Proto-Astartes in k0rdhal pattern powered armour

Though perfectly balanced, the sword feels heavy in his hands. He was told it was an heirloom of a clann of Nord Alba, but it is not the history of the blade that weighs upon him so. He is oathed to this moment. The soft breath of the wind catches the wax sealed parchment afixed to his vambrace but he needs no reminder of the words he spoke not two hours before, for his eidetic memory would not let him forget them even if he tried. Besides, it is not his oath that feels burdensome. 

His genhanced eyesight allows him to pick out individual warriors among the horde that has assembled upon the Katabatic Plains. Most look to be baseline humans, armed with lasfusils and stubguns, their slight frames encased in carapaces of burnished plate, the edges flaring crimson in the pre-dawn light. A day like this might once have been considered ill-omened for dawning red, but in these enlightened times, such superstitions are frowned upon. There is a commotion among the horde as larger men force their way to the front brandishing brutal looking chainblades and concussion mauls. As the sun creeps higher though, he sees his error, for they are not men, they are somehow more and yet almost entirely less. They are Cataegis and this sunrise is to be their last. 

A great cry goes up from the horde as their commanders take to the field. Leading from the front, aiming to go up the centre and he admires their courage even as he acknowledges and dismisses his own fear. As he does so, he feels his secondary heart begin to beat, a sensation he is not yet used to but knows is an autonomic reaction in anticipation of the exertion he will shortly demand of his post-human frame. 

Before the echoes of their warcry have fully faded, the horde begins to advance, walking pace at first but increasing in pace as they eat up the distance between the two forces. His commbead crackles and a Praetor issues clipped orders to countercharge when the forerunners of the horde reach the predetermined markers. His breathing deepens as the seconds tick down, and his extremities begin to tingle as his hearts pump hyper-oxygenated blood throughout his body. 

He instinctively knows when the horde enters optimum range and explodes into motion in eerie synchronicity with every other sable-armoured warrior assembled alongside him and within a few strides they will be upon the enemy. He selects his first target among the throng, a mortal warrior frozen slack jawed and blank eyed in incomprehension, and as he prepares to strike, it is still not the blade's history that weighs upon him so. It is the present and everything that will follow after. 

A little over a year ago, I picked up a pretty unique mini sculpted by Nick Tregidgo (check out his phenomenal sculpting and painting skills on Instagram) and cast in crisp polyurethane resin by Curtis Fell at Ramshackle Games. Once it arrived, I got it cleaned up, assembled and then as is so often the case I promptly got distracted and started working on something else. Earlier this week however, while looking through a storage box for something entirely different I came back across the model and for reasons I can't quite explain, inspiration struck. After digging through my bits boxes for some suitable elements to add some final details, I set about painting it up over the last couple of days.

For the curious, here are a couple of photos of the mini prior to painting which probably makes it easier to tell where all of the bits have come from.

As he is likely to be a 'one off' I thought I'd take the opportunity to try out a couple of painting ideas/recipes that I came across recently and see how they went. 

In the back of White Dwarf 516 was a great wee article on how some of the folks in the Warhammer Studio went about painting Saturnine Terminators with Graham (sadly the article doesn't include his surname so I can credit him properly) using glazes of Black Templar contrast over a silver undercoat for ceramite to paint his Iron Hands. The slightly metallic finish in the photo looked pretty snazzy, so I thought I'd give that a wee go. In the end, I think it was about 3-4 layers of Black Templar to get a finish I was happy with. To save time, I used a hairdryer on a low heat setting to help speed up the paint drying. Graham used the appropriately named Iron Hands Steel to pick our the trim of his Iron Hands model, so I did the same - it's not a paint I've really used before, but being brighter than Iron Warriors and Leadbelcher it seemed look a good option and it ended up working really nicely with the Rhinox Hide and Doombull Brown shading I added to the armour plates. I quite often do this with black armour on minis because the contrast of the warm browns helps to both accentuate highlights and increase visual interest rather than it being all one flat colour. 

Speaking of breaking up large areas of colour, I raided my big drawer of decals for some suitable markings to add to the model including some text from the brilliant Forgotten Chapters scripts and parchments sheet which saves faffing about trying to paint neat squiggly lines! Having recently read the fantastic Labours of Heracles, Legends for Growth and Healing by Professor Laurence Alison I felt that nemean lion would make interesting heraldry for a proto-astartes, while the opposite shoulder is emblazoned with a heptagram not dissimilar to that which would eventually adorn the armour of some of the warriors of the first Legiones Astartes. The raptor imperialis and cast lightning bolts upon the left greave might indicate that the warrior fought in some of the closing stages of the Unification Wars, or perhaps they've simply been appropriated by the nascent Astartes cohorts from those who came before them?

With the idea of the wee narrative vignette above starting to form in my mind while I was painting the mini, I wanted to make the sword look a bit special, but I wasn't sure exactly how and then I remembered watching a brilliant video from Juan Hidalgo a while back on painting true metallic metal blades, so after giving it a wee watch to refresh my memory, I set about glazing down the blade of the sword using Gryph-charger Grey and then adding a touch of Druchii Violet to darken it further, before glazing the lighter areas up with Ironbreaker and then highlighting all of the edges with Stormhost Silver. 

When it came to basing, I knew I wanted incorporate Rhinox Hide to help tie the miniature and the base together and some quick digging through my saved links led me to an older vid from Vince Venturella on painting Chaos Waste Bases which was perfect for what I was thinking, so after painting the base with Rhinox Hide, I drybrushed it with Stormvermin Fur followed by Dawnstone. I then carefully stippled on some Dark Red Ochre and Burnt Sienna pigments before shading the base with Agrax Earth. Once that had thoroughly dried, I drybrushed the base again, starting with Stormvermin Fur and working up through Dawnstone, Administratum Grey and finally Rakarth Flesh, making sure that each colour was applied more lightly than the preceding ones. Following that, I added some beige coloured Tiny Tufts, pushed a drop of Agrax Earth down into each one to tie them to the base and then tidied up the rim with some Abaddon Black.

As well as experimenting with new things, this mini gave me the opportunity to practice a few staples as well, such as painting the power cables and soft armour of the joints to look rubberized, picking out the belt pouches and holster as synth-leather and the casing of the krak grenade in olive drab. 

I'm very pleased with how this mini has come out. I really wanted to do Nick and Curtis' handiwork justice and I think I've pulled that off while making something that is uniquely 'me' at the same time. This was also a wonderful illustration of how sometimes, inspiration will sneak up behind you when you least expect it as well as just how much fun you can have when the creative juices get flowing. Until next time, as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.