+ inload: The Five Hundred Worlds +

+ The Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar +


+ Apropos of nothing, here's a picture of Primarch Guilliman leading a force through the ruins of Armatura. I'm treating this very much not as a side-track, but rather a natural extension of Betrayal at Calth. +

Mission1: Ready for action
+ ...and speaking of which, with the figures for Mission 1 complete [VIZREF the previous inload], I've moved on to Mission 2, which involves the Word Bearers being confronted by the cream of the Ultramarines: Captain Aethon and five Ultramarine terminators. +

+ The Terminators will be supplied using the following figures, who need a bit of polish and a repaint:


+ Apologies for the ancient pic! + 
[+noospherinloadlink embedded+]


+ Aethon, however, needs to be made from whole cloth. +


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+WIP Captain Aethon +

+ The character of Captain Aethon has been handled by a number of authors – I think his first brief appearance is at the head of the 19th Company in Aaron Dembski-Bowden's The First Heretic; and he then appears in cameo in Dan Abnett's Know No Fear. These are two of my favourite novels – Horus Heresy or otherwise. I believe he also turns up in some short stories, and the duology of novellas The Honoured and The Unburdened that came out with the release of the Betrayal at Calth box set; though I haven't read the latter two. Anyone know if they're worth picking up? +

+ Either way, he's an interesting background character, and this seems like a perfect opportunity to make my interpretation of a fairly loosely-sketched figure, who nevertheless has an 'official' figure, which you can see on the GW website [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+]. Now, while he does have a model, I suspect that the figure was sculpted without particular reference to the character, and more as a fairly generic leader to whom the character was then written. 

+ Whether that is the case or not, I want to echo the broad strokes of that model – Cataphractii armour; bare, bald head; and similar weapons. Building on the same basis as my other Terminators – step-by-step walkthrough here: [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] – I'm going to do some additional work to bring the figure closer to the original. +



+ The WIP you can see above has had the original detailing removed, ready for sculpting. I am making some 'editorial' changes to taste – I won't include the gorget of the original, so that the face can be better seen, for example – but I'm doing my best to make sure that my model clearly comes from the same source. The head, incidentally, is from Forge World's Terminator Praetor figure. It's got such a fantastic grumpy expression, which I thought perfectly suited this (very angry) Ultramarine. +

+ I'm not enamoured of the figure's armament – chainfist and combi-melta – as they don't seem very fitting for an officer; but perhaps that's all the more reason to follow them closely: trying things outside your comfort zone is always interesting, whether it's successful or a failure. +

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3 comments:

Abscondytus said...

I can recommend The Honoured at least (having not read The Unburdened). It really captures the desperation and bleak atmosphere of the underworld war quite well. Also, if I recall, it mentions somewhere that Aethon's choice of armament is odd for his rank and seen as somewhat signature to him.

Lasgunpacker said...

Melta and chainfist does seem odd for an officer, but then maybe he was some sort of combat engineer previously, or these are the weapons he uses in the under war?

LegioCustodes said...

Beautiful work. I love what you’re doing as ever.

Both the novellas are excellent and well worth a read (or a listen on audiobook)!