Heresy & Heroes

I don’t often post WIPs on this blog (I don’t know why…), but I feel the need to with my latest project. Despite having a bit of a commission left to do, as well as the Mortifactors project and more still awaiting the attention of my brushes, I have taken it upon myself to work on a very Un-Imperial Knight. I finally succumbed to my wants and picked up the frankly huge Imperial Knight kit, and it’s already proving fun, but exhausting as I sacrilegiously corrupt it in the name of She Who Thirsts, The Prince of Pleasure, Slaanesh.

As you can see from the above image, the only part done so far are the legs, and this post is a bit of a ‘story so far’ (as most WIP posts are), so, excusing the relatively poor iPhone camera shots, let’s take a closer look.

These are the first shots of Dios Toros (a very ‘low gothic’ way of saying ‘Bull God’), my Slaaneshi Knight, and what a monster he is (or will be, unless you count a pair of legs as a monster). I’m still very much in early days, but I’m hoping to get the lower section finished this week and crack on with the very bulky torso too.

Very much inspired by the old Eavy Metal ‘Psycho-delic’ vision of how far the Emperor’s Children have sunk from their once regal, beautiful history, regular readers might note the similarity to one of my older pieces – my Sonic Dreadnought. This is just on a “slightly” larger scale. The early Chaos Renegades and 1st Gen Noise Marines are where my image of Slaanesh and particularly the Emperor’s Children stem from. They should give you a headache just by looking at them. They should be so far from the regimented order and functional tones of the loyalist marines that one look at them would make the Emperor spin on his Golden Throne. Hence all the loopy colours above which are very ‘Marmite’ (for those who don’t know the term, it means you’ll either love it or hate it – very Slaanesh).

I started off by building and painting up the metal skeleton of the legs. They’re weathered and rusted just a touch, to indicate the internal rot of the Emperor’s Children that is hidden behind their garish and vibrant exteriors. Once that was done, I set about painting up the plates. There has to be a lot of pink to keep it tied together, but I also wanted to use animal prints, as if these are the skins (or homages to the skins) of great and exotic animals that have been hunted for sport on the worlds that have been plagued by Fulgrim’s sons.

There are also chips and breaks in the rims of these plates (and plenty of my now apparently ‘signature’ ‘moody’ gold), and there have to be plenty of spikes. Using liquid green stuff, a brush and a knife, I’ve added the traditional spikes that denote Choas-ness throughout the 41st Millennium to the plates. I’ve also had fun inverting the plates, and changing the existing spikes from noble fleur-de-lis-esque examples to more heretical spear-points.

I’ve kept the base relatively simple so as not to draw the eye away from the model (the giant, neon, scary model) above it, but have added a rusting barrel and a little more detail to keep it at least a little interesting. Likewise, the skeleton of the model will be relatively understated too, to keep the view fixed on those gaudy plates and patterns.

Needless to say, this is a massive job, and with all this freehand work going on, it is going to take me a fair bit of time to complete it. I’m even going to attempt to replicate a bit of John Blanche’s work in this which will, if I can do it, be no mean feat! His Slaaneshi illustrations are incredible and I’d love to pay homage to him with a bit of an inclusion here. Anyway, I’ll probably put up at least one more of these WIPs (if not more) before the task is done. It needs more chains, more spikes, more freehand and more… well, just more. The weapons are going to be heavily converted, the head is being altered too and there’s plenty of other nonsense happening so watch this space for further updates. Rest assured though, this will be a big one.

Oh, and one last, quick update today. I will hopefully soon have access to a high-end digital camera so I’ll get some good shots of this completed model and I’ll do a reshoot of plenty of others as well. Onwards!

A bit of my inspiration for you from the Eavy Metal team…