"Busy Buzzing Everywhere!" - Herald of Beelzebub - Part 1

The Heralds are the vanguard 

in any assault of the Black Grail, 

and the ear-numbing drone of their wings 

strikes terror in any defender, 

breaking their focus and sapping their willpower.

- Trench Crusade

Welcome back Caesura fans! It's time for The Art of CAESURAAAAAA!!

Ahem, thanks, glad I got that out of my system. It's an exciting time to be in the Caesura-land. I'm really really enthused about Trench Crusade, and some of my friends are really getting into it too! One of my buddies has turned a kilogram of air-dry clay into hundreds (and hundreds) of sandbags! Behind the scenes, I'm actually starting on my SECOND Trench Crusade army and am anxiously awaiting the opportunity to play my first game!

Now, on to today's topic! We're working our way through my Cult of the Black Grail warband. We started with the Thralls, we've seen how I'm making my Black Grail bases, we've painted the doggies, and most recently the Corpse Guard. Today, we're beginning to move up in size with the Herald of Beelzebub!

I feel like I spend a lot of these posts talking about how hideous these models are (in the best way, of course) and this guy is no different! In the lore, these used to be normal people:

Some victims of the Black Grail suffer a far worse fate. They are bestowed with the black honour by being melded with hell-flies, growing into a grotesque winged insect made of bloated flesh. After this torturous metamorphosis they take to air as Heralds of Beelzebub, the winged squires and scouts of the Order of the Fly.

Pretty grim.

Anyway, the first few steps of the painting process are the same as how I have done most of my Black Grail stuff so far - for a detailed step-by-step check out my Thralls post, to abbreviate: From a zenithal undercoat, I use thinned Athonian Camoshade (I vary the skin tone by how much I think it. For this guy, I thinned it the most to give a very light green pallor) then dab on thinned crimson oil paint and then violet oil paint. That brings me up to the image you can see directly above (which was about 80% of the model!). 

I then used black to carefully block out some of the details: the gun, eyes, proboscis and stinger. 

I then finished off the skin with the effects that I usually use. In the other models, I have gone in with Blood for the Blood God + Nuln Oil + Gloss varnish into the deepest crevices and then substituted in Nurgle's Rot in the above recipe, but for this guy I just went to straight Nurgle's Rot to show that he has moved further and further away from natural mammalian life and no longer has red blood. 

I spent a while trying to decide exactly how I would do the compound eyes, the Dry Necron Compound paint actually worked perfectly. I think I only have one other dry paint, but they sure do have their uses at times. It worked perfectly for this - catching only on the raised details with a light dry-brushing. 

While I was painting this guy, I noticed the disturbing detail of the remains of the human who was melded with this hellfly - you can see him in the image below...

To help pull him out of the details of the rest of the fly slightly, I used some human skin tones: Cadian Fleshtone highlighted with Wraithbone. 

I applied gloss varnish to the wet bits (tubes, and organs and stinger and sucker).

I moved on to the gun and had a failed start. I was going to paint it a ferrous metal (with redish rust) using the (sometimes) magical Dirty Down rust but despite shaking and stirring the bejesus out of it and re-watching Vincy V's tutorial on it, I just couldn't get it to work for me (yes, I also tried using a hair dryer). So instead, I decided to pivot back to the brass metal recipe that I shared two weeks ago. 

Previously, I used Army Painter's The Darkness, on this guy I used a mix of Scale 75's Caspian Blue and Sotek Green...I'm honestly not sure why I did it differently - I can't remember. I think it's easier to just go with The Darkness. 

It was really tricky painting the gun around his hands and worms, but I managed it eventually!

I blotched some Nihilakh Oxide on to areas of the gun for a bit of tonal variety. 

Let's take a look at where we are now: 

Then it was time to add the metal effect to the metal gun. I made this unnecessarily difficult for myself, because I was trying to drybrush between the worms coming out of his gun and his fingers - both of which I'd already painted. 

Rather than the Tinny Tin that I used for the Corpse Guard, I used Bright Bronze just to make it stand out a little more. 

The final aspect was his base, I didn't want to put too much effort into it at this stage, as I knew that I would need to bust him off this base and blend him on to the style of bases that I'm using for the rest of my warband. So I simply painted it with Dawnstone, dry-brushed it with Grey Seer and then coated the whole thing with Streaking Grime. 

With the base of the model complete, it was time to affix him to the base proper. 

I tried to pare away the central contact point of the sculpted base (that's where a Dremel would really come in handy!) and then I superglued him down and put a ring of Green Stuff around the join line. 

Using an old dental tool that I've had since grade 9 (25 years!), I did my best to blend the bases together. 

It may not look like much now, but wait till next week once I've painted the green stuff to match the sculpted base! See you then on The Art of Caesura!

Watching: Silo (season 1)

Listening: Heilung

Next Week: 

Incessant buzzing...