From the brotherhood of Between the Bolter and Me a fresh update on their highly elegant and polished converting perfection. Wow!
Greetings,
I largely finished the first member of the Order of the Crimson Hour, the Church’s fighting force mirrored after the Adepta Sororitas. As I mentioned in the Roland post, their armor is very similar to his (he models his after their battlegear). Therefore, the body and legs are made from a Death Korp engineer and plastic fanatic legs respectively. The helmet is the top half of a Skitarii vanguard, with the bottom half from a female Dark Eldar Wych. I wanted only the top part of the head covered, to give a pseudo Judge Dredd look to them. The vanguard helmets look a lot like the Sisters of Battle helmets too, which fits since their organization is modeled after them.
Ultimately, I decided I wanted the Order’s favored weapon to be the shotgun, perfect for maximizing the pain they inflict on their enemies. Although the Elysian drop troops have some neat shotguns, they were bigger than what I wanted. To remedy this, I ended up combining parts from the Elysian and the Death Korp engineer shotguns to make the final gun.
To make the arms look like an extension of the robbed legs, I trimmed off the cuffs on the sleeves and remodeled them with greenstuff. Members of the Order remove a hand and their larynx as part of the initiation. To reflect this, I gave her a crude bionic hand, made from a claw from the Mechanicum Destroyers. As a keepsake, and reminder of this sacrifice, she carries the bones of this hand along with her. To reflect this, I added a skeletal hand to her belt. I took one of Brian Nelson’s plastic skeleton hands, and with a little trimming and green stuff made a convincing hand.
At this point I think I will try and convert two more members of the Order, likely one more with a shotgun, and the third either a special weapons trooper or a canoness. I am pretty happy with how she has come together. Let me know your thoughts and suggestions!
– Adam
IRON SLEET 
The first initiate of the order is looking good! It may be because I read the text first and so had a context for what I was looking at but she immediately read as female, without the need for obvious gravity-defying breasts (miniatures’ designers take note!) Roland himself is also looking better – the addition of the vox grill and parchment on his stump really works to fix the issues discussed last time. Did you decide to leave his scrimshawed skull off in the end or is it still to be added?
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I am pleased you feel she is immediately recognizable as female. We did not want to resort to senselessly molded armor. I agree that the extra work on Roland has made him look a lot better than he had. We still have not make a final decision about his skull yet. We will probably still try to make something towards that end, just to see how it looks, regardless of whether we ultimately use it.
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If you look closely the sister of the crimsonne hour has also removed a foot or a leg… the idea of a shotgun as the preferred weapon as it inflicts the most paine, i.e. creates the most perfect representation of the Emperor’s pain is wonderful.
The red athanaeum is developing parallel of the ecclesiarchy… the removed larynx echoes the vows of silence taken by catholic nunnes in our world. The model herself is wonderful — the helmet perfectly suggests a rather cruder version of the Sisters’ helmet… yet still a revered relic within the means of a squalid cult. The claw is both crude and I strongly suspect painful to wear — inserted deliberately badly, a source of constant pain to make, in a cumulative manner, a representation of one of the Emperor’s wounds… vivere est pati indeed, so each instant of our lives will be filled with suffering (I imagine a cilice (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/blinky/media/cilice.jpg.html) under the armour, for instance, blood running down them).]
Once again, I imagine grimy faces and filthy robes dragged in the dust and filthy leaking water and worse clotting the decaying parts of low terra, the self-inflicted mutilations poorly cauterised and red around the augmentations, walking with a limp – pain and poverty, squalor and filth and piety.
The changes to Roland — the speaker, the scrolls, the aquila (which adds a good deal of symbolism to the tabard — my interpretation on the 1st rolande post) — work very well and add a little more detaile… the scryptures of the Red Athanaeum, written, perhaps, in blood… has the wound on his neck been made open or is it a grille?
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Thanks for the careful examination of the models, your interpretations are always fascinating to read. Your focus on elements that increase and allow pain to persist is very much in theme of the church, and something that we always want to keep in mind as we create models. Pain is a theme that shall unify all the models. Inflamed, red augmentation scars, and tattered robes. The idea of some wearing cilices is a good one too, a subtle yet powerful item.
I am glad you like how Roland has evolved, the eagle was added to the tabard like you suggested. As for his neck, a ventilation grill was added to assist in his oxygen consumption.
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I’m really enjoying this as you guys are always so good at adding those realistic elements that draws it closer to something you could envision irl. Will you play more with various sized members or someone trying to recreate SoB full battle armour?
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Yeah, it is always our attempt to make our models look as though they might be possible in real life! As for additional members of the Order, we do plan to make more. Due to time constraints, it will probably only be a few more at the moment. I do not think we really want to create anything that would approach power armor for the Order, however. The Church simply does not have the resources for such a thing. Possibly we could try to explore the concept of a fully armored Canoness, however. Time will tell!
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I was more thinking of a crude look a like with the resources at hand but I’m nonetheless looking forward to what you come up with.
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These really are two stunning models. I love how restrained and utterly elegant they are as conversions. We have such amazing range of stuff from over the top busy and expressive to here. Can’t wait to see them painted. More I think about it, the more I am hoping for some experimental splash on the paint side to add that dynamic character to the style of conversion. Flawless, careful blending and globally smooth color I think would suffocate the impact of the restraint and elegance of the conversion work.
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Thanks! We have really tried our best to keep the models grounded in reality, and I am glad it shows. Your thought of a dynamic paint scheme is a good idea. At the moment, we really have not thought much about the scheme for the Church, but will have to seriously start considering it.
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It’s been said before but deserves to be repeated: the restraint and attention to detail is honorable! I definitely want to have a character or two in my warband which are modeled Wier-style. So be warned, a tribute is in the works..
Also can’t wait to hear about all the delicious little additions to Roland..
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Thanks, we are glad to hear you like the reserved approach, something that is not that common in 40k. A tribute model in the same style?! That is quite an honor, I cannot wait to see what you come up with!
Roland is well on his way, and has received quite a bit of work since the first post about him on Iron Sleet. We have a post about him on Between the Bolter and Me that shows more pictures of his current progress. When he is done, we will be sure to have pictures posted here!
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