Marco does something

[Radu Lykan]

the ones from theh beserkers are the ones i was referring to, they look less advanced and therefore more 40k in my opinion
the more slender chainsword could work but as you say, you dont want him to be a complete hard ass
thats why i suggest the blessed weapon route, fair enough it will mess up a daemon but against the average inquisitor character it would just count as a regular sword/mace/axe etc

[Gideon]

...and the gold fixing - I find yellow/brown metallics bad enough that I tend to do them as NMM, but didn't have the time)

Hi Marco,

A quick tip that might help in the future: when painting gold, basecoat the area in question with a dark brown - I use Scorched Brown personally - and then follow with: Tin Bitz - Burnished Gold - Shining Gold. Or you can skip the Tin Bitz and just go Burnished - Flesh Wash - Burnished if you want a darker gold colour.

It works wonders!

[Koval]

Well, those colours are no longer sold, but I'm pretty sure Marco can use his best judgment in finding alternatives (whether within the GW paint range or outside of it)

[MarcoSkoll]

Whether the colours are still sold is somewhat separate from whether I still have them - I only paint so much, so the paint set I bought in 2009 is yet to miss any colours. (In fact, inventory is above that, as I found the room to fit in some older colours too).

I don't paint en masse, so supplies tend to last. Even when the pot of Chaos Black went funny late last year, I had an older supply that could replace it.

However, still likely to be something I'll approach with NMM. I like NMM.

[Gideon]

That's fair enough! I'm awful at NMM so I've always just stuck to the metallics.

[MarcoSkoll]

This is not finished - some parts still need detailing, others are still rough, there's areas I haven't even touched yet (beyond leaving it at the basic anatomy sketch), not even entirely happy with the anatomy - but I thought I'd at least show you I'm getting on with something...

Katlien Vance:



Full
(The colouration is not important, just part of the way I work in Photoshop).

As said before, the core idea is to mix elements from Lady Garielle (the Ascension art used for Katlien's original contact card) and Inquisitor Adrasteia (from DOW2:R), but there's more than just that thrown in now. We'll see where the rest goes.

[Gideon]

Good lord! I had no idea so much thought went into your characters, Marco. I've only looked at this page (25) and the images and ideas are incredible.

I love the ethnic mix of Nyi, and the Inquisitrix looks like a seriously dangerous woman.

Hopefully Syme, Laschalle and Moritz will get to meet these women at the IGT. Although judging by Vance's wardrobe she's more of a puritan than a radical... so they may be trading bullets rather than badinage.

[MarcoSkoll]

To just copy it across from Ammobunker until I have a fuller version for a decent character background thread, here's the draft for "Valten" or ...

Inquisitor Magnus Aemes Virasson, Ordo Malleus Dalthan

It doesn't take long in the presence of Inquisitor Virasson to realise he's not a subtle man - his voice is like a hurricane, his ostentatious armour only augments the bulk of his already considerable frame, and the dramatically sized weapons about his person show the violence he is willing to resort to.

These traits only support his energetic pursuit of his Puritan views. He does not, perhaps, fit into any of the traditional stances - not taking the Amalathian view of stagnation and tolerance of the status quo, the Thorian views that so often seem to waver into heretical knowledge of the warp and its mechanisms, or the extremes for which the Monodominant viewpoint is stereotyped.

Indeed, he has come into conflict with Monodominants over his willing use of psykers. To him, if a psyker has proven themselves before He-on-Terra, then none may even dare argue against the Emperor's plan - they are His gift against the foes within, without and most definitely beyond.
But he will tolerate only so much. Magnus knows that his purity and faith are tenfold more formidable against the enemy beyond than any of the cursed and damned methods his radical peers dare to use.

He is, however, no less committed for  being individual. His reports to the Dalthan Conclave, proudly enshrined upon the moon of his homeworld, show he can be utterly ruthless if he believes he has cause.

His fearsome reputation is therefore a very surprising contrast for those who meet him on good terms - Magnus can pursue the entire spectrum of emotion with the same vigour as he does the daemon and traitor, and holds as many allies amongst the Ordos for his social facets as his impressive record.

[MarcoSkoll]

Good lord! I had no idea so much thought went into your characters, Marco. I've only looked at this page (25) and the images and ideas are incredible.

This is a bit more effort than I have normally otherwise put in, but I do want to see what I can do when I push myself and don't end up rushing things like normal.

Also, I know I'm going to have to work harder this IGT if I'm going to keep in contention. I won the hobby competition last year, somewhat against my expectations - my marks went from middling to top of the pack. That's probably mostly because I took more time than normal, but I'm fairly sure the change to having the players (rather than the WHW staff) score it helped - one person said they thought I deserved the win for the sheer effort they knew I'd put in.*

So I figure now I've shown I am a contender, I've at least got to put up a challenge and not embarrass myself.

