The Painting Bunkerc y

Hello everyone,

So this is a blog post I’ve been wanting to do for some time.  Remember a couple of months ago when I posted up that 30k Iron Hands army?  Well, I had the Ferrus Manus model ready to go at the time, but I really wanted to do something special with him.  Ever since Forge World released Ferrus and Fulgrim, and made their display bases in such a way that they could be joined, I’ve wanted to do them.  However, I didn’t just want to chuck them on their 60mm bases and call it a day.  I wanted something a little more befitting of such a significant, and one may argue, pivotal, confrontation between the Primarch of the IIIrd legion and the Xth Legion on Istvaan V.  The aftermath of the drop site massacre echoes through the legions present, and indeed had an indelible effect on the history of the 41st millennium.

So just a few quick thoughts on the painting of these minis.  Firstly, I didn’t want to do the ‘grey’ stone base for these models.  Firstly, Ferrus is black, which is a tricky colour (it’s a shade) to paint at the best of times, let alone trying to make it stand out on a black base.  Secondly, I wanted something to compliment Fugrim’s primarily purple and gold armour.  I ended up settling on a variant of the bases of the larger Iron Hands force I did, that being yellow.  Yellow is a nice complimentary colour for the purple and a good background to create enough of a contrast for Ferrus’s armour to stand out on.    The actual plinth the scene is mounted on is a trophy/plaque base.  Minus the plaque.  They come pre-lacquered to quite a nice finish.  I was going to get some dark marble in the beginning but after investigations I discovered it was going to be outrageously expensive, so I sought other means.  I chose the name of the scene for two reasons.  Firstly, it’s the name of the soundtrack that is played over the three-way duel between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.  Now, I’m not actually a Star Wars fan: at all, however, that fight scene is seriously impressive.  So much so that I went and tracked down the sound track that accompanied it.  It just evokes images of titanic and climatic clashes  in my imagination.  The second reason I chose the name was it seemed to suit this duel.  Once very close brothers: one now possessed by a daemon and condemned, one betrayed.  At the conclusion of this battle, the fate of both Primarchs, and their legions is sealed.  One Primarch and his legion now and forevermore heretics, and one Primarch dead, and his legion shattered and irrevocably changed for all time.

It was a real pleasure painting these two.

Here are the pics, enjoy.

Thanks for dropping in.

John