Agents of the Inquisition

Greetings all, today we have another in the range of Imperial Agents that I am painting for a client. They are designed for no particular army and are essentially a narrative gaming unit:

The unit consists of four crusader-style henchmen, 3 bases of servo-skulls and cherubim and an antique suit of Terminator armour belonging to the Inquisitor's warband:

The client wanted the armour to be battered and chipped as though it had really been through the wars. In order to do this I used Vallejo German Camo Black-Brown and a sponge to apply random dings and chips to the leading edges of the armour. After that I painted Boltgun Metal in the centre of the largest chips to indicate where the paint had been rubbed off right down to the bare metal. The colour scheme of black, white and red is the traditional heraldry of the various branches of Imperial organisations.

I used blue as a spot colour throughout the unit. Both to provide a contasting saturated colour to the red and to pay homage to the original Ordo Hereticus warband of the client which was painted in a pale blue. This, interestingly, is an example of a Tetrad colour scheme using two pairs of contrasting colours (black & white; red & blue), see colour theory, it works! The wreath and ribbons were also an opportunity to try out the new glazes and they are great. I've been able to pick up the new paint range thanks to a large commission so I'll be able to give you my thoughts on the range in the near future as I practice with them.

The Empire elements on 40k Imperial miniatures work brilliantly and I will definately be remembering this in the future. The sword's final effect was something I was fairly proud of, a graduated fade of Regal Blue adding black and white and applied in a counter shade pattern I saw online. Little flecks of white make it look sharp and a glaze of Asurman Blue and a couple of layers of gloss varnish finished it off nicely. The mix of metals in the hilt also turned out quite pleasingly.

The banner is about 15mm long so plenty of space for applying an Inquisitorial Mandate to it, this is essentially an Inquisitors warrant card that empowers him to act.

The storm shields applied to each model gave a nice roundel that worked well with the colour scheme. It's also remeniscent of the "grunt's" heraldry from the previous Imperial Agent's warband.

The servo skulls were a mix of plastic and forgeworld resin. I used the trailing cables of the plastic skull to support one and made a set of support cables out of twisted thin wire to support the others. Using blue for the lenses also helped to tie them to the unit by replicating the spot colour.

This little cherub is - weirdly - the one I wound up happiest with. I attached the chain of a spare plague censor to the back of the cherub and used it to support another servo skull. This little fella works so, so much better in 40k than on the Empire model it is intended for. The scrollwork is pidgeon latin for the Light of the Emperor is Truth Eternal. I was a biologist so a fair amount of latin sunk in. I think I'll do a short tutorial at some point on achieving these effects.

Well, that's all for now, see you next time.

TTFN