*This may have featured in my reasons for putting in more effort this year. On a similar note though - expect to see the modelling, but I probably won't be showing off the paint until the IGT (or after). It's more interesting if there's some surprises for the day.

And now...

~~~~~

It took me a lot longer than it should have done to do the slight changes you see (mostly because I wasn't quite happy with the legs, had to tweak their position slightly), but here's a finished (although not necessarily final) draft:


Large

I'm considering perhaps adding more armour to the upper legs, but think that might be a bit overwhelming.
The shin and knee plates might get more detail (perhaps relief work) if can think of what.

To waffle a bit:

Katlien's contact card art was originally Lady Garielle, but I liked the somewhat similar design for Inquisitor Adrastia from the DOW2 expansion, so the intention here was to take elements of the two and get a more unique end result - albeit with enough similarity to the original Katlien that it could just be a different wardrobe.

As such, I borrowed the weapons pretty much completely. The sword and holster are essentially as was (save for the snazzier end on the belt), so I'm hoping it seems plausible she's still using the same weapons.

Other elements, I borrowed less so. The shin armour* and right pauldron are mostly based on Garielle, and the basic segmented armour design (and its gorget) the most prominent borrowing from Adrastia.
*You may be able to see the way the right shin plates interlock is still based on the patterning on the original art.

And then there's small things like the pattern on the corner of the coat sleeve is based on Garielle's lapel.

Other elements come from further afield. Those split sleeves are sometimes used on Sororitas artwork and  the "cross" pattern on the hat brim was from some Warhammer Online witchunter concepts.
The left pauldron and all the armour detailing were inspired by concepts I had around in my folder of junk from deviantART and other places around the net. Both are, to an extent, an opportunity to put my sculpting talents to a bit more use.

Still working on the colours, but I'm thinking mostly black/grey for the main armour plates, browns for the coat and gold and silver as highlights for the armour detail. May keep the red band on the hat from Garielle's art. Light skin, probably blonde hair.
I'm thinking I can get the whole warband down to a relatively slim shared palette.

[MarcoSkoll]

Incomplete WIP draft for Vera Canton:


Large

This is still at a sketching stage with a few artistic errors to fix, and probably needs more details added - devotional trinkets, combat webbing*, some ornamental detail, etc.
*This is my personal interpretation on the idea of a Drill Abbess - with most Drill Abbots I see, I can see the "Abbot" but not the "Drill". These guys are both priest and soldier, and so their appearance should have some of both, I feel.

I'll be trying to mostly wrap this design stage up by the weekend, so as to have a clean seven weeks before the IGT for all the actual modelling and painting work.

[Trasher]

<joke>
A twin linked laser sight? 
</joke>

From a shooting point of view, wouldn't it be better to have the laser sight slung under or to the side of the muzzle, to let the red-dot (?) sit lower? Otherwise I love your sketches and this idea of a drill abbot is quite interesting!

[MarcoSkoll]

From a shooting point of view... well, maybe. Low sights can be inconvenient to use.
However, the pertinent point is that the weapon and the character's name* are a very deliberate homage.

As Firefly fans will recognise, this is Jayne Cobb with his very favourite gun - "Vera":

I took the design of the Callahan Fullbore Autolock (which is in reality a dressed up Saiga-12), and based the Callahan pattern Full-wave Autolas on it.

*Her surname comes from Jayne being "The Hero of Canton".

[Trasher]

Ah, now I see why you'd choose to position the laser sight there Your sketch is very close to the original!

I've never used a reddot sight, only iron sights, which logically are even closer to the body of the gun than a reddot could ever wish to be. Before trying a reddot I'm not sure how it can be inconvenient to have them as low as possible. I guess I'm rambling and this hasn't got much to do with Inquisitor though...

[MarcoSkoll]

Tidied up and a few tweaks:


Large Version

Might add a hem to the robe, not entirely sure on the Aquila design on the hammer and there might be a trinket or two left to add (as with the other two character designs), but this should be enough that I can start the modelling process.

So... next stage, some actual sculpting. That's at least these three, but I've also got some other things I can get back to as well.

I'll be able to finalise the colour schemes while that's in progress.
Although I do have a rough theory for Vera's colours, as I have with the others; The plan is white robes with a red scapular (or what I think is called a scapular, anyway) - as I've said previously, that basic design is somewhat inspired by Sisters of Sigmar and I like their studio colour scheme.

It is possible I might use a black or grey robe to closer match the colour scheme of the other two, but heavy use of black may too reminiscent of Christian priests, and that would be entirely unintentional. I also think it might be being anal for its own sake - the group should still have a strong colour coherency even with a light coloured robe, which might even make a nice contrast.

But I guess that's the point of doing the mock-ups, to work all this stuff out!

[Gilleon]

Love these new concepts Marco, very much looking forward to seeing the real thing. Also good to see more Firefly inspired models