+ inload: Ruffed, puffed and dangerous to know +
+ Few things look more 40k than a lunatic dressed in finery. There's a particular post-punk vibe that runs strongly through the aesthetic that makes it look like the apocalypse happened right after the Napoleonics. +
+ Asymmetry, duplication and playing with expectation of scales. Compare the huge fur shoulderpad with the bare skin of the other side. It creates a monstrous – if insouciant – hump. There's an odd unsettling vitality to the figures; an uncomfortable gang-type uniformity despite the obvious differences between the figures. +
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+ Cyborgs and genetic rejects. As well as the obvious facepaint on the chained-up midgets, the figure in the background has a clown-like hairstyle; but there's nothing funny here. There's a brooding sense of opression, decay and threat. +
+ Looking at 40k art is a great way of getting ideas for those important details. The bows, collars and facepaint are all minor details compared to the eye-catching guns and bionics; but these hints of a lost opulence that the figures clearly crave is crucial to distinguishing the universe from dozens of other sci-fi properties. +
+ Note also the backgrounds. There's a massive sense of space – distant figures, soaring arches, thick, powerful figures... but it's all crumbling, incomplete and enclosed. Beyond the structures are walls. Within the majestic space of the original buildings are jury-rigged utilitarian areas, themselves ancient and rotting. +
+ It's in this world that I want my figures for The Coürt of the Sunñe Cyng to fit. Here're two more WIPs. +
+ A scoundrel and ruffian, built using legs from an AT-43 figure, a Forge World torso and a head from the Empire Greatswords set. I've added a little ruff in greenstuff, and am thinking I'll probably add some fur somewhere. Perhaps in place of a shoulderpad? I've trimmed off the right-hand wing of every Imperial eagle on the figure. Why? Perhaps it has some totemic or political meaning to the figure. Perhaps it's just to introduce some asymmetry. +
+ Sometimes it's fun just to run with an idea even if you don't think it through to a logical conclusion before you start working on a model – I find it's a good way to get that slightly-uncomfortable feeling that I wrote about above, and inject a little baroque lunacy into your game. +
+ I showed this fella (a hypaspist thyngman) yesterday, but realised the picture didn't show his legs, which were the only vaguely complicated part of this kitbash. They're (again) from the Empire Greatsword set, and needed trimming to fit beneath the Skitarii frockcoat. I'm pleased with the contrast, and think it nicely picks up that post-technological feeling, with the laser gun and augmetic optic array contrasting with the buffed sleeves and leather shoes. I'm tempted to add some bows and ribbons to finish him off, but might save that for the next one. Sometimes it's nice to leave things where you're happy, instead of overworking and risking spoiling somethign that works. +
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