FOR HELSREACH!
Die on our blades! I am Grimaldus of the Black Templars,
and I will cast your carcasses from these holy walls!
Helsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden
Hi! Welcome back to The Art of Caesura!
I'm sending loads of positivity your way, especially if you need it today!
Today is our final work-in-progress look at Grimaldus before we gaze at him and his Cenobyte Servitors in all of their finished glory!
The focus of today's post is actually something that I don't tend to spend too much time on with my Black Templars (I think I burnt myself out on my Kharadron Overlords): The bases!
The way I do my Black Templars bases now, is actually the second iteration of the scheme. I started with fairly generic desert bases, but then went back and re-based them using my current scheme - a red, iron-rich soil with pale rocks.
The in-lore reason for the basing style is that they're currently fighting on a mineral-rich planet, pseudo-inspired by the planet Crait (from Star Wars: The Last Jedi) which had white salt flats dramatically scarred by red soil beneath - mine's kind of the opposite.
The artistic rationale for my basing choice is that I really wanted to incorporate pigment powders into my basing as I think it more resembles the scale of in-world soil than, say, sand (which we usually use for basing). I found that the arid desert tones were getting lost in the many tabbards of my Black Templars where as the red was somewhat striking, stood out nicely against all of the other colours of my Black Templars (i.e. black and white) and was still within the triad of colours that I use for my army (red being the spot colour which I use on my weapon casings).
Grimaldus, for being one of the most famous chaplains in the whole Imperium, is a fairly understated model - which is nice - but when he's in a 10-20-man unit of Primaris Crusaders he could get a little lost. So I wanted to do something a little special with his base to help him stand out on the tabletop.
I decided to elevate him on a bit of a rocky outcrop. As you can see in the pictures so far, I started with a pedestal made of cork, I hacked some organic shapes into this and then covered it in Spackle.
I textured the base with sand and the crackle paint Agrellan Earth, and then added some skulls (with a prominent Ork skull as a call-back to Grimaldus' role on Helsreach).
With the basing elements in place, it came time to paint the base. I painted it the way I paint all of my Templars bases these days: Kimera's Red Oxide, the stones and skulls started as Steel Legion Drab...
...the skulls were highlighted up with Rakarth Flesh...
The final step is those all-important pigment powders. I use Red Brown to give a nice dusty appearance. I would like to get another colour perhaps a Raw Sienna just to add more variation.
The only things that were left to do were to plunk Grimaldus atop this mighty base and paint the base rim black!
Thank you for joining me this - and every - Friday as we explore whatever hobby shininess has caught my attention.
Reading: The Briar Club - Kate Quinn
Watching: The Day of the Jackal (2024)
Next Week:
A light in the dark...
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