Mobilizing Sons of Horus

Hi there

Oh my it’s been almost two years since my last post here… Is there anybody out there?…

I have done a lot of hobby since last. But this feature is all about my Sons of Horus project, started a couple of years ago. The Sons of Horus are those that became the Black Legion of which I have quite a large collection. So choosing the Sons for my Horus Heresy project was really a no-brainer for me as they make the back story of what I was already collecting. And frankly I just love those miniatures anyway and Horus the arch traitor and all their stories too. In my opinion they represent a huge loss of innocence, which makes for great stories.

Here is most of my Sons of Horus army. (I have added another squad of infantry and a dreadnaught since I took the picture)

I’ve had a lot of fun adding to this army. Not much showcase painting, but a lot of relaxed painting for fun. I don’t know if I am going back to the show painting, I might if the mood strikes me, but don’t hold your breath. My life is completely different now and I don’t really have as much time for focus on big artistic projects, but I feel great just painting for hobby. Very content really.

I have always had this dream of creating images in miniature like those big GW artworks with a million characters in them milling around creating their own chaos. I feel like I am getting closer to be able to do just that. I also make some beleaguered defenders to stand in the way of the Sons of Horus, as they lay siege to Terra in the end of the story. I make some of my Sons like Chaos Space Marines to tell the story of them being too far gone in the end times…

A Custodian trying to stem the tide

The custodian here helps save the two soldiers running behind him. He is a formidable warrior, but there are just too few of them to stop the advance of the Sons of Horus.

Some desperate soldiers trying to save themselves and each other

So while my Sons of Horus are the main characters, main force, these poor soldiers and civilians even, are a great tool to actually start telling stories with them. Something I really like, these mortal soldiers and civilians are a great contrast to the almighty astartes.

This is something I will get back to in later posts hopefully.

Now it is all about the current state of my Horus Heresy project. As you can see I have painted a good deal more figures and models for this army. I care not for army lists or making the right tournament winning combinations of troops, machines and weapon types. I care to make the miniatures I think look cool and tell the story that I want. But These are perfectly capable to play games now.

So what’s new?

Deredo

Here’s a Deredo dreadnaught I finished the day before yesterday. It was a long slog painting him and sometimes I felt like he didn’t want to get finished. It was mostly due to my not having so much continuous hobby time to really immerse myself in the project, so my whole process got kind of fragmented, always having to find my way back into the project and my thoughts on it. When it gets like that one have a tendency to procrastinate, which I did. I Worked on other figures because they were more fun and manageable and then leaving this fella on the shelf… I am sure you know what I am talking about. I am very glad that he is finished, I am proud of him and he is a lovely addition to the force.

Command cadre of the Sons of Horus

My command cadre here consists of 2 praetors and a Legion Consul Dark Emissary. I love making characters for my armies and always end up making a whole gaggle of leaders, much more than needed but they are great miniatures to make. It is going to happen here as well. I already have a handful of additional leaders on the drawing board. I am also getting a little tired of painting troops, so I need some more leaders and war machines to make the project stay fun and exciting.

MKIII Marines

The MKIII marines here are my newest addition to the force. I must confess: as of now MKIII marines are my absolutely favorite space marine models. They have so much character and a nice archaic design. Totally favorite space marine models for me.

My painting style on these is quite fast. I paint them a cold light green with the airbrush, working through 3-4 progressions of gradually lighter tones by adding white to it. Then I block in all other bits with GW Contrast paints and give them a drybrush of a creamy off white. Next I paint the metal parts in 3 steps; first with black added, then pure, and finally with silver added for highlights. A liberal layer of gloss varnish and then decals. More gloss varnish on top of the decals to make them blend in optimally, then dry. The whole figure then gets a wash of Raw Umber and black oil paint which shades it, makes details pop and gives the whole thing a nicely dirty appearance. Once the oil paint is dry, this can take a couple of days, I spray them with matte varnish from the airbrush. Then I paint on more detail, maybe a little silver highlight on the metals, make the light effects where needed refine faces sometimes and that is basically it. Painting the leaders, I go with the same technique basically, but go to much greater lengths refining and finishing them. I also go into much more detail with freehand and such.

Advancing from a hive city

I did some coal drawings recently. Sort of trying to capture hive cities and smog in a very grim and dirty way. They set quite a nice mood as backgrounds for the miniatures. Speaking of my dream of making images like the artwork, but in miniature, such background paintings and drawings can really help.

Here’s another one:

Advancing with the support of a titan of Legio Mortis

Playing with perspective and a little photo manipulation in the above picture. The titan figures are of course of a much smaller scale, but placing it just right in the background and working the camera so the background gets out of focus, can lend very dramatic results. I am going to make more titans and Legions Imperialis miniatures for more background fun… I used my photo editor to desaturate the background, only maintaining full saturation on the characters in the front. Almost like in a spotlight. This is the fog of war in the grim darkness of the far future!

WIP

This is something I do very rarely, sharing WIP shots. Normally only as parts of tutorials. Here’s my Deredo before he was finished and the next big war machine for the army. The lunchbox… Land Raider Spartan I think it is called. As of writing this I have not continued work on it yet, I focused on finishing the Deredo and the MKIII’s. When I am ready for it, the Spartan is going to get a lot of chipping and scratches to the paint job, painting the tracks, decals and weathering. Sounds like nothing… but it will take quite some time.

So that’s it for now.

Thank yo for reading this far. I hope you find my images and ramblings inspiring.

Keep those brushes wet and have fun painting whatever you like.

Until next time

-Kristian