The Archangels: Part 4

Of all the Blood Angels, I like the background of Mephiston the most. This talented and noble warrior fighting in the biggest battle of his life on Armageddon, but falling victim to the Black Rage, and eventually being buried alive under tonnes of rubble. Instead of dying though, he was literally so pissed off, he beat off the psychotic madness of the Rage, and in a proper Hulk-Smash moment, burst free from tonnes (yes tonnes!) of rock as an even more superhuman version of the already superhuman Marines...

But, whilst there are some very good bits, the old metal model really doesnt do him justice (God, that should be a slogan or something...) since it is hampered by the technology of the day, and has a broom up its arse.
(plus, really didn't suit the complete powerhouse the new 'dex turned him into...)

So, ready for this?

I built my own.

Taking inspiration from jahminis excellent conversion over on CMON , I set about building my Mephy (pet name)...

an early attempt

Dark Angel legs, Sanguinary Guard arms and a bald head is all the plastic that went into this, the rest was sculpted from GS, though it took a few tries. The buckle was easy, a simple press-mold of the original. The chest was harder, however. Getting the ribbing right was tricky, also getting the spacing balance, too spread and the effect would be lost, too close and there would be next to no effect:

even painted they look "wrong"

I ended up having to strip the chest and redo it, but instead of simply dragging a knife blade (see above) I used the pointed end of a sculpty tool, rocking it to help make the spaces even and uniform...

The hair WAS done with a knife though, as it suits being more raggedy and torn-ish.

Another thing was that with the new, thicker torso, he looked ridiculously skinny at the waist. Rather than clutter up the model with bits of kit, I found that sculpting two small armour plates did the job rather well, and subtly too (which was key).

Painting was easy, the biggest challenge was how to make his feet stand out without looking too orange (since I was very happy with the tone of the robes, and wasnt going to change them!

The little skulls, whilst not sculpted on my model, weren't much bother to paint. Five dots at most really: Skull, Jaw, eye sockets, nose. Simples!

The banner was donated by a kindly Legion of the Damned sergeant, as I thought the "Angel of death" moniker suited the banner quite well. Adding in a scenic base topped it off.









Very interested to know what you guys think, more opinions are always helpful...-jap