Marshal Grymm - Part 1 - The Plan

Black Templars Crusade Fleets 

are often led by an experienced Marshal – 

similar in role to the Captains of other Chapters – 

who oversees the order of battle 

and commands their troops from the front lines.

- Warhammer Community

Welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

Today - as I alluded to last week - we embark on a miniature that I have been joyfully working on for the past few weeks: Marshal Grymm

This miniature is based on the Primaris Captain that came with Imperium Magazine issue 5. 

Not a regular subscriber to Imperium, I was very lucky to come across this issue when we were holidaying in a tiny town in West Cork a couple months ago. 

Over the next few posts I will detail what went into completing this, the first Space Marine I've painted in about a decade. 

Today, I'm going to start by looking at the minor kit bashing I did, as well as my sources for inspiration in painting this miniature. 

Onwards!

Looking at the official miniature above, I still don't really understand the model's pose. The way his left hand is holding his sword and how he's looking up past his left hand looks like he is in a defensive stance, fending off an incoming blow from a very (very!) tall assailant. However, having his left foot up on the tactical rock unbalances him for me; it makes it look like he's almost going to fall backwards, or perhaps cartwheel forwards. To me, it's not a very epic pose for a Space Marine Captain Marshal. 

I dug out my very old Black Templars upgrade sprue and found the only sword-wielding arm on it. I had planned to just cut the hand off each and give 'em an ol' switcheroo, but I knew that I'd have to re-sculpt his wrist (quite a visible area). Then I noticed that the Black Templar arm is also a left arm...hmmm...I wonder if I can just...So I just pared down the shoulder attachment and it went together WITHOUT ANY GREEN STUFF AT ALL!! I swapped the right pauldron for a Black Templars one and Bob was my proverbial uncle!

From a simple arm swap, the model is suddenly transformed into having a mighty power stance, thundering "ONWARDS" to his battle brothers as they charge into glorious combat. 

With the model assembled (or sub-assembled anyway) I had to decide exactly how I wanted to paint him. I love the look of a really expertly done "clean" Black Templar, like this:

But - as those who have followed this blog for some time can attest - I also love grimy weathering like this:

Clearly two very different approaches. In the end I opted for the grimy approach. I was reading "Helsreach" at the time and Dembski-Bowden kept describing Grimaldus's armour as being barely recognizable for all its battle damage. This seemed in keeping with the crusading style of Black Templars - always on the go, no time to polish the armour. It also seemed like it would be more fun to paint an army in this style than the clean one.

As an aside, once I was into the painting of Marshal Grymm, Warhammer Community posted some more teaser photos of the upcoming Black Templars animation "Altar of Wrath", and suffice to say, it vindicated my decision.

So, now I had the model ready, and I had decided on what I was going to paint him like, all that remained was to determine how I would accomplish this. Usually I would just launch into it, redoing (or just leaving) bits that I wasn't happy with. Like I said last week, there is nothing wrong with this approach. For this normal approach of mine, I osmotically draw on inspiration from various sources (podcasts, painting tutorials) that I consume more as edutainment than pure scholarship. 

For Marshal Grymm I wanted to have a bold return to the Black Templars that I loved in my youth and I also wanted to iron out all the creases of how I will approach my Black Templars so that I can hit the ground running when I get to my Army Box. So, I took a much more "mindful" approach. I actively sought out exact examples of things that I would like to accomplish. 

I took this armour recipe...

And yes, I even paid for a one month subscription to The Grimdark Compendium so that I could watch the rest of the video.

I used this plasma weapon tutorial...

...the face tutorial from the Warhammer Plus Masterclass...

...and then I found this cool "powered up" backpack, and I said "I'll 'ave one of 'em" (I don't know why I'm speaking with a Cockney accent). 

I even referred back to my own tutorial on decals (the perks of keeping a weekly hobby blog)!

And once I had my mood board in my head, I set to work replicating each technique to the best of my ability, using the paints that I own and making small changes to better suit what I was aiming for. As I said, this isn't my usual style, so it was a fun challenge.

I won't go into too much detail today, as we'll look at some of those details in future posts. 

Thank you for tuning into the Art of Caesura!

Reading: Black Templars Codex

Watching: Black Templars vs. Thousand Sons Battle Report on Warhammer Plus

Drinking: a different beer each day from my parents' birthday present to me (a beer advent calendar!)

Next Week:

Putting the black in Black Templars...