"The Unkindness" - Escher Gang I

We hold our heads up to the sky
And know that we will never die
As long as we stand side by side
As long as we can see the ravens fly!

Ravens fly! Ravens fly!

Raven's Flight - Amon Amarth


Hi guys and gals! It is time, once again, for The Art of Caesura!

This week marks the beginning of a project that I've been working away on in the background for the past few weeks, my first Necromunda gang: The Unkindness!

I feel like I have so much to say and show you, so I'm going to split it over a few weeks to try to get it all out. Today we'll start with the first three gangers I've painted.

I have this strange affinity to Necromunda. I've still never played it and these are the first models I've painted for it (aside from the terrain, here and here), but I love the lore and the aesthetic and the idea of the rules. I like skirmish, campaign-style games where your dudes grow and change and die; the stakes are higher and you feel more connected to each character. 

Before starting House Escher, I would have said my favourite houses in Necromunda are Delaque and Goliath...but that was before having started Escher...

Meet Poe

With her bitchin' head tattoo! I was trying to make it look like a bar code, but it ended up looking like weird text - hey, works for me! (I drew the initial pattern with Nuln Oil and darkened areas with Abaddon Black greatly thinned with Lahmian Medium. 

Whilst painting these amazonian wonder women, I've been coming up with a story for them. The models have a lot of feathers on them which most people paint as being from exotic birds to represent how House Escher gangers value the finer things like rare animal pelts and feathers. Inspired by the feathers, I'm taking a different slant. I'm designing my gang around the raven. The raven (Corvus corax) has always been one of my favourite birds. I love how they are extremely intelligent, and stand as the trickster figure in many cultures, including that of many First Nations groups on the West Coast of Canada (where I'm from). 

This is Kwothe

So, starting from the raven feather, I had a few other thoughts before starting this gang. I wanted to have elements of the kind of cyberpunky aesthetic with members wearing different brightly coloured (though still grimy and weathered) armour. I also wanted to make many members of the gang represent different races of people (today I've started with some of the Caucasian members). With all these disparate elements, I was worried that there would be nothing really to tie to gang together, so I went back to the idea of the raven.

I decided to unify elements of them: their lower bodies, vests (aside from chest plates) and hair were all painted identically, and I really think that worked to bring them together as a single fighting force. 

For their lower bodies, I painted their leggings Ushabti bone and their loincloths Steel Legion Drab - both washed with Agrax Earthshade. Their thigh-high boots were painted to mimic studded black leather. I chose these colours to balance out the brighter colours on the rest of model and also to represent the lower body of a nesting raven, with the black boots being the raven's black legs and feet, the brown tabbard representing the brown nest and the pale leggings harkening back to the common raven egg. 

And finally (for today), Korv

Due to the level of detail on these models, I've been tackling them in groups of three - completing all areas of a colour across all three models before moving on to the next colour. As a general rule, all silver areas are Leadbelcher > Nuln Oil > Runefang Steel; all copper areas are Screaming Bell > Agrax Earthshade > Hashut Copper. 

Not wanting to overload this post, I'll talk about how I did their skin tones and hair in a later post. Likewise with the details, such as the feathers and venom injector-thingy.

I've been coming up with a bunch of names to use for the members of The Unkindness as you can see above, see if you can suss out my inspiration...

So, welcome to The Unkindness; I don't think I'd like to meet them down a dark Necromundan alleyway! I'm looking forward to showing you the other elements of this gang in the coming weeks - if I can keep up with my painting!

Watching: Blown Away

Listening: Lost Together - Blue Rodeo

Next Week:

Tracking the raven's flight...