Big Brother

Another Arco Evisorator finished, this time a slightly bigger and meaner. This is the same dude I used to demonstrate the pale skin painting. I call him "Big Brother"...

I used a Bloodletter's body as a basis for this miniature. To give some contrast and weirdness, I made his other side slightly slimmer by making the arm wielding the chain blade a bit thinner. If you look closely, you can spot that this guy actually has three arms instead of two.

The back of the Arco is filled with junk; old trophy skulls hanging in ropes from the back hair, combat stimm tubes sticking out of his flesh and one a big canister of mysterious "=I= stuff" – who knows what kind of juice that thing holds within.

The base was once again painted by John Blanche. I really love the way the bright and vibrant red base brings these Arco Evisorators alive.

Pale Skin Tutorial

Every now and then I get asked for hints how to paint the pale skin like I do. I've tried my best in replying these requests by writing simple tutorials, but when thinking of it more, explaining how something is done is far less interesting and educating than actually showing it.

Now I won't be showing you 2 hour video about me painting miniature. That would be just plain dull thing to do. What I will do is present a short tutorial with step-by-step pictures how to paint the pale skin, similar to those Arco Evisorators that I've painted.

So here we go...

First of all, I prime my miniature almost always in grey. I find it being gentle to my eyes and makes it easier for me to perceive details.

For base colour I used mix of five colours: Codex Grey, Skull White, Tallarn Flesh, Khemri Brown.

Add more white to mixture and paint couple of highlight layers. Remember to keep the paint enough thin.

Shade everything with a wash made from a mixture of Asurmen Blue and Gryphonne Sepia. Asurmen Blue breaks the over-warm tone of the Gryphonne Sepia. This trick was introduced to me by Steve from Spyglass Asylum.

Now comes the interesting part. Add some depth to recesses by painting some brown-red ink in them. I'll get back to this later in this post.

Paint couple of thin layers with the basic colour made out of those 5 paints used in the first few steps, highlighting a bit with adding a drop of white in the mixture.

Add some blue grey in the mix and start shading the areas between the original skin colour and the deep red ink areas, blending these two radical colours together with the cold blue tone. Blue works also as a complimentary colour in shaded areas, making the skin more alive, so make a note in what sort of lighting the character could be standing in.

Now you can start seeing how the red and blue tones make the pale skin look like a translucent layer of thin skin; joint areas are red and deep, rich with blood, whereas large surfacing areas are pale, tight and low in blood. Makes sence in a way, doesn't it?

Keep working on with the skin by highlighting it, adding more white to the base colour as you go. Final strokes should be made with plain Skull white. Add some details with Scorched Brown, like moles etc.

There you go! As you can see, this receipt is quite basic and simple, but requires patience to pull out. You shouldn't mind using bold and strong strokes, as long as you keep your paints enough thin and running. Have fun experiencing different techniques and don't mind about smooth blends.

I hope you will find this tutorial helpful in your task painting the pale skin. Please drop a comment if you need further information regarding the steps.

Cheers!

- Kari

Ianthe IV

Within Segmentum Pacificus, Sabbat Worlds sector, lies a lonely, cold and long forgotten planet. The surface of the planet is ash grey, the soil corrupt and the sky above covered with thick layers of dark and tattered clouds. Two orbiting moons - one red as blood, the other pale as sick skin - float over the sky every two months, bringing havoc on the surface in form of dreadful ash storms.

Religious pilgrims took the planet as their home many thousand years ago. They harnessed the hostile environment, made it tolerable to live and build the first immigration stations (which later became places of religion and worship). After them came the proletarians and their heavy machinery. Cities grew tall, level above level was build. Soon the whole world was tightly wrapped by a web of monumental sky-reaching Hive Cities.

The Hive Cities used to be fairly safe place for man to live, even civilised you could say. But as cities grew taller, so did the greed and corruption. Noble houses used their power ruthlesly, sucking the slim wealth of the planet and spent it in arms race against each other. Soon the tightening and violence became tools of power and rulers used them without hesitation. The walls of the Hive Cities started rotting from within as the gangs of lower class started rebelling against their masters. Humongous wars between gangs and mad tyrants teared the planet's infrastructure to shreds, dragging the planet in an unending civil war.

