Sometimes, you come across a model that just makes you think ‘well, that is going to be a complete pain in the rear to paint.’

For a long time, the Black Coach was my nemesis. Everything about it look awful to paint, with the various ghosties and spooks being wholly different from the coach itself, meaning I would need to select an undercoat to suit one and then work around painting the other. So, spray white to suit ghosts then try to work with black to paint the coach, or spray black and then re-undercoat the spirits to get them done. Add to that, there were obviously a lot of nooks and crannies that would be difficult to get a brush into.

Absolute pain.

My solution? I broke my rule on sub-assemblies once again, and did the four ghosts and driver all separately, and then went further and separated the coach from the horses.

Result? A really easy model to paint and one I began to really quite like when everything was painted and put together!

So, valuable lesson learned. Perhaps I should be embracing the whole sub-assembly idea…

Done this way, the Black Coach is actually a fast and easy model to paint, and a lot larger than you might think looking at photos (which is the opposite of what I will be saying when I paint up Katakros, but I digress…). Seriously, it is nearly a foot long.

During building, the horses were mounted to the base, the four spirits were kept separate, which just left the coach. Horses and spirits were undercoated Corax White, while the coach was done with Chaos Black.

The spirits were the fastest to be done, obviously, as they used the same Hexwraith Flame/Ulthuan Grey approach that I have used with just about every Nighthaunts model. The horses were done in the same way as the Knight of Shrouds steed on the Warhammer TV tutorial (basically start with Hexwraith flame, then use a Lahmian Medium/Incubi Darkness mix on the skin).

The coach was drybrushed with Eshin Grey and Administratum Grey up from the undercoat (which becomes the base coat), then there are just a few details to do – coffin, curtains, suspension and some metal bits. That really is the whole thing!

All that done, it was time to assemble and then touch up the parts that were glued in. Model complete!

For my next project, I may have done a bit of a silly thing – I was going to start a new army with a handful of units, but I spotted that my next planned batch after that used many of the same colours (despite being a completely different force). So… I have combined the batches, which is normally fatal as it can easily kill motivation.

The plan is to get everything done in about a week… which may not be possible. Still, I have started watching Succession while I paint to keep my mind occupied, so it may just be possible, give or take a few days. If all goes well, there will be a big post coming!

(If you do not hear anything new for the next few weeks, you will know it has gone horribly wrong.)