Friday 18 January 2019

CCIII. Cult of the Possessed: the Possessed



More MordheimMMXIX progress. The Possessed is the largest piece in my warband, and I expect it will be the heaviest hitter. This is how the Possessed are described in the Mordheim rulebook:

The Possessed have committed the greatest of heresies: they have given their bodies to Daemons. As a result, they are nightmarish creatures, a melding of flesh, metal and black magic. Inside them lives a supernatural thing of evil, a Daemon from the dark reaches of the Realm of Chaos. The powerful spirit of a Daemon can meld several creatures together, be they men or animals, into a multi-faceted horror. These monstrous Possessed are perhaps the most dangerous of the creatures of Mordheim, and certainly the most loathsome and dreadful.
 
 
 I could have gone the usual mutation-heavy route (which I had ideas for, too), but I opted for a closer to human look. An unwashed madman with overgrown, matted hair and beard. His clawed hands, hollow eyes and unnatural body size are the more subtle signs of possession, but the daemon's ethereal seal hovering above his head announces it loud and clear to the world.

 

My main source of inspiration was William Blake's artwork 'Nebuchadnezzar', which depicts Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II during his period of madness, as reported in the Book of Daniel. I'd been meaning to base a conversion on this image for a long time. The demonic seal is made up, but in style of Goetic seals. The idea of it hovering above the Possessed's head came from Wayne Barlowe's incredible depictions of demons of hell.

Nebuchadnezzar, by William Blake.

The base model was Weirdnob Shaman from the AoS Orruk range. Again, I removed a lot of plastic and reconstructed many areas with putty. Gave him smaller hands, from Pink Horrors. The head is from a Space Wolf, but there is very little of it left showing. I sculpted the hair and beard to look filthy, tangled and stuck together, forming something like natural dreadlocks. The demonic sigil was made out of bits of thin wire, bent and fixed together with superglue. This was then covered with a layer of PVA in the end to make it a bit more durable. It's still delicate, but it'll last if I'm careful not to drop him. He was painted same as the Brethren.
 

17 comments:

  1. Excellent. Very promising warband.

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  2. Very cool. I really like this guy, I even thought about that exact picture of Nebuchadnezzar 2 when I saw him! The feet really do it. I'm a big William Blake fan.

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  3. Absolutely incredible. The reinterpretation of the converted mini is evocative and unsettling. The daemon seal is simply a touch of genius, I had never thought of that and now I think it's such a natural decision to make. Wow.

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  4. Amazing! Honestly, I think this guy is more terrifying than most "classic" Possessed Models with tentacles and whatnot. He may not have those, but the mania and hellish drive brought on by the Daemon within him are clearly on display. And yeah, as Suber said above, the Daemon Sigil floating above is absolute genius.

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  5. Fantastic. You have an amazing sense of color. Love the Blake reference too.

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  6. Brilliant idea and wonderful execution. A unique possessed to be sure.

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  7. These are just great! Really feels like they're tapping into something primordial and shamanic, not something I think I've seen done with Chaos before, but it fits perfectly.

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  8. The superb sigil kind of reminds me of some of the "keys" in Kill Six Billion Demons. Combined with the pose and attitude of the mini, it really radiates raw power

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  9. Just found your blog and binge read most of it - really amazing stuff. It's refreshing to see such eclectic source material used for inspiration, it makes all your models so unique.

    Can I ask how you painted the skin on these latest models?

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    1. Thank you!

      Certainly. The models were given zenithal priming (white over black). The skin was glazed with very thinned-down Rakarth Flesh and Zandri Dust. The underlying black in the shadows already made them colder, but I enhanced that effect a bit with a glaze of bluish grey in those areas. The lighter areas were gently highlighted with watered-down white. The lower arms and legs were glazed with black and highlighted with mid to dark grey. There's some splatter of black, concentrated mostly on the arms and legs where the black goes into normal skintone.

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