of Sigmar back in 2017, my main armies were Sylvaneth and Khorne. Sylvaneth are still one of my favourite armies, but, due to several reasons, I sold my Khorne army at some point. One of the main reasons for selling those miniatures was that I messed up the paintjob for the daemonic units. Mortal units were beautifully painted for me by Warbrush studio, but I wanted to paint the Daemons. However, I simply was not able to make the models look the way I wanted. I simply looked at Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers and felt frustrated. On one hand, I committed several painting mistakes while trying to paint those models: not doing enough research on the paint scheme, spending too much time on infantry and not using test models. There were also a few painting accidents, like varnish frosting on freshly painted Bloodcrushers (which resulted in having to repaint some of some of the work), or having to strip down the primer from unit of Bloodletters because of the loss of details and granulation. All of these things combined with my inability to meet my own expectations killed the most of my enthusiasm. I started painting other things and didn't want to even look at these models because they always reminded me of my failure. The only exception to this was Skarbrand. My painting skills were definitely not at the current level back then, but I was proud of how I painted Skarbrand and I still think that it was a pretty good paintjob.
I sold the army to a friend of mine and few years went by. In the meantime, I learned a lot and made a lot of progress with my painting. Somewhere during 2022 I decided to collect Khorne again - but only daemons this time, no mortals (they are fine, but they were simply not what I imagined or wanted to play). I love the aesthetic of those models and the fact that I can use them in AoS, WH40K and WHFB is great. I also enjoy the lore and the playstyle. So I decided to make things right this time.
Right from the beginning, I aimed at a relatively small army - about 1500 points for AoS (since I usually play smaller games) but with the ability to expand to full 2000 points. The fact that I could use those models in other systems was pure bonus - I wanted to primarily build Blades of Khorne army. I also picked which exact models I wanted and managed to buy most of them below regular prices. However, then I learned that the friend I sold my original Khorne army to wants to reduce the number of his AoS armies and was looking for someone to buy his Blades of Khorne. We talked a bit about it and he let me buy my Skarbrand off him for a fair price. That was the model I really enjoyed painting and I was looking forward to getting him back.
So, once I got Skarbrand, I decided to freshen up his paintjob a bit and modify his base. Here is how the model looked like originally:
This picture was taken 5 years ago, on the same day when I have finished painting the model. I think the paintjob is still good, but I wanted to make some details "pop" more, make the base more busy and do some minor corrections on the armour. Here is the model after most of the refresh is done:
I am really happy that this model is now part of my army again - the model is absolutely fantastic and is exactly what I think of when I think of Khorne Daemons. The only details that I want to address in the future are the spikes at the end of the wings - they don't look good and need to be defined some more.
Oh - I forgot to mention the most important thing: my Khorne army is finished! I have met my hobby goal for 2023 and I am very happy because of it. Before the end of the month, I will make a post about it and show the army in all its glory (and also make a recap of my painting in 2023). Stay tuned!
