Lord of the XII Legion – A Triptych, pt. 7

by | Apr 14, 2017

The Night of the Wolf

Lhorke never saw who fired the first shot. In the decades to come, the World Eaters claimed it came from the Wolves‘ lines, and the Wolves claimed the same of the XII Legion. He had his suspicions, but what was hindsight in the face of catastrophe? Without either primarch giving an order, two Legions fought.

The Night of the Wolf, they’d called it in the years since. Imperial archives referred to it as the Ghenna Scouring, omitting the moment the World Eaters and Space Wolves drew blood. A source of pride for both Legions, and a source of secret shame. Both claimed victory. Both feared they’d actually lost.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

 

So I really wanted to complete my most recent converted version of the XII Legion Primarch as soon as possible — and as part of the Loyalty And Treachery III event over at The Bolter & Chainsword, no less, which left me with a fairly tight deadline. But then the model was already pretty much finished, wasn’t it? Here’s where we left off last time:

But I wasn’t perfectly happy yet and thought the model needed some final tweaks before it could be painted. So I gave it another round of conversion touchups:


A rather simple addition was the tangle of viscera Angron is holding in the Wayne England artwork that inspired the conversion: It was simply created with two Skaven tails and a bit of stringy glue.

However, there remained another, more substantial addition to complete, and no, don’t worry about the tinfoil on his shoulders: The XII Primarch wasn’t about to get some super tacky coloured hairtips. Rather, I used the tinfoil as a base to build up his cape with some extra GS on top of it:


I wanted Angron’s cape to have a bit more volume and look less like a tacked-on bit, so GS really was the way to go here. At the same time, I really wanted to keep the cape and body as separate parts during the painting progress. So the little trick I came up with was to carefully push some tinfoil down onto the model’s shoulders. Since the foil can be bent to conform to a certain shape, there’s really no need to glue it to the model or attach it otherwise, provided you are careful enough. Yet it will also “insulate” the surface of the model against bonding with the GS added on top, making it easy to take the sub-assemblies apart again. Granted, it would have been even easier had I attached it to something solid. The pauldron’s weren’t glued in yet, however, and so the whole thing turned a bit more finicky than it needed to be. But it worked rather nicely for getting the structure of the cape in place!

As for building up the actual fur on top of the cape, Capt. Jack’s fur tutorial was really invaluable! I tried to adapt it as best I could to my inferior skills. And where that failed, I used an old toothbrush to create some extra texture. Which led to this result:





To show you what’s happened under the hood, so to speak, here’s another look at the GS’ed shoulder area:


And here you can see how the body and cape were still separate pieces at this point, making for much easier and more exact painting:


So just one last step before everything was ready for painting: I had to build the right base for Angron. Now I believe I already mentioned earlier how a sentence from Betrayer provided me with the right context for the model:

In those early years, Angron carried his first axe, the precursor to all others. He called it Widowmaker. It would break this day, never to be used again.

This sentence appears in the description of the event called “The Night of the Wolf” — and everything just fell into place: Why not imagine that my converted model, still wielding the iconic, two-handed axe with the wing-motif from the Wayne England illustration, represented Angron during that fateful night at the tail end of the Ghenna compliance?

Which meant that I needed a fallen Space Wolf — also the owner of that lenght of gut Angron’s clutching in his left fist, incidentally…

A short while later, I had come up with a fitting base:


So with everything in place, it was time to get some paint on the model, and this made me slightly nervous: Not only did I want the model to end up as cool as possible, but this version of Angron was also supposed to serve as a “test run” for when I finally paint the Forgeworld Angron Adam Wier sent me. So I did some research on possible recipes, especially for Angron’s armour. And while I initially thought about merely copying GW’s “official” Custodes colour scheme, I eventually decided on something more bronze and brass than gold, because it just seemed more appropriate for the character (and visibly distanced him from the Emperor’s closest servants who all wear gold). In the end, I discovered ApatheticFish’s painting tutorial and followed it to the best of my ability, and it really clicked for me!

