Initiates aim jets of fire from their pyreblasters
or swing crackling power fists into their foes,
while hard-eyed Neophytes fight furiously
to prove their martial worth.
Welcome back to The Art of Caesura!
Long term readers of The Art of Caesura know that time works...differently 'round these parts. Sometimes, in consecutive weeks, we see miniatures that I have painted many months ago juxtaposed against miniatures that I have only completed that week. For example, these guys took the whole month of March to paint, but have only appeared now for their week in the spotlight.
Today we're looking at Black Templars neophytes.
For the uninitiated (see what I did there?), Neophytes are part of the Crusader Squad (also made up of Initiates (normal intercessors) and led by a Sword Brother. This squad is unique to Black Templars and represents the medieval relationship of knights and their squires. Neophytes are responsible for the day-to-day care of the Initiates and their armour and weapons; one Neophyte below is even holding the scabbarded chain sword and helmet of his Initiate liege.
I painted their armour in the same way as I paint all my Black Templars armour. You can find the process detailed here. For the sake of my sanity, I will not repeat each step here, but will rather focus on those that deviate from my usual process. For any steps that are not explained in this post, please refer to the link above or drop me a message in the comments below.
Today I will focus on some of the elements that are different for these guys: their pants, for starters. I wanted their pants to be dark, but be differentiated from their black armour. I went for a warm dark grey.
I painted their pants with a few thin coats of Skavenblight Dinge - allowing the deepest crevices to remain black. I then washed this with Agrax Earthshade.
To differentiate the cloth from the pauldrons, 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.
Leather:
I painted all leather elements (pouches, gloves and boots on Neophytes) with Mournfang Brown, coated in Contrast Wyldwood and then worked back up with Mournfang Brown adding more and more Skrag Brown.
Pauldrons:
Starting from Steel Legion Drab, I dabbed on diluted Rakarth Flesh, followed by a stippling of Grey Seer.
Red Elements:
To paint the iconic red weapon casings, I base them with Mephiston Red or The Red (Kimera Kolors), give them an all over wash of undiluted Flesh Tearers Red and then add more and more Yriel Yellow to the original red to stipple on the battle damage and highlights.
I think I might be in the minority here, but I really enjoy painting faces. I decided to challenge myself a little and paint a few different skin tones for my Neophytes. I love the expression for the guy below - he ended up with an "it's quiet...too quiet" look, which I think is hilarious.
By widening his eyes slightly via the placements of the pupils, as well as the 5 O'clock shadow, I tried to make the guy below look like he's having the worst day ever, but also rising to the occasion!
For my two with non-Caucasian skin tones, I leaned heavily on the Scale 75 Flesh Tone set.
For the guy below, I started with a base coat of S75 Golden Skin, shading it by adding in more and more Arabic Shadow before highlighting it back up through S75 Light Skin.
The guy below's visor reminded me of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek, so I painted him with a dark skin tone, starting from a base of Doom Bull Brown mixed with S75 Indian Shadow. I shaded him with glazed on S75 African Shadow before highlighting back up by adding small amounts of Pale Skin into the starting mix.
I think these are really fantastic miniatures, made even more special because they are exclusive to Black Templars. I'm very happy with how they turned out and look forward to painting more of these li'l guys!
See you next week on The Art of Caesura!
Watching: Barry - Season 2
Next Week:
Becoming battle-hardened...
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