The Conclave

Your friendly neighbourhood moderator is back, with another helping of 54mm goodness!

Carter's warband has grown by one (or three, perhaps) once again. For the first time, but I hope not the last time, I got the opportunity to paint one of Gav's gorgeous models - in this case, his Tech-Priestess (http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=116.msg1139#msg1139). I was lucky enough to get my hands on one of the last figures that Gav had available, and felt that I had to give it a nice lick of paint...


So, there you go - one Tech-Priestess accompanied by two helpful servo-skulls. You can see some other views here: Front (http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/Saussure/Tech-Priest003a.jpg), Right (http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/Saussure/Tech-Priest005a.jpg), Back (http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/Saussure/Tech-Priest007a.jpg), and Left (http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/Saussure/Tech-Priest009a.jpg). As you can see, I went for a conversion that others have carried out with this piece, following the illustration that Gav used as the inspiration for this piece. As opposed to using the supplied right arm and hand, I lopped off the pistol from an old Delphan Gruss model I had lying around and pinned it in place, so she has a nice antique gun to blast away with. The servo-skulls had been sitting around a while as well, and there didn't seem like a more obvious place to use them!

For painting, I decided to avoid the normal route, whereby the bulk of the model would have been in regulation Mechanicus red. Instead, taking my cue from the pleasing simplicity of the sculpt, I went for a comparatively muted brown-and-brass colour scheme. I was able to neatly carry this over on to the two skulls as well, tying them together easily. I couldn't lose the red entirely though, so I painted the eye lenses and cabling in the colour and, most notably, added a red Mechanicus cog emblem around the edge of the cowl-piece.


I'm really pleased with the result - it's understated, which is what I was going for. The skin on the head was an interesting experiment - I was looking for a different way to try to get an unhealthy palour that had a degree of translucence to it. I ended up using a basecoat of Dheneb Stone, then used a drybrush to stipple on patches of Dark Angels Green, Red Gore and Midnight Blue in small quantities, followed by painting on a few spidery veins. I then used many very thin washes of Rotting Flesh over the top of the stippled colours, building up multiple thin layers of paint and partly concealing the stipples. I then built up a few more traditional highlights over the major facial features by adding Skull White to the Rotting Flesh. I'm quite keen on the final result.

Carter's warband is now looking quite healthy, so I thought a group shot was in order. Unfortunately, the focus leaves more than a little to be desired, but it will do for the moment. Enjoy, one and all!


Comments welcomed, as always!

Simple but brilliant :) I really like the group shot as well, is it the only group photo you've done of your warband?

Excellent work as always Derek. Great to see you back in the modeling saddle too.

That group shot is just stunning.

I've been meaning to ask, what products do you use to finish your bases? Are those real rocks? What grass and gravel brands do you use?

Quote from: kierkegaard on February 20, 2011, 06:37:45 PM
I've been meaning to ask, what products do you use to finish your bases? Are those real rocks? What grass and gravel brands do you use?

Hi Nick,

The bases are all handled the same way, but there's no trickery in there. The rocks are indeed real pebbles, stones and slate pieces, undercoated and painted as normal. The sand is standard GW-issue sand (to the best of my memory - it has a mix of grain sizes in there. The flock is normal GW static grass, applied in comparatively small clumps. The sand and rocks get attached to the base before anything gets painted, and the grass goes on at the very end of the process.

Great looking warband, I really like the muted colours. Are those cherubs the regular 40K 28mm ones?

Tnx for sharing.

nice work Derek, the warband looks great all together like that.

That warband's a great illustration of how highly diverse miniatures can be unified with the use of a few key colours.

R.

Quote from: ismeno on February 21, 2011, 07:04:01 PM
Great looking warband, I really like the muted colours. Are those cherubs the regular 40K 28mm ones?

Yup, those are the normal 28mm cherubs. As long as you avoid he ones dragging any 28mm weapons, then you've got no problem adding them at 54mm scale. In fact, they're just about right for chilling, baby-sized automata. Add them to the list of 40K parts that work just fine at 54mm!

Nice! I'll pick some up next time it's mail order time. Cheers!

Lovely unhealthy skin tone. Very techie. Agree with general opinion about the group- they look fantastic.

Thanks Derek. I may need to pm you for some advice once my flock arrives.  :)