So here are a couple of pictures illustrating the painting process:

First up, Angron with his armour mostly painted, but without his pauldrons:


This picture is interesting because it shows how wonky the model seems without the shoulder pad. It also reveals  the ugly truth of what I had to do to make everything fit together — I am just glad that the pauldrons neatly covered the whole mess up when they were back in place:


In order to add some structural stability to the whole assembly, I painted the base next (then attached the model to it):



Alas poor Hjortulf, we barely knew ye… (trying my hand at the Space Wolves’ Heresy era colours was kinda fun, though!)

So here’s the model with the cape and some detail work left to sort out:



And while the model’s back would end up being almost completely covered by the cape, I did of course completely paint it. Here’s a photo serving as proof that I didn’t skimp on my homework:


So just one final push, and the model would be finished! Fortunately enough, I had a scheduled painting session together with my good friend Annie coming up anyway, so I used this as the perfect opportunity to add a lot of small tweaks and finishing touches and complete Angron’s cape.

And so let’s look at the finished model. Keep in mind that this was the piece of artwork that inspired the conversion in the first place. A fantastic piece by the late, great Wayne England:

Angron by Wayne England

Incidentally, I only found this zoomed-out, higher quality version of the picture when the conversion had already been finished: So there are skulls in that tangle of gore in Angron’s fist — who woulda thunk, huh? 😉

Anyway, without any further ado, here’s the XII Primarch:


Angron

The Conqueror, Primarch of the XII Legion

„I am loyal, the same as you. I am told to bathe my Legion in the blood of innocents and sinners alike, and I do it, because it’s all that’s left for me in this life. I do these things, and I enjoy them, not because we are moral, or right – or loving souls seeking to enlighten a dark universe – but because all I feel are the Butcher’s Nails hammered into my brain. I serve because of this ‚mutilation‘. Without it? Well, perhaps I might be a more moral man, like you claim to be. A virtuos man, eh? Perhaps I might ascend the steps of our father’s palace and take the slaving bastard’s head.“

The Primarch Angron to his brother, Leman Russ
from Aaron-Dembski-Bowden’s Betrayer








Okay, guys: Now I do realise that I might have a tendency to be a bit too much in love with my own work, but I have to admit that I am really, really happy with this model! Are there things I could have done better? You bet! The fur on the cape is probably not as good as it could have been. Using a flesh shade for the shadows on the armour didn’t work out quite as well as I had hoped.

But all in all, he really reads as a believable version of Angron to me, and that makes me very happy, indeed! I am also rather pleased with the way his armour has turned out, and if I have one actual regret right now, it’s that the metal looks a bit too flat and monochromatic in the photos, because it works so well in real life — seriously, this guy sparkles from a couple of feet away 😉 I shall endeavour to take some better pictures that actually show off the armour a bit better.

For now, another detail shot at how the Butcher’s Nails, the armour and the partially sculpted cape come together:


And what makes this even sweeter is that the completion of Angron also marks the completion of my vow for the aforementioned “Loyalty and Treachery III” event. I have managed to complete four models I am really pleased with and really nailed down the look I want for my 30k World Eaters:

In addition to Angron, find my detailed thoughts on the rest of the models in the following posts:

And when looking at the bigger picture, I have also come one step closer to completing my fourth (and likely final) incarnation of the XII Primarch. Here are my two converted, Slaughterpriest-based versions of Angron:


So this means two down, one to go:

And finally, Angron among his sons (the meagre extents of my 30k collection so far):

I would love to hear any feedback you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!


Filed under: 30k, Conversions, Fluff, paintjob, WIP, World Eaters Tagged: 30k, angron, background, Betrayer, conversion, counts as, gladiator, Horus Heresy, khorne, khorne's eternal hunt, kitbash, lord of the XII legion, Loyalty & Treachery, plastic, Pre-Heresy, primarch, slaughterpriest, the bolter & chainsword, the night of the wolf, wayne england, widowmaker, world eaters