Imperial Guard Priest

This week has seen some pretty extensive modelling going on.  After finishing the latest update of my Background Book, fluff has been given a bit of a break for a while while I clear the backlog of unfinished models in my collection.  A while back I had a serious re-org of my modelling area, which involved putting all the unbuilt models away in a drawer.  Very tidy, but unfortunately some have sat in there for quite a while now.




One of them is the Imperial Guard priest, an old-school GW model that I bought for fear of all the metal models being discontinued (which incidentally looks likely).  It's a classic model and although the zealous Priesthood aspect is not one the Palladians go in for, it's too nice a model not to get.  On top of that, writing a Tactica for HQ Units made me realise that the re-roll on the charge is too good to pass up.

The final effort on the manuscript.
For painting, I decided to avoid the coloured robes depicted in 'Eavy Metal's effort and go for something a bit more monk-like.  This resulted in undercoating different areas of fabric with different shades of brown (like Dark Flesh, Mournfang Brown, Scorched Brown, etc) then using some Army Painter: Soft Shade to give some shadows to the whole thing.  This was remarkably quick, and left me with plenty of time and patience for the centrepiece of the model, the book-on-a-stick.

I love getting my teeth into some nice detail freehand painting once in a while.  Last year, some of you may remember I spent a week brushing up (pun not intended) on my freehand skills when painting insignia on WW2 models - I wrote a bit about it here.  I did a little research and found a page of manuscript to copy - see the results below.
The bronze-gold armour was a good
practice run for the priest.

I really like the brass edging to the book, and my Chaos commander from last week was excellent practice.  Some of you were good enough to offer some advice.  Chris from over at SOPW helped me out:
I think I can help with the gold finish you are trying for. The trick is to do a final highlight that is a mix of silver and gold. It can be a bit tricky to get the mix right but something like 1 part silver to 5 parts gold usually will give you the over polished look.
And I duly tried this.  Not wanting to end up with a nondescript metalic sludge, the silver was very subtle but I think it makes a difference.  As for the script itself, I'm generally quite pleased although the consistency of the lines of text is a bit random.  And it's a bit thicker than I was going for.  But it looks okay from a distance, which is what I was going for.

With that out of the way the rest of the model was siplicity itself.  To cheer it up a bit, I painted my favoured hazard stripes on the chainsword (love those hazard stripes!)  Also, I painted what may well be the last autogun left on a 40K model!  Anyone care to correct me on that?

Anyway, it was a joy to paint and fairly straightforward.  The whole thing took about three hours, including drying time.  I'm hoping to try him out in a 40K game soon but only as a rules experiment, as priests are not favoured by the Palladians.  Too much shouting and waving of arms: very unsoldierly.

As for what's in store, me and Headologist are planning a Necromunda campaign soon, which means lots of gang-building and terrain construction.  We've both been doing some but I'll tease you by saying Headologist has a truly stunning piece of scenery in the works - hopefully he'll be able to share it with you soon.  I've got one more update of desk-clearing models to do, then there'll be a little Necromunda spot hopefully.

Anyway, until then hope you're all well and good luck with the dice!

The Colonel

Comments

  1. I am a massive fan of all the priest and preacher models from the guard/inquisition range.

    You have done this one justice. The hazard stripes give it that pop, but the book free hand is fantastic.

    Well done Col. on a great all round effort.

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    1. Thankyou kindly. I do love hazard stripes - if you look back at least one model a month probably has them somewhere. They are lovely models, glad you think it looks good, always nice to give a lease of life to an old model about to be withdrawn.

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  2. Beautiful work, mate! The book is marvelous - good call going with the more subdued browns on the robes as well, that really looks great!

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    1. Thanks Mordian - partly that was a 'realism' decision, but partly because I've had a lot more practice with browns etc. Didn't want to mess this one up!

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  3. That is a lovely paintjob on a very cool model.

    Book work is perfect too.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Dai - glad you're liking them both.

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  4. Very wonderful piece of painting! I do like the highlights on the armour, the bronzey gold adds a very nice touch of detail to the model overall

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    1. Cheers James - yeah I was glad the model had that detail to paint on, as it wuld have been a bit bland without it.

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  5. He is quite wonderful. I can imagine the (as for the Devos/Cadian Gate/Sabbat Worlds Campaign) the Ecclesiasty providing a religious posse for the spiritual benefit of all. Now the commanders don't want too many of these fellows clogging up their HQ so the campaign policy is to distribute the priests-militant as thinly as possible across their command. So the Palladians, once deployed, will have "support" from numerous bodies representing their immediate higher command; possibly air support, Adeptus Mechanicus, other fighting units and medivac (when Headologist makes them). As well as commissars, priests, field police, agents of the =I=, accountants from the DM and so on.

    Whilst this is a fag for the Palladians (or anyone else), it does give us as gamers licence to add random things to our collection, as takes our fancy.

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    1. Thanks Zzzzz. What a brilliant way to put it - I usually explain the attachment of tanks and heavy arty to a full-dress, internal security unit, by having an old tradition whereby a sucessful unit, at the end of a campaign, is 'frozen' and all the atts are subsumed into a new unit, which is a snapshot of it at the end of the campaign.

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    2. Excellent interpretation. I suspect that you're right; at the close of a campaign, that may well happen. I might suggest that it all depends on the size and state of the Army and it's ability to re-org before embarkation; ie there may be many understrength units which might be better re-brigaded by type/role. However, if they don't have the time to sort it all out, then they may well have to 'get on the bus' as is.

      There is a fair amount on the state of some Bn of county regiments between d-day and Arnham which illustrate how 'remnants' were treated by CIGS in WW2 which, IMHO, is possibly closer to the IG model than the WW2 german experience. But I can see where the WW2 german expereince would be equally if not more valid as a model.

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  6. Beautiful work. I love the colours and I love the book! When I get to my Preachers they are so going to be brown after seeing this.
    I'm a big fan of hazard stripes too. I find them hard to paint straight and even. I'm not saying that yours aren't but here is an easy cheat that I have found. Miniature masking tape. I have it in 6mm and simply cut it down to thinner strips.
    http://www.everythingairbrush.com/acatalog/info_SL_BA8703_0.html
    I used it on the my Praetorian Cavalry that I did a few years back. I didn't post up any pics of the WIP but you can see the result on the finished models. I wish I had started using it years back!

    Also I wanted to add, that gold looks ace! Thanks for the highlighting tip.

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    1. Cheers my dear Colonel. Interesting you should say that about the hazard striped - I might try that miniature stuff, since I just used regular before and it would 'bleed' yellow onto the black bits. If you used them on your cavalry well, there can be no greater endorsement than that! Thanks for the tip.

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    2. Tamiya do masking tape in all sorts of wonderful sizes in those clear plastic snail looking thingies.

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  7. Great looking mini really like the monastic feel. The script in the book is excellent, really like the larger letter starting the page. Glad I could be of some help with gold highlighting. I think I learned it years ago from an issue of White Dwarf, don't remember which issue but is was back when they bothered to include painting articles. The only other minis that have Autoguns currently are the plastic cultists from the starter box, although they are available separately in groups of five. Can't wait to see the Necromunda stuff.

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    1. Those painting articles were the days - cheers Chris, and you're dead right on the Autogunners in the cultist box. I always wanted to do a Guard army with autoguns, just to be different.

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  8. As I said before outstanding work, the manuscript is hugely impressive. Just to echo everyone else I love the drab Franciscan/Friar robes, suitably Thorian I imagine. Perhaps the book is the Thorian Psalter I made up in my fluff :P This is definitely one of my favourite GW minis, they just don't make 'emn like this anymore.

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