+ inload: Posing for effect +

+ conceptinload: Visual contrast – the Brotherhood of the Nine Winds +

+ The events of Little Horus, my favourite bit of Horus Heresy literature, focus on Dwell, where the Sons of Horus are assaulting a planet called Dwell, defended by a group of Iron Hands along with a few waifs and strays from other Legions – the prototypical 'Shattered Legions'. +

+ Alongside my Iron Hands (above), I'm planning to include a few White Scars – they have a prominent role in the Little Horus story, and they're a great opportunity to create some contrasts and visual interest in the army. +

+ Creating character through posing +

+ When approaching things like this, it's best to plan, test and refine. It would have been relatively easy to simply build the White Scars in the same way as the other marines, and give them a different paint scheme. This would have given a certain visual cohesiveness to the group (i.e. the army), but that's not what I'm after for this. I want the army to look like it's made up of slightly off-kilter bits – to look broken and reforged. +

+ To achieve this, I want to make sure that the different groups – Iron Hands, White Scars and others – have their own distinct look. For the Iron Hands, I've gone with solid, slow and heavy visual cues:

The Immortal

+ The example above is rigid, unyielding, loaded down with equipment. Even their postures are generally simple triangles – wide base for the legs, going up to a central point (the head). Together with fairly neutral poses, they look reactionary rather than dynamic. +

+ Contrast this with a (WIP) White Scar from the Nine Winds: 

+ Despite being made from very similar components, there's much more of a sense of fluidity and movement in this figure. The eyes is led around the curves, and the centre of gravity is higher. Less massive pauldrons (I've used rimless and cutaway pads) help to create a faster, more streamlined look. While the curved blade and Legion helm are distinctive and important, I hope that the effect would have been obvious even without these identifiers – they should act to magnify the result rather than as a crutch to create it. +

+ As a better illustration, have a look at the White Scar on the left of the image below. He doesn't use any of the techniques I've described above: he's got the same neutral pose and heavy pauldrons of the Iron Hands; and he lacks any White Scars-specific components. As a result, even when he's painted in the Scars' legion colours, he's going to be more anonymous and less eye-catching. +

+ This suits me well as the chap on the left is destined to be part of a mixed squad – an individual recon marine seconded into a remnant team – so he needs to fit in a little more to avoid the visuals being too disjointed. The White Scar on the right, meanwhile, is a Legion veteran who will be part of a dedicated White Scar killteam, so he gets the 'full works'. +

+ Building the White Scar +

+ The model is based – perhaps surprisingly – on a set of Death Guard legs, which are in motion. I think they're from the Grave Wardens, but I can't be sure as I bought them as bits. I've trimmed away the chainmail loincloth (this lowers the centre of visual gravity and is also diagnostic of the Death Guard, so it had to go to 'sell' the figure as something else) and sculpted a new codpiece. The torso is a Grey Knight Terminator torso carved down and resculpted, and the arms and hands are drawn from various plastic kits. The pauldron you see above is a Grey Knight Terminator one. I like the cutaway for the White Scar, as it suggests the armour is lighter, more open and better suited to the Legion when compared with the massive reinforced bulk of the pads I use for my Ultramarines, Iron Warriors and Iron Hands, for example. +

+ The sword is a trimmed-down eldar Wraithguard blade. The pauldron visible here is from the standard Terminator kits – I trimmed off the lower 'nubbin' and used a sharp knife to carve two horizontal lines across the pad, dividing it into thirds. I then used green stuff to build up a ridge above each line, and an angled file to create a gradient below. This creates the impression of the pad being made up of interconnected hoops. +

 + The result is (hopefully) a figure that looks in motion from any angle. Note that the open hand, head and trailing foot are all pointing in the same direction. Having his face mirror his forefoot would have created more of a sense of a full-on run or charge; I wanted him to look nimble and responsive rather than berserk. +

+ inload: Lex Talionis – an Eye for an Eye +

+ Lex Talionis – an Eye for an Eye +

Past the Immortal, upright and poised, were the Company Colours. They were suspended from the command dome, far above. They were – and were not – my colours. Familiar white and black, plus the green of a Neptunian night.

I knew the hue of the banner was called sea-green, but that reference never had much cadence for me. On the troubled surface of Medusa, fresh water lakes were mostly young and new; inert and crystal clear. I sailed the void before I ever saw a body of water much larger than an artificial reservoir.

Teslo Comitans was the colour-bearer for Clan Kreto, a minor clan from the Arctus Reaches, to whom the Nereid belonged. Comitans was not an Ancient; he was not honoured. He was simply the poor bastard who happened to be dragging the hated thing onto the Storm Eagle when Arrowsmith spotted him. 

