Converted Word Bearers Dark Apostle: |
This figure was converted for a Conversion/Painting competition at the Relic Painting & Army Displays Forum ending in October, 2005. The theme of the competition was to take a base figure and add in whatever converted parts and sculpting, while attempting to maintain the appearance of a suitable model for Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K universe. I had received the figure, a pewter Space Marine Terminator Chaplain, as a gift, and thought it would be a suitably cool idea to "corrupt" him to the side of evil. This marks my first attempt at outright conversion and sculpture, and needless to say, it was a definite learning opportunity - especially using Green Stuff for essentially the first time. While getting my ideas for the figure together, I found out that there is an existing Chaos army that has characters along this same theme - Word Bearers Dark Apostles. The Word Bearers concept and theme gave me ideas to flesh out some of the decorative details, and an overall armor color scheme. |
I wanted the figure to retain the appearance of an old Space Marine Chaplain, while still looking perverted and twisted by the powers of Chaos. A simple effect I decided on would be to turn half of the figure to waste and leave enough open areas of unchanged armor to show a) that it used to be a SM Chaplain in Terminator armor, and b) to show off my take on the Word Bearers color scheme, as I've always been partial to deep, bloody-looking reds and I wanted to free-hand some stuff. My idea for the corrupted areas was of dead, bloated flesh bursting out from his armor, with only the banding of the armor keeping things relatively together. Bulking out the banding and adding Chaos styling was the first step, actual sculpting of stitched flesh was the next. Color scheme-wise, I wanted the flesh to look pale and exsanguineous, contrasting nicely with the dark armor and weathered silver trim without looking too out of place. |
Per the description of the Dark Apostles, they carry a close combat weapon, an Accursed Crozius, which is essentially a Chaos-warped version of their original Crozius, a power mace with an Imperial Eagle for the head. Most images of Dark Apostles show the Accursed Crozius to be an ornate affair with an oversized round head with 8 jutting spikes. I personally don't care for any of the images I've seen, as they seem too unwieldy and impractical to me, and decided to make a more subtle, medieval-style flanged power mace of blackened metal with the majority of the Space Marine insignia stripped. |
Pictures of the Unpainted Conversion: |
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Pictures of the Painted Conversion as Entered in the Competition: |
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The Armor: |
The armor color was the biggest consideration outside of the "dead flesh" color for me, as I wanted something to contrast and show off the paleness of the skin areas while still maintaining the dark, blood-red burgundy color of the Word Bearers army per Games Workshop "fluff." Most of the color schemes I saw, even GW's own suggested painting guideline, seemed too purple/bright red to me - I was aiming for something suitably dark. While I don't normally use black to shade red, as I think dark brown makes a much more natural-looking shadow color, I used to shade red armor way back when with black and it gives a suitably dark color - perfect for the basecolor or a toning-down effect. From that decision, it was just a matter of painting and blending the armor so as to allow for a full range of color working up to highlights, without the overall scheme looking too bright.
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The Metal trim: |
The GW-suggested color for the metal trim of the Word Bearers army is silver - I personally wanted something a little less bright and "fresh"-looking, in order to show the age of the figure and play up the corruption of his armor. I decided to start with a dark brownish-silver color as a basecoat and work up from there, with minimal highlights.
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The Bloated Flesh: |
Never having painted pale flesh before - the closest I've came is the pale skin of Eldar from way back when - I wanted a corpse-like, bloodless look. I also wanted hints of green for a somewhat "rotten" appearance, and hints of blues and purples as I've seen those colors used to good effect on other painted figures. The overall effect is one of pasty, translucent flesh (as the veins are still subtly visible) - enough people suggested that it was too pale during the competition voting that I decided to darken it slightly after the fact.
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Added to this now is several washes of 1:2 GW Black Ink/VMC Russian Green, which I think have toned it down to a more putrid-looking greenish tint while still keeping the paleness. |
Parchment: |
Many thanks to Jean Francois' website for ideas from his Word Bearers painting scheme - I wanted to aim for a dark, aged parchment look a little different than the stuff I've painted up to now.
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Cables / Armor Joint Ribbing: |
In order to contrast with the other colors and keep a suitably dark overall appearance, I added green to my painting of black instead of the usual shades of grey. Subtle, but there!
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Lighting Effects and Change of Color: |
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Icon: |
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The Base: |
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Green tiles: I was aiming for a color like soapstone - a greasy, olive-like drab with streaking.
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"White" tiles: Originally I was aiming for something to look like marble, and was all set to paint on whorls/streaks/etc. I wanted a light creamy color to coordinate with the bone/flesh areas of the figure, just as the green was intended to offset the red color in the figure. Well, it didn't quite work out as marble... maybe I'll be brave enough to paint a marble effect next time 'round.
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The dirt: I followed a similar effect to what I've been using on my figure bases thus far, i.e. stick with what works!
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"White" Imperial Eagle parts: I wanted the painted-on design to look weathered, so tried a new "lined" effect for me
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"Dark" Imperial Eagle parts: Again wanting the painted-on design to look weathered, I used the same effect as on the lighter design parts.
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This put me roughly here:
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Finishing the base:
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Pictures of the finished figure with attached base can be found here. |
