+ inload: Astartes' Personal Heraldry +
+ The Praetors of Calth are my Ultramarines army, set during the Great Crusade/Horus Heresy era. As detailed in the opening post of my blog on the forum Warseer* I wanted to:
My goals for this project are:
1) Improve my freehand and greenstuff skills
2) Develop an attractive army with a backstory that links in with existing canon to satisfy my inner fluffhound.
3) Stick to existing canon where possible, and make up fitting stuff where I want to do something fun and new.
+ Part of this that I was most proud of was my idea to paint the personal heraldry of each marine on his shoulder pad. This was one of the very first things I decided upon, before even putting the models together. This was unusual because Ultramarines are traditionally seen as being very rigid in their markings. (Personally, I think that Ultramarine armies should have more diverse markings that are consistent within the army, rather than the common tactical arrows etc.; if for no other reason that the background in Index Astartes states the Ultramarines cycle through and change their markings from campaign to campaign to wrongfoot and confuse the enemy, but that's a different – and exceedingly geeky! – point.)+
+ Now, I'm fairly sure I've never read the Rogue Trader-era Space Marine painting guide referenced in Steve Casey's blog post on Eldritch Epistles**, but reading it today, I noticed that – way back around White Dwarf 119 – the Ultramarines in it are noted as:
Like the Space Wolves, the Ultramarines stick very closely to the details in the Index Astartes. However, the Ultramarines are particularly fond of decorating their armour with personal slogans, kill markings, litanies and other motifs, giving each Marine a slightly different appearance. This probably arises from their customs on their highly militaristic homeworld, where such decoration is a firm part of warrior society.
+ This is accompanied by information that 'officers above the rank of lieutenant are allowed to display their personal on thier armour. This is usually confined to the shoulder pad.'
+ Just goes to show there are no new ideas under the sun! I was pleased to read it, as the article has lots of great info I can use for my ongoing project.+
+ For those interested, here's a rundown of personal heraldry on some of my existing models.+
+ I'd love to hear your thoughts on space marine heraldry.+
*Noospheric inload link: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?146205-Praetors-of-Calth-%96-Pre-Heresy-Ultramarines&p=2664913&viewfull=1#post2664913
**Noospheric inload link: http://eldritchepistles.blogspot.co.uk/
2 comments:
Excellent shoulder pads and a great idea to give extra charatcer.
As for ideas I can only suggest looking at mediveal European coats of arms as some provincal and city arms have interesting details.
I like the look of your Ultramarines, good to see someone doing them as they are often incorrectly maligned as boring. The shoulder pads give them that extra edge, and the Horus Heresy is always very inspiring.
Wow, that's really impressive. Particularly if you plan on doing personal marking for your whole army. I also like that these make all of your models feel like they are heroes not just another soldier. It makes them a little bit superhuman.
If you are in need of ideas go to a library and see if they have a book on heraldry. As I understand it there are 'rules' on the way that all new and old markings were made. You may be able to apply it to your stuff, or cooler, make your own set of rules, i.e, marines from Calth all have a red field and a white star.
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