“These men represent the most powerful organisations of the Praxis system, and have a holy right of passage! Lord-Captain, we must not keep them waiting!”
Segmentum Ultima – 3550985.M41
“You must understand this is the Sol system. Whatever rank you had in your previous life matters not. Now get back to the line like everyone else!”
Segmentum Solar – 2408997.M41
“I don’t believe it. Terra Thermosphere..
Prepare to board landing vessels!”
“Gloria aeternum quia Imperator Dominus! Gloria Terra sancti!”
Segmentum Solar – 1290999.M41
So I finally got to the Pilgrym part of the project! Actually these guys were near finished last week, but I got a nasty cold and couldn’t finish them earlier. But it was good to gestate. The goal was to make a group that could be seen as parts of the board in the final game. So nothing fancy, mainly white robes, and a quick paintjob. But then again these are important men, and should be given the proper amount of attention..
Finally, since I felt this is a milestone in the Pilgrym project, I framed a little scene in my kitchen to depict the beginning of their pilgrimage on the Holy planet. The men are waving banners, breathing neuro-convertor gases, and chanting themselves into a religious frenzy before setting off on their holiest of pilgrimages towards the Ambulamach Templumme region.
IRON SLEET 
Blimmin Eck dude – very strong – rather beautiful – bin a busy man …..
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Indeed and now it’s time to prepare for easter!
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Beautifully painted, they make such a strong group.
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group within a group within a group.. It’ll be fun to see how all adds up
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Filthy, velvety, motion.
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Beautiful – sublime blending, subtle use of colour, and the poses really emote their religious fanaticism!
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Beautifully painted, Such a strong theme running through the whole group.
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Thank you. These guys were always meant to be a background feature, but on Terra everything counts!
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Oh yeah, these look great! The dirty white and gold are a good combo and works like a charm, as well as the simple yet effective use of bits from different sources.
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They are beautiful Toni!
The muted, natural, colours are sublime! Well done, sir!
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Thank you!
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Bloody gorgeous group of hooligans! Agree that the combination of off- and weatherbeaten white and gold works wonders. The pilgrymme-trodden cobblestone bases looks ace too!
Great stuff Toni…
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Lovely paintjobs, I particularly like the gold and red.
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Beautiful paint job and the poses are spot on. The gold Imperial iconography stands out wonderfully against the soft hues of there robes. Well done! 🙂
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“Gloria aeternum quia Imperator Dominus! Gloria Terra sancti!”
Firstlie, the dates… departing the far Ultima Segmentum in 987.M41… twelve years of perilous travel from starre to starre in the bowels of shippes on the pilgrymme road, filth, disease, fraudes (manie a partie of pilgrymmes vanishes without trace at the hands of slavers, pirates and others who need a supply of sturdie men… once the pilgrymme papers have been destroyed they are but more serfes for the flesh-markets and the immense Administratumme, tottering under the weighte of a million worlds, corrupte, inefficiente, whole departments labouring at taskes long forgotten, will never take notice). These are never to see the cathedrale-worlde, manie fall by the wayside, falle and rise no more… Then two more of squalid waiting in the immense lines of pilgrymme-ships in the Sol systeme… I imagine dysentery and disease in the cramped conditionnes of a filthie shippe, a relic, would kille still more… the paines and penances of the greate pilgrymmage across the starres in the carrione-millenniumme. So manie, so manie fall and die on the way to Terra…
No doubt Requis II and Praxis refer to a past project?? though I woulde have thought that menne of high status and greate wealthe would be able (possibly by bryberie…) to get to the front of the pilgrymme queues.
Of course, the pilgrymmes are filthie, clad in white long dulled to a drab browne-creame by sweate, shitte, filthe, grease and duste, stained with mud and worse. There are, however, glintes of gold and splendour, the gold design on the robes of the prieste, the gold augmetic he bears, the censer attached to a maske or the golden phials, perhaps, which spur the bell-ringer on. These, even these, even the golde aquilae, are dirty relics of immense age… they will have been borne by pilgrymmes before.
You have caught the squalor and splendour of the carrion-milleniumme, where everything is filthie, lives of drab squalor, grinding toil and omnipresent holie ritualle… the banner a ragged scrap on which traces of a greater design including a golde border can be seene. I imagine it has been borne on pilgrymmage before and is reduced over the centuries to a scrap… a symbol of the decaye of the imperiumme.
The pilgrymmes are often twisted, the skin pale and necrotic, faces haggard and drawne with zeal… one is blinde (by accident? Does he come to Terra to beg for a cure? Or has he putte his eyes out that he may no more see sinne?), others have arms replaced by augmetics sewn crudely to the nerves, painfull… There are manie holie mortificationnes… the heavy spiked electro-flails wielded with reale fervour, the metal collars (I imagine studded with spykes, cf. cilice) worn about the neck or arms… chains and cords tied tight and sinking into the waiste… the bell-ringer has one eye bloody and shut and his handes spattered with his owne bloode… on terra the temple-worlde they will flay the fleshe and mortify the senses, zeale and paine and suffering, striving to imitate a godde in perpetual agony, or put down the unruly flesh…
The standard-bearer is blinde, yet the skulle on his staff is wreathed with laurels and one augmetic lens gleames… in the same way the Imperiumme looks not with mortal eyes, it reveres deathe and suffering and dwelles on the triumphs of heroes and saintes of the past, revering deathe and dying, memento semper mori.
