Joel is one of the star painters here on Warhammer Community, who often likes to work in black and white. So when he saw the majestic new Iridan the Witness miniature, he knew he had to crack out the monochromes…
I didn’t originally plan on painting any Stormcast Eternals, but when I saw the artwork of Yndrasta on the novel cover, I was inspired to paint her up as a small, one-off project. She comes with some other miniatures too though, so I of course had to paint them, right? I loved her white-gold armour and decided to use that as my colour scheme for my whole army.
Then came Skaventide, with a whole host of gorgeous new Stormcast Eternals sculpts, and I have found myself painting my way through that set too. When I saw the creepy, executioner vibes of Iridan the Witness I was pleased to find the lore perfectly reflects the miniature…
I call myself a painter first, but I’m always reluctant to part-build models. In this case, however, I knew it was going to require some thinking since Iridan is a large, centrepiece character. You’re always going to hit issues painting cavalry with the rider glued in already, not to mention a mount with huge wings!
Since the Morrgryph is built first, I had planned to leave the wings off to paint separately but was pleasantly surprised that the wings can be push-fitted into the body. This is great for painting Iridan separately, while still being able to paint Ariax as one piece. The right foot also slots into the base piece which means you can paint the rubble on the base separately too.
Once I finished building, I had the mount as one piece (with the wings removable), the terrain section on the base, and then Iridan themself in five pieces.
I decided early on that I wanted them to stand out in my collection. I was thinking about how Space Marine Chaplains have black armour regardless of the chapter colours, but since my bases for my Stormcast army are black and I wanted to keep the mount black too, I came to the conclusion that white would work effectively, but to keep the trim in the same gold as the rest of my Stormcast Eternals so it all tied together.
The upside of the part-build was that I could spray Iridan with White Scar spray, and Ariax in Chaos Black. This did mean that I had to paint white over black on his armour panels though. I used some thin washes of Naggaroth Night and Xereus Purple over the ends of the wings, and painted some feather details into them before washing them with some thinned down Nuln Oil. I wanted a really subtle purple colour to the wings like Ravens seem to have.
After many thin layers of Grey Seer, Ulthuan Grey, and White Scar, I managed to get all the armour panels painted white. Then, I proceeded to a coat of Soulblight grey, followed by a final White Scar highlight.
After getting those main colours down, I used Liberator Gold which is less bright, and once highlighted up to Runefang Steel, offers a lovely white-gold. I also painted in all the black cloth sections. Painting black over white is always going to be a tough one, so I used three thin coats of Abaddon Black, going very slowly to make sure I didn’t get any black where I didn’t want it to go.
For silver, I like to start with a dark tone and highlight up, so I began with Iron Warriors, and after a Nuln Oil shade I used an all-over highlight of Iron Hands Steel, then a more selective highlight of Runefang Steel.
The cloaks are where I added my other main army colour, which is Gal Vorbak Red with Screamer Pink layered over it. Normally I paint the inside of the cloaks white, but since Iridan has white armour I decided to use it for both sides. I didn’t fully highlight this yet, as I wanted to make sure to glue it together first, neaten it up a little and then apply highlights when it’s in one piece.
At this point I also tackled the leather straps and reins. Wanting them to stay quite dark I used Dryad Bark and highlighted them with Steel Legion Drab and a small amount of Karak Stone. After that, I painted all the metal I hadn’t already gotten to, which was mostly buckles and studs.
For the base, the stone is Eshin Grey, with Dawnstone and Grey Seer drybrushed over it. The wood was the same set of colours I used for the leather, except using drybrushed highlights rather than manual highlighting.
My bases are inspired by Reynisfjara, a black beach in Iceland, so I also like to add some thinned-down Poxwalker to give the stone and wood a sort of Algae-covered look. Once the basing texture is down, I paint that Abaddon black too, then drybrush it with Skavenblight Dinge and Stormvermin Fur. The last touch is some resin water effect to give the base a wet look.
As I stuck it all together, I highlighted Ariax’s hood with Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue, just so it stood out as cloth over the other more natural black colours.
To finish the miniature off I had to paint in the scrolls and the smoke/magic effects on their weapon and backpiece. I loved painting these blends, even if they’re far from perfect! I started with Lothern Blue, but used Baharroth Blue, Blue Horror, and all the way to White Scar in very thin layers for the light sections, then used Teclis Blue and shading down to Abaddon Black for the dark sections.
The last part is always my favourite, adding freehand numerals, symbols, and script to scrolls. I also feel like this is a nice way to personalise those large armour areas.
As always, I had one last look around to make sure I’d not missed anything before I considered the model finished. I had a lot of fun painting this kit, and it was really nice to mix up the colours while still working them into my overall army scheme.
I still have a few kits left from Skaventide so I really need to get those done (I’m looking at you, Lord-Terminos…) but I also think I may have to pick up some of those fancy new Palladors when they come out!
Thanks Joel! Iridan and the rest of their Stormcast Eternals allies are available to pre-order this Saturday.
