Chaos Dwarfs - Magma Cannon & Leaders Progress

Hopefully my Dwarfs will be a bit more menacing looking than this.

Painting updates have been a bit sparse of late, but the past couple of days I've been barelling through the Chaos Dwarfs to try and make some progress.  My poor Magma Cannon and its three crew, along with three Chaos Dwarf heroes & lords, have been sitting part-done for ages.  I'm about to go back to work after a weeks holiday and I really wanted these to be mostly done by then.

First things first, I tidied up the figures and got the base coats complete.  These were the same key colours as before - Caliban Green for a dark green armour, Mephiston Red for a slightly dark red vehicle, Silver and Bronze scattered around the metal.

The only notably different colour used here was a brighter Blood Red for the magma in the chimney!

After base coating.

 Of course, base coating is a bit drab on its own.  Thankfully,a splashing of Quickshade all over the figures helped bring out all the detail...

 

Cannon after quickshade.

The infantry in particular really changed after a quickshade, moving from "block colours" to "looking good enough to drop on the table" very quickly.

Leaders after quickshade.

 Next up came highlighting.  Although a little bit of edge highlighting for Warpstone Green, Dwarf Flesh and Blood Red was used, I mostly go with quick and dirty drybrushing.  The severed head in particular got this - the evil Chaos Dwarf would hardly be holding a pristine head, so it got drybrushed Dwarf Flesh, Warpstone Green and Bleached Bone to give it a rotting look.

Dwarf Flesh was the only thing I really layered on rather than drybrushed since it was going on a mainly flat area.

Dwarfs after highlighting

 The cannon also got highlighting - mainly Blood Red over the Mephiston Red...  But I also used drybrushing to try and dirty up the figure since a war machine shouldn't be pristine. First dark brown Rhinox Hide, then ash Adeptus Battlegrey and finally Coat D'Arms browny-red Rust were drybrushed onto the wheels, rim of the magma chimney and bottom edges of the vehicle.

Cannon after drybrushing.

 The intention was, especially with the heavy dry-brushing at the rim of the cannon, to make it look "used".  It's been dragged through mud and ash, occasionally stopping to shoot out burning hot magma blasts.  Contrasted with the brighter silver in the middle, it should be clear which is the business end.

Detail of front of cannon and wheels.

 Finally there was the magma.  I put Blood Red, then Army Painter Lava Orange, then modern GW Yriel Yellow in one at a time and mixed them together - always putting the new lighter colour in the in middle and swirling out.  I'm hardly an expert at blending but my hope was to create a hot magma look - I'll need to wait till it dries, but right now it seems far too thin and streaky.  Perhaps a glaze will tie it together?

Detail of magma chimney.

I think with the crew glued onto the cannon, the leaders based and maybe a little bit of work on the magma these figures should be done.  I'd really like to move onto Dreadball Xtreme or the Imperial Knight but I think I might be better sticking with the Chaos Dwarfs, make them up some more Hobgoblin slaves so that I've got a decent sized army and I get a game in sometime before the next general election.