One Ugly Father
The Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor's venerable Patriarch sure is one ugly bastard, grown corpulent and warty from its many years of over-indulgence and privilege. It spends most of its time lounging on it's opulent silk lined throne, its every need attended to by doting Brood Brother servants who tenderly massage its calloused hide and feed it Ambull caviar while the upper echelon of the Cult plot their coming insurrection and the downfall of Imperial rule.
This is a great miniature sculpted by Bob Olley. It is a subject that fully benefits from his characteristic style, the variety of sharply defined textures and surfaces is remarkable, but does make it a bugger to paint.
Brood Brother Fanatics
Human cultists have diverse motives to affiliate with the cult. They range from the vulnerable and emotionally unstable, to those with political motives, and violent criminals. A ripe recruiting ground that the coven exploits. Many initiates believe the cult to be a benevolent religious organisation or fraternity. Only the most trustworthy are indoctrinated into its true nature. After proving their loyalty the most fanatical members of the cult undergo a grotesque ritual- the "Kiss of the Patriarch". This involves shaving their body hair in reverence to their Genestealer masters, tattooing their foreheads, and finally submitting to the Patriarch who clutches their head in it's claws and implants a genestealer egg with it's ovipositor. The tattoos and three scars on either side of the head are a mark of pride and honour.
These are Confrontation Tech Gang models. Despite having dodgy plastic arms I love their demeanor and profusion of details, perfect for Genestealer Cultists.
Brand New Cadillac
For the Cult's second limo I wanted something a bit different to the other armoured hover limousine. This started out as a cheap and crappy 1:43 1955 Crown Vic toy (as suggested in the Warhammer 40, 000 Compendium), and as with the other one I just kept adding stuff until it looked right. Inspired by the header image on this blog I went for a more 50s hot rod/ Mad Max/ bio-mechanical theme. I imagine the Patriarch and Magus's ride to be the more classy armoured hover limousine, while this road-wheeler is the Hybrid's vehicle to hoon around in.
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ReplyDeleteI am loving the development of this beautifully painted cult. The story is neat too. What models are next?
ReplyDeleteThanks alot! Well as far as the cult is concerned, some more confrontation gangers (scavvies), beastmen, more hybrids, and renegade cyborgs. Longer term- summoned demons, mutant bombs, and zoats.
DeleteFantastic stuff again. I love seeing a coherent force come from disparate miniatures. Thats a great use for those lovely old tech models. I hadnt thought to use the plastic Orlock arms with them, Im going to use that idea.
ReplyDeleteThe limo is wonderful. Im interested in the process that you used when painting it: did you hand paint over the supplied paint job or did the whole thing get a respray etc?
Cheers, very happy you enjoy the photos. The Orlock arms work quite well, and I really like the uzi style autopistol.
DeleteThe limos were both painted the same way, but they have been difficult to photograph because of the high gloss finish. I sprayed it black directly on top of the supplied paint job, drybrushed the metallics, then tried to replicate the effect of an airbrush by drybrushing dark blue on the edges of the appropriate panels, building up to almost white highlights. Blatantly copying the paint job of the limos in the Warhammer 40k Compendium. To finish off I applied several layers of floor polish to give a high gloss, car-like finish. I left the hubcaps chrome as I thought it added character, but on retrospect maybe it is too toy like.
The hot rod limo was actually a bit tricky as I foolishly and impatiently did the modelling on top of the factory paint job. The paint they use (some kind of epoxy paint I believe) did not like my glue and it ended up quite messy. If you are going to try something similar I recommend either stripping the paint off of the toy in the usual manner, or keying the surface by sanding.
That Patriarch looks great! It's not too often that you see many painted.....let alone lookin as fine as you've managed to achieved. Well done!
ReplyDeleteRegarding the cultists, the mechanical implant thingy on the back of their heads, is that something you've made or was it part of the original mini? It suits them, just curious about it's origin.
You coven vehicles are again, something you don't see too often. But even though yours (as well as the old GW teams ones) look the goods, I always thought it would have been a bit of a give away to the local authorities of what you were up to. When I saw the original coven picture in the WD, this mental image of the Patriarch slouched behind the wheel of his cool ride, cruisin with his crew down the main drag popped into my head. All of a sudden!!! The Space Marine fuzz would pull him over because of his outlandishly adorned ride i.e. auto cannon's where the headlights used to be, spikes in place's that were definitely not for ornamental purposes. And then the whole gig would be up :)
But hey, it's just a game. Suspending disbelief is part of it.
Anywho, cool work, looking forward to seeing what you produce next.
Cheers.
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DeleteHaha, the marines are probably too busy policing punks painting "smash the empire" graffiti then to deal with the genestealer hoon menace! The implant is part of the original mini, they look like sink drains, I guess it is supposed to represent some kind of neural interface- probably a common bio-mod in the far future.
DeleteThese look great. You've done a great job with the Olley patriarch. I came into possession of some human bomb models lately, and was wondering what to do with them. Self-sacrificing brood brothers seems obvious now.
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