Inquisitional Conclave 2021 (Week 1)

 It's paint an Inquisitor month! Hopefully some of you folks out there are fiendishly busy on figuring out who your Inquisitor is for this year's Inquisituonal Conclave or you are already making progress on your model. Remember you can send updates to me at neverness92@gmail.com. 

So far we have only a few updates. We have Da Masta Cheef with his rather fierce looking Inquisitor Hubris McClellan (until I saw Cheef's blog post, I had been calling him Inquisitor Dom; It doesn't seem inaccurate does it?).

Power maul time!

He doesn't do the fur-lined ones. 

Floyd Lawton at 1st Legion Chronicles is set to paint up this guy that he ordered from eBay. Last year he did a very cool Inquisitor for the Conclave and I look forward to seeing what he does with this chap.

What's he going to do with that left hand?

And here is my guy, a take on old Inquisitor Jaq Draco. 

"Oh, 'es 'armless!"

Hopefully we get a few more Inquisitors to show up this year or it's going to be a more subdued event this time around.  Jaq is threatening to dispatch his Calidus Dancers for our entertainment otherwise, which could be fun actually! 

Catch you all next week! 

Inquisitor Jaq Draco (Part 1)

 

Hello. Welcome to my Inquisitor project for this year's Inquisitional Conclave. To sum up, the goal is to paint an Inquisitor, or any model that is part of an Inquisitor's force, by the end of the month of August. 

Close-up of Draco from the Chaos Child cover. 

I intend to base mine off of Inquisitor Jaq Draco from the old Ian Watson Inquisition War series.  I was tempted to paint him black in a faux Death Watch scheme and call him an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor, but the temptation to paint him like old Jaq was too great. 

I found this model a few weeks ago while assessing my old Cadians, and he was in with a box of unopened blister packs I forgot I had. As you can see, he's easy to forget about since he was packaged backwards! When I opened him up from the blister I was surprised to find that the foam backing was disintegrating in a crumbly dusty mush. This is something I have never seen happen to a blister pack before and it made me glad to free him from that. 

The disintegrating foam.

A weird side effect of that foam disintegration is that it seems to have somehow stained the Inquisitor's face a darker color. A weird curiosity that will no longer matter by month's end. 

Draco's new base.

The two best color references (and the word 'best' is truly strained here) of Inquisitor Draco is the original cover of the Inquisitor novel (also used on the cover of White Dwarf 129 -and the better reference, thanks to the larger size) and the original cover to Chaos Child. Both show Draco in red Terminator armor, but each painting shows that these are both different suits. You can compare and contrast them below:

White Dwarf 129

Chaos Child 1st edition.

The Chaos Child cover is a strange one but it does give you a better look at Draco's scorpion facial tattoo. I am not sure yet how, and if, I am gonna tackle that particular detail. And a back banner... well, I'm not 100% opposed to it, I am more concerned about long-term storage. We'll see how things shake down. Also, the miniature was clearly an inspiration for these pieces as Draco doesn't have a bionic leg. I am not committed enough to this project to convert a leg back on him. Besides, I think I prefer that bionic leg anyway. 

That's it for this week, we'll see how far I get by next week.  Also, feel free to send me a WIP shot of your project, as I would like to share other folk's progress on their Inquisitors in a post this weekend,  Thanks again! 

Inquisitional Conclave 2021

Greetings, and welcome to the 2021 Inquisitional Coclave. 

The rules are simple: you have until the end of the month to paint an Inquisitor model. Throughout this month, August 2021, paint it up and send me your progress updates. You're not just limited to an Inquisitor specifically, you can paint members of their retinue to accompany the one you might have painted last year or any Imperial Agents your Inquisitor may requisition. There are more options than one might initially expect (que). 

You can message me directly at neverness92@gmail.com to send me either pics or a link to your own blog or a link to whatever media account that you publicly post your miniature pics. Whatever you want to do. Of course, I'll post my own updates here as well. We will kick this off now, with the updates every weekend with a Saturday target. The Conclave itself is to happen on September 4th. That should be plenty of time for most of us -I hope!

Inquisitor Draxus by Waaarghpug, conclave 2020.

There are no winners or loser, we're just here to paint the Inquistion. 

Inquisitor Greyfax by Siph_Horridus, 2020.

There are plenty of things out there if you need some inspiration. The old Role Playing game by Fantasy Flight is one example, and some of the best Black Library novels feature them as well. GW has also been muttering things about Inquisitors asking questions  like "Are these four Inquisitors Evil?" and I can't help but wonder if they're going to release more Inquisitors in plastic soon...?

We had a good turn out last year, just a few random samples appear in this post to give you an idea. I am hoping we have just as many this year if not more. Personally, I would love to see someone paint up a Throne Of Judgment!  

Inquisitor Hiser the Hisarion, Conclave 2020.

Alright, let's get to it! There are lot of aliens, traitors and daemons to burn and we need more Inquisitors to make it happen. Please spread the word on this, as I would I like to see a big and diverse selection of participants this year.  

I look forward to seeing this year's submissions! 

Oblivi'anna, Da Masta Cheef's 2020 Conclave Inquisitor.

Death Jester (Art Mondays!)

 Greetings. Today we feature a piece I thought had been printed in Inquisitor, but after looking through the two issues I did some art in, I can't find it. Regardless it's one I still like and I am happy to share it with you lot.  