War dried the wealth of the planet. Wealth was followed by the tithes. The suffering situation of the planet caught the attention of the Administratum and their solution for it was immediate. Imperial Guard, the Anvil of the Emperor, was sent in to solve the vexatious problem. That they did. The raging civil war was over within weeks. But what the guardians of the Emperor left behind could only be described as a total devastation; Staggering piles of corpses, burning remnants of once notable civilization and a dead world where only bandits and criminals dared to wander. Where there once was a spectacular network of monumental Hive Cities, build by the great men of the Imperium, now lied crippled ruins that represented mere shadows of their past.

In the maps of the Imperium, Ianthe IV was no more.

The moons of Ianthe IV

Ianthe IV was classified as a War World before it was wiped off from the books of the Imperium. Even though the long and bloody civil war of the Iatheans ceased long time ago, the Administratum never tried to re-populate the planet. No-one seems to know the reason for this call.

The only ones populating Ianthe IV are the survivors of the Imperial massacre. Bandits. Mercenaries. Murderers. Marauders. They battle for their everyday lives in small gangs, looting, hunting, fighting and surviving. Some of them are lucky enough to get drafted by ferocious space pirates evading the far-reaching law of the Imperium.

+++

This pitiful planet will work as a set for our narrative campaign, Punk Moth. We'll be lifting the lid a little bit at a time to reveal the plot that binds the stories of our rival Inquisitors together.

This is the beginning of the Pupation phase of the campaign...

Inquisitor Isaac Valon

...

"Thank you for joining me, Inquisitor Valon."

"Pleasure, my lord."

"I hope your journey went well, considering the storm that was beating the Warp?"

"The ship lost one of their Navigators when the storm hit. Fortunately the rest of them were able to find a channel to stick in. Now what is it that you had me summoned here for, my lord?"

"Straight to business as always, eh? Very well then, let us not waste the precious little time that we have on our hands and allow me share my headache with you. It was unfortunate that the matter could not be discussed through warp. I have great trust to my Astropaths, but there are spies everywhere."

"That is what I have heard."

"Ah, yes, of course. Then you must know what happened to Inquisitor Cassar?"

"Indeed I have, my lord. Was Inquisitor Pherion the one who was sent to interrogate him?"

"He was, and there lies the problem. We haven't heard from Inquisitor Pherion since he landed to Ianthe IV. The last message with his signature is dated three weeks ago. Now we fear the worst."

"You would wish me to track him down and find out what happened to him?"

"Precisely! The matter is slipping through our hands and it must be dealt with haste. Rigorous act is the key to minimize the damage this insident has already caused. But I must insist that you will keep this in dark from the rest of the counsel."

"Understood, my lord."

"Good, good! Now, do you have your team here with you?"

"Yes I do."

"Excellent. Let us have something to drink before we go any further with the briefing, shall we?"

...

Commission Work: Inquisitor

Two busy evenings and a lot has happened. My plan was to finish the commissioned Inquisitor this weekend and so I did. Without any further words, here he is...

The black robe felt a bit dull, so I decided to paint the harness and the scabbard in red to give some contrast to the otherwise dark appearance. A classic trick, red and black. I must say, I had some daubts when it came to giving the Inquisitor the skull-in-a-box thing, but now that you are looking at it, it does fit in quite well, don't you think? You can't but wonder what sort of powerful weird psychic weapon it might be.

I'm really satisfied by the outcome, if I may say so myself. I think I was able to pull the character from the art work in to it and make him look a distinctive personality. He sure looked very cool next to Inquisitor Cassar and the rest of the posse, fitted in very well. But he won't be staying around for too long...

This hero will be wrapped in a box and take a courageus trip to the another continent in the hands of careful gorillas of the postal service – kinda like a strategic game of its own, packing and all.
If you are interested in commissioning me, Mikko or maybe both of us, please drop us a mail and lets have a chat!

- Kari