"Cherubael" - The Captive Unleashed

Cherubael was once a Demon Prince,
worshipped as a god on the 
feral world of Clanar II

Lexicanum


Well hello there and welcome to another week of The Art of Caesura!

It has been a marvelous stint of Necromunda over the past couple of months! As I've said before, this is the longest I have stuck in any one setting for quite a while. But the Mortal Realms beckon...so today we're going to go out with a bang with a Necromunda model that isn't even a Necromunda model!

This miniature is called The Captive Unleashed by Artel W. Miniatures and it is awesome!! I have recently ordered a few miniatures from Artel W. and they all look great. If you haven't checked these guys out before, you should. Anyway, to my mind, this mini is clearly inspired by the old Cherubael model for Inquisitor (I guess it's the hovering, possessed guy wrapped in scrolls and chains-look that does it!). But if I actually played Necromunda, I would probably use him as a Rogue Psyker.

When you're used to miniatures from a certain manufacturer (GW) it takes a moment to get accustomed to those from another company. I always find this when I go from Games Worshop to Wyrd's Malifaux models. Now, this model wasn't nearly as fiddly as some of the Wyrd models I've build, but with chains and scrolls flying every which way, I knew that it would be much easier to paint this guy in subassemblies. Then I ignored my better judgement and fully assembled him. 

I also believe that there is something to be said at times for painting a completely assembled model even if it is a bit tricky to get the brush into all the nooks and crannies. Seeing the model in its entirety makes colour placement and tone much easier. 

Likely from Cherubael's subliminal possession, I had a strong idea from the start of what I wanted to do with this guy. I wanted the skin to be so pale that it was almost glowing. Unnaturally pale. To contrast that, I knew the chains and rags would be very dark. Off to a good start.

I painted the skin with an undercoat of Cadian Fleshtone first to cover the black. Then I went right in with several coats of undiluted Pale Flesh (Scale 75), which is already a nice thin consistency for layering. Once I had a smooth base of Pale Flesh built up, I gave an all-over wash of 4:1 Lahmian Medium : Drakenhoff Nightshade to get that eerie, unheimlich look I was going for. 

For his face, after the diluted Drakenhoff, I gave another diluted Nuln Oil wash but only in the eye sockets and mouth, this would give me a darker base from which to make his eyes and teeth "pop".

As the skin was about 75% of the model, we're now on the home stretch! The chains were simply Leadbelcher -> Nuln Oil -> Runefang (sparingly, to keep them dark). I kept his rags a neutral/warm grey (Abaddon Black highlighted by mixing in Ushabti Bone and a touch of White Scar) to contrast the cool skin. Then on to the scrollwork. 

When I first showed my wife the assembled model, before I had slapped any paint down, she said "Oooh, wouldn't it be cool if the writing on the scrolls was glowing!?" "Yes" I replied, thinking, 'but it would be so much easier to just do an ol' Ushabti -> Agrax Earthshade -> Ushabti job on it'. But when it came to painting them, this conversation came back to me, and I decided to give it a go!

I didn't want to do OSL exactly (because this is a technique that I want to improve, but didn't fancy using this (my first Artel W. mini) as a test case. So instead I kind of did an in-between job. I did my Ushabti -> Agrax Earthshade -> Ushabti to get the parchment the right tone and then went back in and painted Nazdreg Yellow (contrast) into the crevaces of the writing, purposfully letting it bleed over onto the parchment a little. Not really knowing what I was doing, I painted dots of Yriel Yellow and then more mixed with White Scar on one side or the other of the writing to make it look like it is glowing from within. I painted the pentagram on his chest the same way.

This was a real challenge because I wanted the writing to look light and firey, while keeping the scrolls rather dark to contrast his pale skin. It looks a little messy up close, but from a bit of a distance I think the effect reads the way I was hoping. 

And that's it! I hope you've been enjoying all this Necromunda content over the past weeks - I have really loved immersing myself in it. I'd say it won't be too long before we venture back to the dark confines of The Underhive. 


Watching: Killing Eve - Season 2
Reading: Machines Like Me - Ian McEwan


Next Week:

Skulls and blood...