Painting Dwarf Irondrakes

I now have less than 2 weeks to prepare for Convic, and I haven't exactly made grand progress thus far. I have a group of 10 Thunderers who are about half-done, and I've painted a small batch of Irondrakes. This post is obviously about the latter, given they're actually done.

I've talked previously about how I don't particularly like the models as provided by GW, and did my best to add some variety to their poses and alter their appearance before I painted them. Nevertheless, when I sat down to paint them, I found myself scratching my head a bit. I painted all the armour (ie, basically the whole model) and then picked out the gold detailing, but the unit looked pretty bland and I didn't feel like it would match the brighter colours of the rest of my army at all. So I started experimenting with adding some spot colour.

6 painted Dwarf Irondrakes with random splotches of colour.

I don't think the armoured skirts were the most effective place for the colour, but I won't go back and undo it.

After the helmets, I think the coloured arm guards were the next most effective thing.

I went with red and orange, because it seemed appropriate for the fiery nature of the weapons the unit carries. I painted various parts of the armour on different models, including the helmets on a few. In the end, I think I am most happy with the red helmets. It's a prominent location for the bold colour, and I think it adds to the overall appearance. I could take or leave most of the rest, but having started with this rather haphazard approach, I will probably just stick with it for the rest of the unit in order to make them work together.

Hopefully I will knock the remaining Thunderers over in the next couple of days, and then I can get on with painting another 10 of the Irondrakes. Maybe then the Miners. Or the characters. Oh, man...