To bear the colours of the Clan was an honour. Usually. When the Warmaster's treachery became evident, Kreto's colours were less an honour than a stain. They were evidence of an intermingling. The Clan had many ties with the XVIth Legion, having fought alongside them on a number of campaigns in the coreworlds – notably Corun and Synn, abhuman strongholds. Relationships were cordial. Their Captain, one Berabbadon, had sanctioned a binding banner, and presented it to Arrowsmith personally as a mark of respect.

At the time, Kreto were ecstatic – for Sons of Medua, at least. Comitans had told me, through the sneer that seemed to have become etched on his craggy features, that the colours had been skirl-piped around the Clan's leviathan upon their return. They had been placed alongside the most precious mementos of Kreto.

When called upon now to bear it aloft, Comitans' face twisted, as though handling excrement.

The colours hung in the darkness now, the symbols of our Legions bound inextricably together. It was stained. Pitted. It looked as though it had been ritually besmirched. Perhaps we needed a totem; a focus for our disgust.

I looked at Kreto's colours without rancour. Before the drop, I think I could have understood the shame; perhaps even joined the chorus to bear it in battle and bury its treachery in revenge. After the events of Isstvan, it was hard to put it into perspective.

+++

+ Painting +

+ I do love a good banner. This is not the most complex design, but quite an awkward one. I introduced a new colour to the palette for this one in order to tie it into the broader theme of the army; the Battle of Dwell. +

+ The three figures you see above might form a Command squad, or might be split up into different groups. What do you reckon? +

+ inload: WIP Iron Hands painting +

+ By Whose Command? +

+ The Iron Hands are temperamentally unsuited to a phantom cell structure. Their way of making war is as straightforward as their Primarch. As straightforward, and as rigid. +

+ Rigidity, in war, can be a boon – the Iron Tenth's enviable record demonstrates this. Ferrus Manus' uncompromising focus and drive has made his Legion into a brute machine. +

+ It can also be a fatal flaw. A machine that meets an unmovable object will be shattered. I do not believe the warriors of the Tenth are psychologically suited to operating in any way other than as microcosms of their gene-father. +

– Analytica Tactica, Lieutenant Commander Ydris Chemosabe, III Legion. [REJECTED: identkey Maloghurst, Captain XVI]

+ Slow going over the weekend, but transfers, eye lenses and similar little bits have been completed on this little group. I've tried something a little different for the power axe – basically painting it grey, highlighting in the recessed join between generator and blade, then drawing the colour out in short feathered lines. Not quite sure of it at the moment, but I think it could work, with a little more care and attention. + 

+ The Immortal is coming along nicely, too. This stage is, to all intents and purposes, game-ready. However, the final details, weathering and addition of pastel powder goes a long way to adding interest and colour without compromising the starkness of the scheme. I thought I'd pop these up to show the contrast with the finished piece – which you can see (hopefully) in the next inload. +

+ I shortened the right arm a little – never be afraid to continue working on a piece if it's just not working for some reason. Better to bite the bullet and make the change before you really get stuck in. +

+ I'm in two minds about the shield. The other Breachers have received a braod white stripe, but the Immortal has been stripped of all his markings save the Legion symbol. Perhaps I ought to work the moulded symbol up in white? +

+ The banner bearer – I do like Mark V helms. There's something so brutal-looking, and they really evoke the Heresy for me. +

+ inload: Weathering on black +

Coalstan's plan had peaked the moment he had hold of his weapons after the crash: Attack. What this plan boasted in simplicity, it lacked in detail or sustainability. Though his near-subliminal movements betrayed urgency and impatience, he complied when I pointed this out.

Nominally, of course, I was in charge. The rank of Celeusta – a combination of co-pilot, navicalculator and transport monitor – marked me as Immunes, and as a result, I am afforded a modicum of responsibility. In the maelstrom of Isstvan, I very much regretted this.

I was finding it hard to think. Absently, I wondered if I had sustained brain damage of some kind – something more serious than concussion. However, even in my battered state, I could tell that two legionaries was a force unlikely to overcome four Legions in the field.

'Uh... Re-group. Re-arm..' I paused. 'If we can, link up with the rest of Caled and then... uh.' I paused again; this time because something – beyond the roar of battle; beyond the blaze over the crater's edge – was nagging me. 

'Movement!'

+++

+ May you.... take *******  forever to paint. +

+ I've been away, recharging the batteries in the distant north. What little hobby work I've done has revolved around putting together some of the new crates/barrels scenery (very nice – and the storage creates would make an amazing basis for a 3D space hulk), and this: 

+ I've repainted the eyes to a cool grey-blue and added some weathering using metallic paints and Charadon Granite, plus some pastel dust. The latter was simply scraped away from the barrel of a chalk pastel, then picked up on a brush and applied dry. +

+ I like the effect; the warmth this adds to the model makes a huge difference to what is a very limited palette. In order for this to make sense, I'll likely be basing them on brickdust and marble; and make that how I build the Dwell board. +

+ You'll also note the symbol of clan-company Caled; a bisected shield. +