The neuro-converter masks are wonderfulle… the ‘rebreathers’ worn by hospitallier and pilgrymme are actuallie something quite different… nosegayes, or in this case I imagine a mix of incense and chemicals which provoke sorrowe for sinne, hatred of the corrupte bodie and zeal for the Godde-Emperor…
The bases are wonderful, covered in filth and shitte and decaye… the holie floors of terra trodden by a million million feet. The composition is wonderfull… how decayed terra is, the glorious cathedral broken and littered with rubble and filth, saints long forgotten and dulled aquilae under thick layers of dust, some sort of foul creature lurking in a corner while the prieste climbes up to a more or less clear platform to leade the chanting, all blending seamlessly with the paintinge into the distance as they set off into terra, the temple-worlde… howe manie will survive to see the cathedral-spyres? Yet deathe for them, as I have said before, is blessed, as on holie ground.
Wonderful.
Requis is the French past participle ‘summoned’ which fits quite neatly with the pilgrymmes… Little luck with ambulamach templumme… ambula suggests Latin ambulare to walke, a long journey? mach- suggests the greek suffix -machy (-makhia) something to do with combat?? templumme probably temple…
Sorry for the shortness of the piece rather than handling each pilgrymme individually… is the clawed hand one bears used for raking his own sinfulle fleshe?
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PS: The limited palette and painterly style are working wonderfully — as with dorlov, these are perfect visionnes of the strange, squalid, gothicke, splendid darke millenniume.
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Yes! This whole theme of abandoning a position of some renown to achieve greater glory is what I wanted to come across. These are not weak or powerless men, but have been reduced to such. What unimaginable favors will they be gifted with, should they ever reach home again. Golden palaces, governance? A position in a court of nobility? Even sainthood?
But so few ever make it back, and of those, so few are believed back home.
Decades of travel play their tricks.
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Thanke you.I was thinking that penance and mortificationne are so much part of life in the Imperiumme that as you say this is common… The twisted penitents on the pilgrymme roads are often greate menne humbling themselves… sincerely or otherwise… before the manne-godde, reduced to the filthy robes of a common pilgrymme ad maiorem imperatori gloriamme… they sacrifice all, life and stationne as common pilgrymmes and breathe of the incense-chemical-fume, strippinge away all the refined instincts of a nobilita, they wish to grovell, and flay themselves, and do penance for their sinnes. Whether they submit sincerely or not I know not…
I imagine that, with corruptionne ever present, the nobilitae compete to show the most mortificationnes.. I dreamt up a ladie a while ago who had various silver and jewel-handled spikes of increasing painfulnesse with which to pierce her skin (Thistle’s drawings often show skull-headed pins as penances) stuck through the stiff front of her veil… penance is almoste a fashionne.
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A fantastic group has been made that much better with the addition of paint! I love how you made a relatively diverse group all merge together as one with the paint scheme. The dull muted colors really fit the tone of the miniatures. Despite the drab colors, you were able to inject a lightness into it, one that projects progress and the illumination of faith. The models and the paint scheme have a very synergistic effect. Keep up the great work!
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Thank you Eric! The lightness was indeed a result of focused effort. Quite the opposite of the primus dissector.
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Toni what a beautiful colour scheme. They look brilliant. The dirty white and gold are such a great combination. I also really like the flesh tones.
The banners really make the group stand out. Hopefully that should give them just enough attention on the board.
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Thank you Peter! Really looking forward to see your take on similar characters..
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Absolutely gorgeous work! The red and gold of the banners gives a sense of regality, albeit covered in grime and filth. The laurel design on that banner is fantastic and I love the muted scheme, it’s right up my street.
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I just love your style, silky smooth.
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Like I said before, this group was all about restraint. Airbrush, washes, highlights; all very considered and minimal effort. But it gave that much more time to do the small things right. I highly recommend to try this style! In fitting miniatures of course..
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The great thing with this hobby is seeing so many takes on a subject or a set of miniatures but they’re all still so good. I’ve taken a serious choice myself in not going for airbrush because I can’t see what it would do to my style. One that finally is hitting it’s stride and I can do what I’ve envisioned for years. I guess in this regard I’m the dog that doesn’t want to learn new tricks though that’s far from the truth 🙂 I’ve just decided on which tools I want to become good at.
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Beautiful beautiful group of Pilgryms!!
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What are the large wings on the one icon bearer from?
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They are from the deathwing terminator squad 🙂
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When I saw the fine piece of new artwork in the new (and utterly wonderful) Deathwatch Overkill rulebook, I immediately thought of this group of miniatures – do you know the one I mean? In the foreground is a Watch Captain and in the background various Imperial thralls in the usual robes and prosthetics and holding aloft very similar winged icons. All great stuff! I’ve been collecting Deathwatch and it’s made me look again at the characters inhabiting the background – I guess that’s what you guys are doing, illuminating the shadows.
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Yes! The Alex Boyd illustration. Easily the best piece of art in the release. I was quite happy to notice the similarities myself. There are details in that piece that would look great on a new set on pilgryms. I love your comment about illuminating the shadows, spot on.
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