Saint Bellan

If there is one piece in the army that deserves full attention, it is the leader. On the battlefields where the Adeptus Mechanicus deploys, it is the Tech-Priest Dominus who becomes first in command. And as such, I wanted to give mine a unique touch.

Though I very much like the appearance of GW:s model, the lack of units in general among AdMech points everyone in the general direction of this single HQ (well, this one and Belisarius Cawl). The head is swappable, and it is a bit repose-able; but besides that there is little room for kit bashing. So I started looking around for other possible models.

One thing that’s really missing back at Games Workshop is female models. Just going down that branch is a quite simple way to give a sweet touch to my forces… And after a bit of searching, I stumbled upon RagingHeroes, having a quite extensive range of interesting models suitable for my project.

Necropriestess Nepharya caught my attention, striking a divinesque pose, clad in iron tentacles and tools, concealed in robes and mask. Perfect for me!

First of all, if you´re used to GW:s plastic, then you´re in for a bit of pain. Since I was in no mood to mess this up, I went through all steps thoroughly before assembling. Proper washing, removing all the moldlines, etc. Even though I’m used to the good ol’ days of assembling fragile parts, this was among the harder ones; I would place it next to this classic. In my younger days I would’ve been fine with half the effort, but nowadays I prefer to assemble my models once without having to worry to much about fragility. I reinforced every tentacle and claw with some extra mold, before fixating with really strong glue…

Before we move on, lets give the video below a minute of your time:

Boob-armour annoys the Jibbers out of me. And my biggest concern with Nepharya (and the Raging Heroes-franchise overall) was right there at the focal point of her. There was work to be done here.

So first of I went for a complete mastectomy. I flattened her chest using a fine clipper before smoothing the area with a fine file.

I took an AdMech sigil from my bits-box and added tubes in the same manner found on the Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard. This gives her a more robust appearance and makes her tie in more with the army in general. Since I try to go for wysiwyg (what you see is what you get), I removed her right scythe and replaced with a plasma caliver (stand in for the volkite blaster), removed on of her mechanical arms and replaced with a servo-skull, a computer from the infiltrator box, and a repurposed flechette blaster to stand in for a macrostubber. Though technically not the correct weapons for a Dominus (or in this case, Domina), they come in appropriate scale and shouldn’t give anyone a hard time guessing. I doubt I will enter any official tournaments anyway.

Once again, I didn’t really take the time to properly document my progress. The picture above jumps straight to the finished model and on to the base. It took me quite some time before deciding how to execute it. I ended up stacking up on skulls and industrial debris. The skulls add to the dynamic of the tentacles, reducing the distance between the model and the base as it feels like she crawls through the death and debris below. It also gave a much needed stability to her tentacles, as well as more weight to the bottom, reducing wobbly model-syndrome.

Finally, one secret ingredient was added, granting her extra fortune on the field – the sand is ash from Eyjafjallajökull, a volcano infamous for her eruption back in 2010.

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And the finished piece! This took perhaps two weeks of evening-sessions, including preparation and drying. I was quite generous with gold, making sure she becomes the centre of attention on the field.

And her name? Among the female Magos lore wise, the name Felicia Tayber came up. Not much is said of her appearance, besides donning mechaendrites attached to her spine and having large part of her skull augmented. Perfect match for me! Felicia it is.

It was time for a more simple and straight-forward batch of models – The Sicarian Ruststalkers.

Though they consist of human bodies, they felt more or less like robots in terms of painting. Basically claws, metallic limbs and sharp stuff pointing in every possible direction coming out of a red torso. They also have heads, but on a list of bodily necessities I believe everything holding sharp stuff have priority on these.

In order to keep track of my uploads, I had to give them names. So first up is Gunnar. There is an old flechette blaster on the base. Flechette blaster -> gun -> Gunnar.

There is a lot of free space on these bases, so I wanted to make use of it to give them a small bit of character. Why not use spare bits?

So this is the first unit I start adding a few personal touches on their bases. Though nothing groundbreaking, it was a start. I added a subtle gloss on their armour with the help of a red wash. Ready-made washes give off a glossy surface, while thinning down regular paints gives a matt surface.

Uncle Acid is the most notorious one. Using glossy effects, I made him an acid pool to cool down his hot feet. The acid will return later on, and I will most likely improve on these guys as well. But for now they´re decent enough to go out on the field.

The torsos made me understand the effect of edge highlighting. An easy technique to create depth by emphasizing the edges of individual parts. The metallics are painted quite simple – A base of Leadbelcher, followed by a layer of Ironbreaker, washed with nuln oil and a final touch of Runefang steel. The robes have been given a base of Mephiston red, followed by a layer of Wazdakka red, a wash of Carroburg crimson and finished with som Evil suns scarlet.

The small touches of dust their bases are worthy of a mention. It’s lava sand from the infamous Eyjafjallajökull on Iceland. Collected a jar of it as a memory from a wonderful trip there.

The blades leave much room to improve. I also felt the importance of paying attention to removing the moldlines, as they really tend to pop up. Most of their grenade-packs is in need of more layering and I will most likely return to their backpacks as well.

Was a bit worried about free-handing the signature pattern on the robes of the Princeps, but they turned out pretty well.

/Bellan