Standard Bearer - Finished

Arrived safely in Norway this evening, but managed to shoot a couple of pictures of my take on the Chaos Exalted Hero, before dropping him off at Games Workshop and catching my plane.

After talking to some friends, I decided to go for a traditional banner instead of a flag, and added onto the plastic banner from the Chaos Marauder Horsemen set. Got a couple of spare parts from the old mounted Champion of Slaanesh and the Dark Elf Cold One Knight boxes. I didn't have time to paint any freehand on the banner, but after I return to Denmark I'll see it through.

I've used a rather limited palette on this piece: only Skull White, Chaos Black, Shadow Grey, Mithril Silver and Scorched Brown (except on the base, which got a few colours more - but I'll make a short tutorial of it later), which I think has worked quite well to tie the whole model together. Granted, not the typical colours of Slaanesh, but I really like the concept of using light and clean colours to represent darkness or evil. And while I have nothing against pink personally, I do find it slightly over-used, so I wanted to try something else to make it stand out more.

With all the armour on this model, I've had ample opportunities to practice shading of metal - or painting true metallic metal, if you like - and I really like the process and results. To top it off, it goes faster and faster for every part, and I hope to keep this level up on the rest of the unit. I have mentioned in an earlier post, I believe, that this miniature will be part of a regiment of Chaos Warriors with the Mark of Slaanesh, and when I get back to Denmark I hope to be able to complete the first rank sometime february. There is some rather extensive converting and sculpting involved, and I have to figure out how to make a couple of things in sculpting putty as I go, but having one model finished surely helps on the motivation!

But now time for some pictures: Hope you like him! As always, comments and criticism is welcome!
The voting for december's Knights of the Brush will take place tuesday the 27th, so if you live in or near Copenhagen, feel free to drop by GW's store there, as I'm sure there will be several really great entries this month as well!

Standard bearer WIP

Just a little WIP shot of the standard bearer.
For fun I thought I'd try something new with his helmet - the freehand need some cleaning, but I think I'll leave that for later - so much left to do! And I've got only tonight and tomorrow to finish him, if I want to participate in december's Knights of the Brush, as there's a plane waiting for me wednesday to take me back to my parents' place in Norway.

Don't know what you think? Part of me likes the freehand on the helmet, but on the other hand the lovely shape of the Chaos Warrior helmet gets a bit lost?

Inspired...

As the work on my Sorcerer neared the end, I began thinking of what to do next. I came to a point with my Sorcerer, where I had to wait some hours for certain parts of putty to cure a bit, before I could move on. I suddenly had a timepocket to fill, and while I could have started painting my Dragon Ogres, I thought that the space of time would be better suited continueing sculpting - after all, both putty and tools were already in my hands, so no need to dig out paint and brushes.

But what to do? I do have quite a few regiments waiting in their sprues, and while looking through the boxes, I came over my Chaos Warriors, and it hit me how static they look, all lined up, weapons and shields at same angle and looking quite boring (at least the third time one assembles a regiment of them...), despite the rather great sculpts. Lots of good detail, no doubt about that, just lack "motion".
Then my mind wandered to an image from the armybook, of a charging warrior, and I thought to myself, that's what I want to make! So I cut off a leg, half the cloak and one shoulder, then found an arm and some greenstuff, and started putting it together. A few hours later, and this is what I got:
It's by no means finished, I'm currently working on making the cloak sort of flutter behind him, and I need to find him a helmet. And even if the shield's finished, the arm might need some extra sculpting as I've cut away a large portion of the cloak which'd normally hide the upper arm... His left foot is there somewhere, but it's bet so high you can't see it from this angle.
Owh and here's the picture from the armybook, just for reference:Mine will get a classic Chaos Warrior shield, though, as I think they simply look gorgeous - and besides: carrying half-torn bodies stuck to the shield ain't only unpractical, but slightly un-Slaaneshi, don't you think?
I don't know how you think, but personally I felt so happy with the result, that I decided to make the rest of the regiment in a similar matter, i.e. less static, and all with unique poses, but so far I've only gotten the second one to about the same stage as the one on the picture above, although with quite a different pose. Unfortunately I didn't take no pictures of him yet, and I'll try not to make you wait long.

Anyways, hope you like the idea and how the first one's turned out so far.
Last in this post, I thought I'd include a picture I took this morning, which managed to capture some of the details better.