The official regiment for him was the standing Planetary Defense Force of Fortis Binary. His fatigues are leftovers from his old standard-issue PDF gear and his outer jacket is made from a heavy all-weather fabric and worn to help deal with temperature and environmental changes, both naturally-occurring or accidentally self-induced. The rubberized vest underneath his jacket is cut down from a full CBRNe/hazmat protective suit which would have been worn by one of the regular manufactorum workers of Fortis Binary before the planet fell to Chaos, but is worn by this psyker now more as a barrier to any incidental contact with contaminants or biological/mutagenic poisons in the course of combat amongst the factory and munitorium ruins.Although this Renegade Psyker is intended to be a member of The Shriven, and my background and theme is in part based from Dan Abnett's "First and Only" novel, for everything else I'm more or less making things up as I go along. I'm somewhat in the same boat as Dave Taylor with his Blood Pact army in-progress; only not nearly as talented, artistically inspirational, well-known, or in the market for a new tattoo. Okay, I'm nowhere near in the same boat as Dave Taylor, but I'm basing my force on something Dan Abnett came up with that was inspirational enough to form a tabletop army around, except I'm lacking in the finer precise details like "official insignia," "color scheme," and "general appearance" (see below the "Dave's Got Ink" heading on the above link).
Oh, and I'm not actually griping about the lack of particulars for The Shriven, really; I guess it's a credit to Mr. Abnett that he's talented enough to get me buying more of his novels as I find them simply based on his authorship, and also keeping a steady flow of cash into Games Workshop's coffers on impulse purchases of tiny plastic and resin miniatures - it's my own damn fault, and I'm enjoying myself!
As to the Renegade Psyker himself, I was able to get some painting done last night and finally settled on a spot color for this guy, if not the rest of my eventual Shriven force:
Will you be painting the chaos star (scar) on his chest? Also, will you be adding any lichen or flock to his base at all? He's exquisitely painted, of course, but the general feel I get from look at it is it's a little too drab. Picking out some detail in red or orange (like the star) might help it stand out, but I'd fear it would make it too cartoony. Adding a small clump of foliage to the base, and maybe a mushroom or other small splash of color could help to balance the figure out.
ReplyDeleteS'just a thought...
I'd agree that the star needs(needed?) to stand out a bit more - instead of adding more red to the scarring on his chest itself, I deepened the color and shading around it a bit more, and then added another highlight step of OOP GW Bronzed Flesh (equivalent to the old GW Pallid Flesh?) to the upper facing areas of the ritual scarring on his chest.
ReplyDeleteI'd also agree that the base is rather drab and have since added some static grass - I was hoping to lighten it (it's a dead grass color, as befits the urban ruins basing I'm using for my Chaos forces) but it seems I'll have to wait until after I spray some sealer on it to stiffen the stuff up.
I do have another idea of adding some debris to the base and additional color to the burnt/sheared-off Rhino hatch amongst the flying rubble (part of my initial plan, but didn't have time before a local painting competition) - maybe that'll liven things up a bit. Part of my intent in painting this guy the way I did was to see if I could do "directional" (or zenithal) highlighting, essentially trying to draw attention to his face/head, so I don't want to pick anything out on the base in too bright a color, either.