No one expects.... The Inquisitor's Retinue!

 So there I was digging through a box looking for some bit or other when I came across this assortment of Inquisitor's Retinue that I picked up from my good friend Pat a few years back and didn't manage to paint before packing up the house 2 moves ago!  Since I'm actually in a mood to paint some fringe Imperials it was a timely find!

I based these in the same scheme as I'll be using on the Raging Heroes IG project using Trenchworks bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures.

The Cherub was fun... if only because I got to scribble some cryptic messages on its proclamation. 

 I'll need a lot more practice to do fancy Illuminations in this scale but this proclamation captures the feel of the Imperial Cult as a movement of the working masses of Imperial Citizenry.

For the Preacher I wanted to mix fanaticism with the last vestiges of a fading glory.  To get the feel of a man who has joined the crusade because he has nothing left of his former high station except the clothes on his back and the weighty tomes of the Emperor's Wisdom that he carries with him always.

 The full set of minis that I found on this pass through the boxes.

The Lexigrapher follows the Preacher and, aided by the pair of Servoskulls, records every word. The Gun Servitor that protects him rounds out the group.  I picture the retinue as followers of the Preacher rather than of the Inquisitor so its actually thematic to show them without the Inquisitor that they would typically be seen to escort.

 These were worked up from black with three stages of bone white and highlight then washed with Secret Weapon Washes and painted where this treatment was too muddled.  This ended up generating a lot of the shadow effects and highlights were often achieved by glazing the surfaces to be highlighted with a lighter tone (like a yellow) and then thinly re-glazed with the original base wash color.

 A bit of attention was paid to the wires.  They are all color coded either on the cable itself or on the terminal plug.  There is nothing worse than a pile of unmarked cable!

 The retinue are the wandering remnants of a destroyed congregation and, as such, are scavengers by nature.  They not only carry their personal fortunes on their backs but their other equipment is also of mixed provenance due to the random nature of its acquisition during their long travels.  The Gun servitor sports a Multi Melta in an Astartes color scheme and might be a bone of contention in an encounter with Space Marines of any flavor.

I love Servo Skulls!  They are iconic of the poor man's way to continue service to the Emperor after the body... and even the mind... fails.  These scout and guard always recording the retinues efforts in the name of the Emperor!

Back to the table now... more projects are waiting...

Nurgle's Obliterators

 The Siwa Contagion salvage project gets some heavy duty reinforcements today... literally!  These Obliterators are huge chunks of metal that are very heavy and hard to work on.  They continue the Death Guard theme although I've not added anything in the way of Legion Markings... ie.  no flies or triple dots etc...  to the armor itself although there are a lot of three dot recurrences in the mutated flesh.  They also have the same corrupted weapons treatment that marks rest of the Contagion.

The models are both viscerally representative of the madness of the Ruinous Powers and strangely shallow in other regards.  The heads in particular are very difficult to pick out and give depth to.  I almost added some Max-Mini Bio-hazard heads just to make them pop... but ultimately decided to save them for some cultists that are looming over the horizon.  On the whole I like the sculpts but wow are they heavy!  I'm afraid some of the more fiddly plastic weapons that I used to replace missing bits will not endure.

These guys have had massive amounts of green stuff added to them, in the same manner as most of the minis from this project, to cement the Nurgle feel.  Its the sort of a 'Flesh gone Wild' approach that I would normally associate with Tzeentch... except for the fact that Obliterators are inherently of the Carnival of Moving Flesh variety.

The next addition to the Contagion will be a set of Forge World Plague Drones but they'll be in line behind some Raging Heroes fantasy minis and some assorted Witch Hunter style retinue that are primed and ready for the brush.   There is also a small pile of Sigmarite Sisters in process along with a few random Mordheim personalities.

Konigsmarck Sisters as Witch Hunting Patriots

  This is what happens when I have a go at painting some Witch Hunters for the Mordheim Campaign over the July 4th weekend.  A sort of Burn the Heretic! Vive la Revolution! vibe.











Disaster struck as the perfidious sealer frosted... fortunately it didn't go all  "I AM NOT A MONSTER!"  and completely fuzz out like some manic were creatures... but they did require a bit touch up.




 Brunhilde was not amused... not amused at all!

I do like the monocle though.. very elitist.

 Gretchen was by far the most egregious example.  She ended up dressed like a flag and had the blind eye sockets of Lady Justice sans mask. Actually not a bad theme for a Witch Hunter...

