Thursday, January 10, 2013

Brother Sergeant Signo!



I haven’t updated this blog in quite some time, so I decided to post something special this time around. This was my entry for US GD 2012.

The story of this entry started two years ago when I saw FW books about Badab war. I wanted to make a squad of marines in Mk III armor. I purchased forge world models and got quite disappointed with the quality of the cast. I quickly became frustrated with the amount of time it was taking me to fix FW models. I started to think that it would have been easer to sculpt my own models... and I started to do just that. I didn't have much experience with sculpting before (just small green stuff work on some of my models) so it took me quite some time to get a grasp on the process. Chris Borer helped me tremendously to improve my sculpting skills. After year and a half I finally finished my Mk III torso and legs. I also realized that I have only two and a half months left before GD and it is just not enough time to finish five models. So I started to think about 40k single category. Finally I settled on Blood Angels but I didn't want to do pure BA marine, so I decided it will be a BA successor - Blood Drinker.



It took me some time to research the chapter's background and figure out the color scheme. Blood Drinkers are unique among BA successors. They do not use typical BA markings but follow the codex pattern. I still wanted to keep some BA references in my color scheme so I decided that my Blood Drinker sergeant will be from the seventh (assault) squad of the second company. This allowed me to have yellow trim on shouldered (company color and/or chapter color). I also decided that yellow will substitute white, so the tactical markings are done in this color as well as the veteran sergeant helmet (also may represent that he is from assault unit - BA style). The decision of weapons was quite easy - they had to be BA specific. While power sword is not unique among space marines inferno pistol is. The last thing to decide was the name of my sergeant... I am a HUGE fan of Chris Borer's work and I like his story behind the names of "Fratricide" duel. I decided that my marine should be dedicated to one of my friends... But who, that was the question. One trait of Blood Angels and their successors that is always forgotten is their artistic taste... In this respect I always thought about them as a sort of "loyal Emperor's Children." Among my friends I have quite a few artists but one in particular stands apart - Todd Swanson. All I had to do is make the name sound Italian - thus brother sergeant Signo was created!


The atmosphere of the model is supposed to show the events taking place during Reign of Blood 802.41k., when Blood Drinkers helped to fight daemon infestation on hive world of Helios Alpha.

I want to thank Chris Borer for all his help and guidance on this project. Also, special thanks to David Pauwels and Todd Swanson for constructive criticism.

No comments: