Konrad Curze, Primarch of the VIII Legion 'Night Lords'

Guys! I'm still alive!

Man, it's been way too long since I updated this blog and I realised that if I don't start soon I never will. As you may guess the main reason for my absence has been work; doing six-day weeks will kind of put you off doing anything other than sleeping and eating, and despite meaning to post something since the start of the year I simply haven't got around to it.

But I haven't let that stop me painting stuff, oh no. I've been working on a Nurgle plague army and have a ton of minis done and ready to be posted (it's just a case of actually writing the posts and taking photos) but I'm kicking off my triumphant return with a primarch, a model I've never attempted before.

Ah crap, I forgot to paint his base rim before taking the photos. Whoops.

Curze is one of the more interesting Primarchs simply because he was a borderline insane psycho when given leadership of the VIII Legion and his madness just got worse as time went on. Having brought his adopted home planet of Nostramo under his power through the use of terror, the Night Lords used the same tactics when waging war to the point where unruly Imperial settlements would happily toe the line if they even heard that the boys in blue were on the way. It's amazing what several thousand skinned corpses hanging in your capital city will do for a population's sense of loyalty. 

Somewhat unsurprisingly Curze was more than happy to join the Heresy and bring terror to the people he was sworn to protect. Thankfully for the Imperium, Curze has been dead for 10,000 or so years. He was decapitated by the Imperial assassin M'Shen, and after his death the Legion broke into several warbands which continued to wreak havoc across Imperial space. On the downside, the Night Lords are beginning to regroup into a united Legion once more.

I bought Konrad because I've got a bit of a soft spot for the VIII Legion as the Night Lords novels — Soul Hunter, Blood Reaver and Void Stalker — are among the best 40k novels out there. Oh, and the model is really cool.

Anyway, painting. Konnie was primed black all over and then given a basecoat of Kantor Blue. Citadel does a Night Lords contrast paint but my FLGS didn't stock it, so instead of paying through the nose for it on Amazon I just went with Kantor. It's dark enough to work as the Night Lord's infamous midnight blue armour.

With the base blue on I washed him all over with Nuln Oil before giving him a drybrush with more Kantor Blue. From there I mixed in Alaitoc Blue in varying amounts to do the highlights, then used pure Alaitoc Blue, and then for the final stages I added some Hoeth Blue.

One of the odd things about his armour is that he doesn't have the Night Lords' signature lightning bolts on it, which was a relief as they're a bugger to paint.

Given that the Night Lords' motto is "in midnight clad" Konnie has a lot of brass details on his armour. All those areas were based with Wyldwood contrast paint just because it's thinner and easier to apply to smaller areas and then given a coat of Brass. All the metallic bits were then washed with Agrax Earthshade to tone down the shininess and add some shadows.

I then moved on to the flayed skin, heads and skulls hanging off his armour. All were given a coat of Green Ochre, and the skulls were highlighted with Beige and Screaming Skull and shaded with Agrax Earthshade. The skin was highlighted with Flayed One Flesh and Pallid Wych Flesh and then given a coat of Guilliman Flesh contrast paint to add some shading and a more pinkish, fleshy tone.

The heads were painted with Flayed One Flesh and washed with Mortarion Grime to add a tinge of manky green.

I finished off Konnie's main body by painting the wings of the Legion emblem on his chest and shoulder guard with Flesh Tearers Red contrast paint and highlighting them with Flat Red and giving his claws a coat of Iron Warriors highlighted with Leadbelcher.

I painted his cape and head separately. The model comes with a helmet and bare head, and as much as I dislike bare-headed Astartes I went with it just because. Like the main body they were primed black.

I drybrushed some Ghost Grey over his face as a sort of cheap and cheerful zenithal prime and then washed it with Druchii Voilet to add plenty of shadow and a slightly sick tone. Some layers of Flayed One Flesh and a final highlight with more Pallid Wych Flesh and he was done.

His cape got several coats of Flesh Tearers Red which worked really well to build up a deep red shade. I thinned the crap out of some Flat Red and slowly layered it on to bring out the highlights. His cape has a second cape of flayed skin and I painted it and the chained skulls the same way as the others.

It's just occurred to me that Konnie must have stunk the place up with all that dead skin and those heads hanging off his armour, but I'm not telling him that.

Konnie came with a base that I didn't like, so I snapped off the columns sticking up from it and glued them to a regular 60mm round base. I added a lot of Das clay to build up the base and stuck in some of the bricks I've had laying around for a couple of years.

The whole base was painted Black and then I slapped on Skavenblight Dinge, Eshin Grey, a highlight of Celestra Grey and a ton of brown/black wash. Final highlights were done with Ghost Grey, Corax White and a touch of Beige to add a bit of warmth. 

I had planned to stick a dead Loyalist marine on the base but that didn't happen, mostly because I didn't plan it out in advance and couldn't fit the model on. Oops.

For a 3D print that cost roughly a fifth of the official model's price, Curze is a decent sculpt. The only real issue I had was gluing on his cape, which only has two small anchor points. Needless to say it's broken off twice and I've learned not to touch it while picking him up. He's scaled at 55mm, which is supposedly the scale of the official Primarch models but his head seems a bit on the small side. Still, I'm happy with him and the way he turned out.

There are more 3D-printed Primarchs on Etsy so no doubt I'll pick up more in the future. But for now, get ready for a ton of Nurgle!

Fun in the cold

Although it's been a mild winter by Vermont standards, in January we had freezing temperatures and our driveway turned to ice one morning. That's when the above happened: On my way to work I slid down our drive and through our fence, badly denting the driver's door of my nice shiny Subaru. Great. Luckily I was helped out by some awesome guys from the local ploughing company who cut the broken fence away and then put a ton of gravel behind the car so I could get it out. The fence was fixed a couple of days later but the dent is still there.