Word Bearers Helbrute in a mini-diorama

After spending more than a month on the Helbrute, I have finally finished painting it ... at least I think I have. Some issues such as planning a mini-diorama in the Helbrute's base; incorporating the four Chaos gods' influence; doing some basic object source lighting as well as some repainting of the armour to show more depth resulted in this project taking longer than it should. And to add to my woes, I had to take about 150 over shots with various camera settings and lighting configurations (the Helbrute was too reflective but that's a story for another day) before I got the photos I wanted.

Word Bearers Helbrute and a warrior of Guilliman

Are you talking to me?

Side view (right) of the Word Bearers Helbrute

OSL effect from the vents is most obvious from this angle

Back view of the Helbrute with the Ultramarine's back armour on the ground

Initially I wanted to put a Space Marine head trophy at the end of the left arm's chain

Side view (left) of the Word Bearers Helbrute

From here you can see that the Ultramarine's line of sight is facing the Helbrute's face

I might still do some touch-ups/repaints later once I have had a fews days of looking over it. Overall, I believe I have done just about the best I could based on my current painting skill level. There are so many other painting techniques that I want to learn and utilise. I am taking stock of my shortcomings by doing plenty of soul searching as to the things I am doing wrong as well as the things that I am neglecting due to lack of patience, some of which I will write about and address in future posts.

Side view of the mini-diorama

Close up of the dying Ultramarine

Ripped off his back, the Ultramarine's back armour lies on the ground

I was very unhappy with my Dark Apostle which I completed previously as I thought I did some sloppy and lazy work which resulted in the armour looking very flat. I did the best repair job I could by painting in several layers of varying ratios of Red Gore:Blood Red.

My version of Marduk and the Warmonger (of the Black Library Word Bearers trilogy fame)

Back view of the Word Bearers Dark Apostle and Helbrute

With such a long time spent on my Word Beares army so far, my 2Q 2013 hobby schedule is dead on the water. While I am suppose to paint my Black Legion army concurrently, for some reason, I am not quite looking forward to it. I am contemplating taking a break from painting an army for gaming and re-starting my diorama project involving a Lord of the Rings Dragon and a Kingdom Death miniature, which will give me more opportunities to try out new painting techniques and improve myself. As always, thanks for reading and may your brushes stay pointy.

Word Bearers Dark Apostle

If it wasn't for the inspiring Word Bearers trilogy by Anthony Reynolds, I truly won't have had the courage to attempt painting the Dark Apostle. It's funny how the urge to recreate in miniatures what we have read in books, will actually force one's hand to attempt painting outside the comfort zone.

For the glory of Lorgar

Although I could definitely do a better job of painting the Word Bearers Dark Apostle's face, I thought better of it and decided to quit while I am ahead. For now at least. I lack the confidence to properly paint human miniatures faces (apart from Ork faces which are a hoot to paint) in full detail.

Behold the Word of Lorgar for there is no other truth

Thanks are in order to the warrior of Guilliman who donated his skull for the corrupted crozius

Side view which shows the false truths being trampled upon by the Word Bearers Dark Apostle

Spot the Word Bearers decal on the right shoulder pad

Yet more written truths from Lorgar written on skin parchments

No ... the L does not stand for Learners driver license

Strapped to the left hip is the Dark Apostle's dark grimoire

Oh heavenly Lorgar, I beseech you to return to us ... please?

A close look at the falsehoods that Word Bearers have to contend with

Progress so far on the Word Bearers army
To date, I have finished painting the Dark Apsotle, five Anointed, and 10 cultists. Not that much come to think of it. Next on the list is a Word Bearers Helbrute which I will be painting alongside the Black Legion Forgefiend. Early into my 2Q 2013 schedule and I realise that I may have bitten off more than I could chew. Oh well ... you won't know if you don't try Gran' Pappy Lorgar use to say.

Inscribing the Words of Lorgar

For the Word Bearers Dark Apostle miniature that I am currently working on, the holy parchments attached all over his armour would undoubtedly be the main focus one's eye. So how well the parchments are painted/drawn will either make of break the painted miniature.

From the fires of betrayal unto the blood of revenge we bring the name of Lorgar ...

With that thought in mind, I took my time with the parchments and tried to figure out the best colour scheme, writing style and symbols that would best portray a bringer of the Words of Lorgar. While the actual paint/writing work was completed in a relative short time (two hours at most), it still took me nearly a week of researching as well as trial and error doodles to find out what might work best.

Doodles of Lorgar

Having prepared the best I could, I feel that the end result were reasonably satisfying on a personal level (my standards aren't that high) but it nonetheless left me thinking that I perhaps could have done better (one of which was to make the inscriptions less thick ... failure of which was due to me applying too much pressure to the paint brushes and pens that I used). Below are some steps showing how I tackled the challenge of painting/writing/drawing the Words of Lorgar.

Step 1

Early stages yet

First, I painted the parchments with a basecoat of Khemri Brown on top of a Chaos Black undercoat.

Step2

Bleached skin taken from the followers of the False Emperor

I then proceeded to paint about three very thin layers of Bleached Bone onto the parchments. It's important not to apply the paint too thick at this stage as it would result in an uneven surface which would make painting, writing or drawing on it very difficult.

Step 3

Majority of the symbols were painted/drawn on the front of the parchments

There were less details on the back as they would not be that obvious to the casual observer

With the help of the smallest brush that I had (a triple zero sized paint brush) and some fine-sized (005) ink pens, I inscribed the Words of Lorgar onto the parchments. As can be seen from the above two pictures, at this stage, everything still looked very harsh (for want of a better term).

Step 4

Words of Lorgar ... faithfully inscribed with hate

More words of anger and hate (mustn't forget the latter now being a Word Bearer and all)

Finally, I washed the parchments with Ogryn Flesh to add aged patina as well as to make it look as if real human skin was being used, which is what I presume what Word Bearers would use. This had an added effect of reducing the harshness of how everything looked earlier in Step 3.

Incidentally, I finished the third installment of Anthony Reynolds's Word Bearers trilogy i.e. Dark Creed at roughly the same time. I enjoyed the books tremendously and am looking forward to more from the author as the story alluded to an internecine warfare among the Word Bearers ranks.

Cover of Anthony Reynold's third book in the Word Bearers Trilogy

There are still a lot of my Word Bearers army still left undone and I feel that my progress is starting to slack a bit more. Oh ... and if you are wondering ... the pesky Skyrim arrow is still in my knee. =)

An Arrow to the Knee

I know I know, this Skyrim joke is so last year. But it was only recently that I had managed to replace my old broken down PC with one that could play Skyrim and do the game justice. The rest, as they say, is history. Since I installed the game, I have been hooked and have plonked in about 35 hours so far (so says Steam) and I still feel that I have barely touched the surface of what the game has to offer. Sadly this means I have neglected my hobbying for a record time now, and my Word Bearer minis have remained untouched since I last worked on them one month ago.

I used to paint miniatures until ...

Hopefully I can tear myself away from the game soon and start working on my poor Dark Apostle. (That's actually easier said than done because I recently went bonkers during the Steam Holiday Sale Extravaganza and purchased a fair number of games at discounts of up to 75%) Below is a picture of what I have managed to do so far.

Early progress on the Word Bearer Dark Apostle

All these distractions just when I was starting to gather momentum painting miniatures, even to the extent of managing to paint a record number of minis in a 2-week period. Now, my progress seems to have hit a brick wall. Damn that arrow!