The Death Jesters were absolute beasts in the Rogue Trader days (WD 105-106?) and I still fearfully recall them from that time. Many an ork was turned into goo by the fearsome bio-shurikans that they shot all over the battlefields old. Ah, good times...

Death Watch: Kill Team Neverness (Part 2)

Still watching...and waiting. 

Still. 

....well, they were for many years anyway. About 5 years since I last messed with them actually. I was recently inspired to work on them again and the first thing I did was a Chaplain. There is a few reasons for this: one reason is that they are part of the paint queue I resolved to tackle back in the New Year, and the other is that next month is Inquisitional Conclave month and I want my Inquisitor to arrive with a group of Death Company in tow. 

One of the reasons I didn't finish these guys was my indecisiveness regarding their weapon load out. I overcame this by deciding to build the two squads from the Death Masque boxed set that I've been holding onto for the last 5 years. I decided to build them exactly as presented in the Death Masque scenario booklet. The Veterans are Squad Crull and the Vanguard are Squad Galatalel. The left over bits will be used to equip 'Klll Team Neverness' (yeah, expect that name to change). 

Squad Crull, mostly assembled. 

Squad Galatael, mostly assembled.

Now I am still building these guys but I want to prime them and basecoat them prior to assembly. But before I got to them, I noticed that the guy with the heavy bolter was mostly done. He's also the trickiest to assemble. These hybrid metal/plastic kits could be a pain to put together and I suppose I procrastinated ever doing it for that reason.

The unassembled parts.

I have recently discovered superglue gel, which is really good at not only getting these bits to adhere but it forms a secure and strong bond when dry. 

Heavy bolter arm is attached.

Weirdly when I bought this model it's blister  pack was missing the left metal arm. I hadn't realized this until it was way to late to do anything about it, so I constructed my own replacement; It's crude but effective. The crude bits will be covered up by the Death Watch shoulder pad. 

The new arm.

Once that was attached I slapped on the pauldron and the model was complete. I did a few paint touchups as I went along but all-in-all I am fairly happy with the finished model.

Fully assembled.

This marine originally came from the White Consuls  chapter. Back in the '90s I was going to make a generic (or is the term 'vanilla' the preferred expression these days?) space marine chapter and it was going to be White Consuls. But painting an entire army where I had to hand paint the chapter icon soon lost it's appeal to me. I did feature the White Consuls in a comic that did in the late '90s however...maybe you'll see that in a future Art Monday post? 

The White Consul gunner. 

When the weather allows I will spray some sealant on him to reduce chipping on the metal components. But despite that step, he is done.

Death Watch shoulder pad side. 

That's one down! What a weird feeling it is to finally finish one of the oldest miniatures in my queue. I look forward to completing all these Death Watch Marines! 

Wounded Guardian (Art Monday)

 Greetings, today's art Monday is basically a scene from a battle where these Eldar Guardians haven't really fared so well. This was back in the 2nd edition era when Eldar Guardians were often seen with las weapons, so it's understandable that they would get their butts kicked a bit more often. Actually, most Eldar players from that time did everything they could to not take las weapons as the shurikan catapults were a lot more effective (even with the jams). 

"You bastards!!!"

This is another unpublished piece that was submitted to some of the 40k fanzines in the mid-'90s but was never published. 

Deathwatch Chaplain

  

Xenos hunt on deathworld Crootsburg VIII.

Deathwatch time. Quite truly overdue actually. The last time I dealt with my Deathwatch was back in 2016. At the time I wanted to build a small force of these guys to support either my Imperial Guard or one of my other Space Marine armies. This was during 7th edition and when the Codex for that edition arrived I found myself overwhelmed by it and the new unit options available to it, so I backburnered these guys. Until now. 

We have been playing some smaller point sized games lately which allows me to bring out some of these smaller forces and let them hit the table. My Deathwatch are greatly unprepared for battle but with a little bit of hobby focus I should be able to get them ready for battle. 

I decided not to start off with my long neglected Kill Team but to kick things off with a character model. I just happened to have this Deathwatch Chaplain that I bought around the time of the 7th Edition codex release. 

 

He was originally released back when 28mm was the standard base size for mostly everything in the game, but by the time the Deathwatch was released in 2016 32mm bases had become the the default size for space marines. So one was included in the clam pack, rattling around loosely. Tinkering around with the model and these bases I decided that I rather like the scenic 28mm base and that it would look better just stuck on the 32mm base. I added some rubble (i.e. pieces of chopped up sprue), skulls and grit and I had cool base for this fellow. Painting it was fairly simple, and in the following pics you. And see how it all pulls together with some color.

The modified base.

Base coats on the base. 

Mid coats.

I added the highlights to the base after I attached the main figure. Speaking of which, this is one of those rare models where after you finish with the base coats, you feel like you're almost done.

Base coats.

And after a few more steps, well, I was! 

The bone work was done a bit differently on the Chaplain's armor and helm than the actual skulls shattered about on his base. Instead of highlighting them up with Whitescar, I used Pallid Wyche Flesh. I liked how this turned out as it wasn't as intense. 

A detail I added at the last minute was the brown lines, to indicate writing, on the scroll work. This was done using a brown micron pen. Funny thing is, I usually hate the look of warriors wearing paper to battle. It seems really silly and impractical. But I think it turned out nice on this model. 

Detail added to scrolls.

And that's a wrap! I knocked this one out quick, I hope I can do that for the rest of the Deathwatch I have...

Deathworld Crootsburg VIII, post pacification.