Once you've removed all the flash and glued the model to the base, use PVA glue to add fine or medium stones. Leaving a few blank spots on the base will make it look like the rubble-strewn floor of a fallen hold. Once the model is undercoated black, get busy with either Boltgun Metal or Chainmail (my choice here). As the Ironbreaker is 80% armour, apply a heavy drybrush (some refer to as a wetbrush) to the entire model. The beard, hair, and base will get covered, but we can worry about that later. Working with four or five models at a time will give the paint time to dry and get the group growing quickly.

Mix up a batch of 1/3 Brown Ink, 1/3 Black Ink, and 1/3 water and apply it to the entire model. This wash will fill the crevices and give the model depth. Note: if in a hurry, this step can be omitted. Next, paint the weapon handle, the knife on side, the beard, and hair Scorched Brown. At this stage, fully paint the base. Dwarfs are very stunty, and a quick drybrush later will likely cover the feet and lower body with unwanted paint. For the dungeon feel, drybrush the base heartily with Codex Grey, followed by a standard drybrush of Fortress Grey, and then a very light brushing of Skull White. Touch up the feet with a re-application of Chainmail and the ink mix.

Use Bestial Brown to paint the weapon shafts. If wood grain is visible, carefully drybrush this area and you'll find that the grain picks up the paint rather nicely. Carefully drybrush the hair and beard with this colour as well. At this stage, cover the runes, eyebrows, mouth guard, chest decoration, and studs (optional) with either Chaos Black or Tin Bitz (my choice). This step will allow the gold paints to show up better after the next few steps.

Time for a little finesse. Lightly drybrush the hair, beard, knife sheath, and weapon shaft with a light brown; Snakebite Leather will do the trick. Next, apply Mithril Silver to all the high spots on the armour and the weapon. Try to avoid coating the studs, runes, and chest decoration that you just coated with Tin Bitz. Carefully paint the runes, chest decoration, studs, eyebrows, and mouth guard with Shining Gold. If you were sloppy and covered some of the studs with Mithril Silver, mix up a small batch of the ink mix, apply a very small drop to each stud and apply the metals once the ink dries. If strapped for time, just leave all the studs silver.

All features coated with Shining Gold in the last step should be evaluated for an application of Burnished Gold. Again, if the model already looks good to you, forgo this added detail. Some weapons have gems and a few Ironbreaker models have jewelry in their beards. These details and others can be addressed at this time. No Ironbreaker is complete without a shield, which is the only real place where your army colorus can be represented. My Dwarf army has a green colour scheme so I gave the interior of the shield a Dark Angels Green coat and then did a Shining Gold/Burnished Gold combo on the embossed axe design, but the shield design is up to you.