"Sigismund’s Heir" - The Emperor's Champion - Part 1

The Emperor's Champion is a humble warrior 

plucked out of the ranks of the Black Templars 

by the divine will of the Emperor himself. 

The furious blows of the enemy ring 

from his nigh-impenetrable Armour of Faith, 

while the Champion seeks out enemy generals 

and heroes and slays them 

with sweeping blows from his Black Sword. 

- Games Workshop

Welcome to the year two thousand and twenty-three! The distant future indeed!

I hope you all had nice times over the holidays and / or you're looking to the year ahead with renewed hope. 

I have really enjoyed sharing my (late) Autumn Reading List, my Christmas Quiz, my little duders all dressed up for Christmas and then my recent hobby loot with you over the past few weeks, but it has left a dearth of new painted minis on the blog!

The last newly painted model that I shared with you was The Broodmother from Oathsworn - one of my favourite models of 2022. Truth be told, I actually have a couple more Oathsworn miniatures in the pipeline to share with you, but they are Allies and terrain and I wanted to start 2023 off with something a bit more impactful! Hence today's subject: The Emperor's Champion

I feel it in my fingers...I feel it in my toes, this is going to be one of those long posts. I just know that I am not going to be able to refrain from mentioning (yet again) my history with Black Templars plus I was uncharacteristically diligent with documenting my painting progress in all thirty (!) pictures! So fasten your seatbelts or just skim through the pretty pictures!

Before I go into the painting process (which is also detailed here, in case I get carried away and miss anything in this post) I do just want to take a sec to talk about The Emperor's Champion (EC). The lore behind this guy is pretty cool: a regular (Space Marine) Joe who has a vision "from the Emperor" and is given some of the best relic armour and sword that they have and told to 'go ham'. 

What is also fun for me is that I have now painted all three iterations of the EC. I wonder if I can find my old metal one, I'll have to have a look, but here is my rendition of the previous iteration (the very first miniature that my girlfriend, now wife, bought me!)

I have always really loved the EC, even back in the halceon days of 3rd edition, I would use him in every game I played (in fact, if I recall, you had to bring him in your army back then!) I haven't actually had the chance to play him yet in 9th edition. While he is not a "meta" choice, it seems he can hit above his weight when sent to go murderize non-combat characters. It's just a shame that he takes up a coveted HQ slot (already in high demand from Helbrecht, Grimmy and a Chappy on Bike)

I have also always loved his heroic and knightly pose, without being overly busy with details. I like that the Armour of Faith, in keeping with the lore, isn't burdened with the the Aquilla or the winged skull of the Adeptus Astartes. It's nice (and perhaps unique) to have a bare chest area on a Space Marine to play with light and texture.

That all being said, when I first saw this "glow-up" Primaris version, I was not an instant fan. I found the ribbons and floating iron halo a bit distracting, though I didn't mind him showing off the Black Sword face on, as opposed to edge-on (a detail which seemed to irk the wider Black Templars community). However, as is so often the case, once I actually got my hands on him and got building and painting him, it was love all over again!

Anyway, when it came to painting him, I followed the exact same process that I have with my other Black Templars. In fact, I actually opened my previous post so that I wouldn't miss any steps. The only difference between the painting process of, say, my Assault Intercessors and this guy is that I was much more careful and intentional with my brush strokes, working in thinner layers to build up the colours more smoothly. 

That process is:

1) From a Chaos Black spray, I touched up the main armour areas with Abaddon Black. I then coated the whole model in Stormshield (a satin varnish which will help with the next step).

2) I then glazed Doombull Brown and then Skrag Brown into the crevices to give the appearance of dust and breath some warmth into the black armour. As mentioned, the Stormshield reduces the surface tension, allowing the browns to slide nicely into the crevices. 

3) With the brown glazed in, I drybrushed Abaddon Black onto the areas where the brown got a little out of control (the surfaces of the armour plates).  

4) Next came Stegadon Scale Green. This is a really fun step. I work really fast, hitting many of the upward-facing surfaces. Don't worry if it's looking a little cartoony at this stage. 

5) To pull things back towards neutral, I use Skavenblight Dinge next. With this step, I start to add in the scratches and dings in the armour which will be further accentuated later. 

6) After Skavenblight Dinge, I use quite a light neutral grey: Dawnstone - again only on smaller and smaller areas of the upward surfaces. 

7) Again, don't worry if it's getting a bit too grey at this stage, because for the next step I glazed on Abaddon Black to blend the layers together and bring the whole thing back towards black rather than grey or blue. 

8) The final highlight is with Grey Seer, and I reserve that for the sharpest edges that would catch light from above. 

Pauldrons:

Starting from Steel Legion Drab, I dabbed on diluted Rakarth Flesh, followed by a stippling of Grey Seer.

Cloth:

To differentiate the cloth, I moved from Steel Legion Drab up through Ushabti Bone to Wraithbone. I gave some focused washes of Agrax to deepen the folds of the cloth. The image below is taken under a different light which better shows the texture that I am in the process of creating on the tabbard. 

The next picture is taken at the same stage, but under incandescent light to show that it actually does look more black than blue. 

Next, it was time to move on to metalics, but actually before I do, I painted the lantern by dropping Yriel Yellow into each square then, once dry, dropping in some diluted Carroberg Crimson and gently dabbing it out of the centre of each square so that it just tinted the edges. 

I painted all metal areas with Leadbelcher, and for the areas that would remain silver, I gave a recess shade of Nuln Oil and then worked it back up with Vallejo Game Colour Silver. For the brass areas, I simply painted Contrast Snakebite Leather over the Leadbelcher.

I was torn over whether I would paint the Iron Halo in a silver or brass colour, but opted for silver...yuh know, Iron Halo. 

I actually repainted the Black Sword three or four times, such was my indecision over how I wanted it to look. I did want it to be very dark - to fit it's name - but I still wanted it to look metallic. In the end, I did the kind of "True Metalic Metal" technique of painting various faces of it with brighter or darker metals, using Contrast Black Templars (fittingly!) for the darkest areas and Vallejo's Silver for the brightest. 

Admittedly, in these pictures the Black Sword looks more like "The Dirty Sword" but as you know, light and photos play havok with metalic pigments and in next week's photos you'll get a better view of the look I was going for. 

With the Champ complete, only his base remained (I failed to take photos of the painting of the base, but followed the same process as my other Templars)

Base:

After texturing the base with sand, I painted it with Ushabti Bone then Contrast Skeleton Horde, followed by a drybrush of Wraithbone.

Whoo weee! What a sense of accomplishment! Tune in next week to The Art of Caesura to see this guy in all his glory!

Watching: Andor (Disney Plus)

Listening: The Art of War podcast

Reading: Cosmic Queries - Neil de Grasse Tyson

Next Week:

Heretics beware...