Unfortunately with my rush to get things finished on a deadline I did not stop to take WIP pictures of this warband but I thought I would try to break down the processes a little bit anyway as some of them were a little unusual and I tried out some new techniques that ended with differing levels of success. My apologies if I get some of the unit names wrong for the bits used, my memory is terrible when it comes to the names but hopefully with our combined knowledge we’ll get there. I will do a run through of the paints and painting technique in a separate post as I used the same colors and methods on all of them pretty much.
The driving force for the look of this war band came from the idea of them being descended from, but not a part of, the Imperium of man. I liked the idea of the natural juxtaposition of nature vs order brought about by the Thorn Moons setting. It reminded me of historical settings and periods, such as the Roman advance upon the British Isles or the Saxons repelling Norse invaders. It seemed to me that these same themes of order vs chaos, civilisation vs tribalism also worked well in FPOA’s excellent Thorn Moons background. So I used Norse names and tried to work in some pagan elements and hints towards elemental magic and a general symbiosis with the natural world in their titles and the models themselves of course. This is further echoed in the little bit of background about their society as well, I wanted them to come across as a wilder, more instinctive brand of humanity than the Imperium is used to.
Anyway beginning with the leader of the Court and probably the least heavily converted of the group;
Fyonn of the Jade Morning
The main body is pretty obvious, Saint Celestine from the Triumvirate of the Imperium box set. What a great model and kit with some really great bits. The only thing I dislike about this and GW’s sprues these days is how they are cutting up faces and certain body parts, makes it a lot harder to kit bash.
Anyway all I did with this is leave off a few pieces such as the shoulder pads and throat guard and file off some detail. I then filled up the gaps with Stirland mud. This was a new experiment to see if I could add some earthiness and texture as well as fill in gaps with minimal effort. I am pretty happy with the result. I then used some plastic rod and GS to make a pipe and the connection to her throat guard
I added some of the ribbon/banner from this set and also two from the Harlequins set. I tucked some small dried out sticks in the gaps between her legs and these ribbons to create a kind of a tribal skirt. I wanted this to be reminiscent of a woods witch or a dryad. This is one aspect of the mini I really like.
The one part of this I don’t like is the cover I made for the top of the banner ribbons at the rear. I rolled some GS into some flock and sand and made it into a suitable shape. It had a lot less body and texture than I thought and also lost a lot of its malleability. I think it looks ok now but in retrospect not a great technique.
The face is also from the Harlequin set, I GS’d the hair, added some horns, can’t remember where from sorry, and GS’d the half mask and bionic eye. This was one thing I wanted to look distinctly different from Imperial technology. I wanted to keep this earthy feel and so I painted it in Agrellan earth, (and then Vallejo acrylic varnish to hold it on), to give it a cracked, ancient appearance.
The right hand and spear is from the Skeleton warriors box set and the left hand is the long pistol from the Sydonian Dragoon (or Skitarii!) set. I also added a gas tank on her back although I cannot remember where from.
Anyway I think thats about it for Fyonn. Without her none of the other models would hold their own I think, she really is the centrepiece and gives the others their natural role. I wanted it to be obvious who was the boss, and I think if anything that is the one thing I am confident I did.
Horgraive Snake-Eater
Horgraive, Horgraive, oh the hours we spent.
So this was probably the most complicated of the group. He took a long time and a lot of layering to get right. He came out pretty rotund but I actually really like that about him, gives him the appearance of age and a bit of stature i think.
Anyway to begin with, I think the head is from the Sydonian Dragon boxset or the Skitarii, my apologies I cannot remember. It is a pretty well used head though so I am sure you will know better than me.
Moving on, the front of the torso is from the skeleton warriors box set, trimmed a bit and then GS’d onto a Skitarii torso rear with the cloak cut off and the back filed down. I also added the pipes into the hole in the front with GS. I then took a spine thing from the Necron Praetorians (?) box set and GS’d that onto his back and head and blended that in and added the connecting detail on the back of his head.
The cloak was from the Skitarii set again but took a lot of sanding and GS to fit the new shape of the torso. This is part of what led me to flocking it with sand, because I was having a hard time covering the marks from the extensive reshaping done to the upper parts.
Anyway after a while I got it done and fitted in place over some Cadian legs, which were again heavily modified and cut down to fit. To help in the front I made a mesh type thing by rolling out the grippy part of a scalpel over some GS for a diamond crosshatch pattern. This helped fill the gap between his legs and cloak and his legs and the Necron ‘loincloth’ thing I used in the front. I put a full skull with the hair from the Skeleton warrior set again as I thought it looked particularly feral and added to the swampy, mouldy look.
The arms both came from the Skitarii set. The gun was made from cutting down the existing pistol to just the revolving chamber and then adding the barrel of a gun from the Sicarian Infiltrators set and flipping it. I really like this one, Ill probably use versions of it in the future. As bad as Destiny 2 ended up being, the franchise has some really good looking weapons. I think that is mainly what inspired the design of this handcannon.
As to his other hand I cannot rightly say where it came from (?) but I do remember adding the thumb and what a pain that was!
My genius girlfriend thought of the idea of giving him a snake skin to further add to the swamp borne theme. This is where Horgraive was also gifted his last name. This was simpler than expected, just rolled out some GS very thinly and rolled the grip of a scalpel over it, then went over this with the flat part to even out the texture a bit. Cut it into the relative shape of a snake skin and let it dry. The rattle part was just two little tubes of GS rolled together. When all dry just glued them into place and bent the top down a bit to represent flapping skin. I hope it is recognisable, I think more so when viewed with his name in mind.
Then it was just a case of adding a skull and some bones from the flagellants set and a knife from the scions set to fill in the gaps on his back.
All in all a lot of effort but I think it paid off. In retrospect it might have been more interesting to use a less recognisable head, but at the time I had not seen it around that many times. It is such an amazing piece though so I would have used it at some point anyway for sure. So that wraps up Horgraive, sorry I could not be more specific about certain parts, some of the pictures on the GW site do not show them the desired way up! So it is a bit hard to be sure where exactly they came from.
Hope you enjoyed this part of the War Court build breakdowns, thanks for getting this far and in future I wll make sure to have WIP pictures to use should I do this again.
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