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 I also got to do a little point source lighting effect with the flintlock pistol and the glove.  I'm still getting the hang of this but do se some improvement with practice.

 Hildegard is the coolest of the set.  The very modern rectangular framed glasses sport a purple tint.  She's extending the "Finger of Blame" and really... who can resist the "Stand and Deliver!" Blunderbuss!

 Big feathers and big letters on the cape.  Always go big!

These figures are less forgiving than the GW stuff I usually turn out and there is a lot of tidying up that should be done... but they are playable! 

Time to go rooting around for the rest of the war-band and maybe some Sigmarite Sisters.

Finally the set would not be complete without Walter... the dog in the floppy hat!

Next on deck Salvage Obliterators.... Bo0M!~

More Morbid Termies, some salvage Obliterators, and Konigsmarck Sisters WiP

 I luvs me sum Nurgle!  For some reason the jolly Lord of Decay is really fun to paint for.  I finished up this second half of Terminator Brotherhood Morbid last night.

This squad, like part one is more moldy and green hued than Squad Typhus which makes them more prone to blending into the base.  To help combat that tendency I made sure not to use much yellow on the Terminators themselves and to make sure that the bases had a yellow glaze. 

These are obviously not painted in the GW style but i think they capture the feel of the fluff and of the concept art in the vein of the concept art of John Blanche... just with less expertise!

I've been experimenting with various ways to portray the corruption of Nurgle which I think about as being different from simple corrosion.  In some cases I'm pretty happy with the results, for example the blade of the power axe, the pinkish areas of really rotten armor, and the grime accumulations in the rim of the shoulder pads. 

The weapons so far in this project have have been platforms to experiment with the corrosion theme. I'm likely to come back to the weapons once the bulk of the painting is complete and add some details to personalize and define them.  They will still retain large areas of plain corruption since they are actually consecrated artifacts and are powerful symbols of the triumph of the Ruinous Powers over the loyal sons of the Emperor.  Fallen Astartes bear their profane weapons with pride and purpose




The great fear I have about painting the followers of Nurgle is that, in my quest to get the right feel of glorious decay, they might turn out to look like litter box foundlings on the tabletop.  So far the Siwa Contagion is doing OK in that regard and the minis look very sharp on the tabletop.




The termies are constructed with Death Guard conversion kits from Forge World.  They have really great atmospherics and sharp detail.  I'm such a junkie for this sort of thing.




As a painter of armies meant to be played, my first goal is to pass the '3 foot test'  If it looks good enough at 3 feet that someone is compelled to pick it up for a closer look it passes.  Of course it helps if it also looks decent once they get picked up!  I also strive to create a coherent that is easily identifiable in terms of WYSIWYG.

 

The next batch of recruits for the Siwa Contagion are six Obliterators.  Here you can see them in the state they arrived in.  A couple of them have large tracts of green-stuff in a similar fashion to the rest of the army.  They will need more of that still as there are some really prominent gaps and parts joins to conceal.  The bases are also either blank or pumice so I'll have to do some work to get them in theme with their compatriots.

That brings me, at long last, to the Konigsmarck sisters from Raging Heroes.  There are three of them (although one suffered from camera fail and was sent back to the dressing room) and a mascot.  I sprayed them black and brushed them up with Bone Jack, Menoth White, and Menoth White Highlight (all from the P3 series) to get a better look at the detail.  Awesome!  very characterful!  There was a lot of great detail and each mini had optional gear which will be handy in equipping the rest of the war band.  Since these photos were taken I've done the sculpting of the cobblestone and debris bases.  I'll get some precast resin bases in that theme for the bulk of the war band but I wanted to get these available for play in our current campaign so...

Chop Chop!  'ere we go!

Plague Marine Icon

The belatedly located Icon Bearer for the second squad of Plague Marines in the Siwa Contagion line up.  Like the rest of the squad it is Death Guard with armor being supernaturally corrupted by extended contact with the Ruinous Powers. 

It is an old metal Plague Marine and the backpack was broken long ago which gave me an opportunity to continue my experimentation with green stuff... so I created an elongated, fleshy, exhaust vent arm to go along with the other goops, fleshy and otherwise, that I'd already inflicted on the model.

The second half of Termie Squad Morbid is coming along and should be finished up in the next two days.  Tonight I'm off to see the Lt Dan Band so I won't get any work done at all!

Next up are the Konigsmarck sisters from Raging Heroes and prep on some Nurgly Obliterators.