Weekly Waffle #325 – Looking out for the Plebes
16th March 2024
Custodian Tribunate
This week I have been exercising some demons. When we were at Adepticon in 2022 I did the usual thing of picking up lots of models because they looked shiny, and I had big ideas for all of them. In my defence I have painted a lot of them but there is one in particular that has simply sat on a shelf, and I have gone nowhere near it. This is because I had some specific expectations about how it should look, and I just haven’t felt that I can live up to those expectations. Jump forward nearly two years and I have had my short hiatus from painting and was trying to update the web site ahead of starting to post again. Whilst I was doing this, I had been getting my fix in listening to the ‘Trapped Under Plastic’ podcast and they touched on the subject of minis that you kept avoiding. The outcome was that you just have to give it a go, because however it turns out it is going to look better than it does if it stays in the box forever. So, I’ve decided to get this monkey off my back before we fly out for this year’s event. And that is what I have been working on for this week’s weekly waffle.
The model in question is the Forge World Custodian Tribunate. In the lore they are a group of ten veteran Custodians who act as advisors to their Captain-General and are directly beneath him in terms of ranking within the Legio Custodes. In order to become a member, a Custodian must have earned at least ten names before he can serve on the Tribunate and must have led his comrades victoriously in battle on at least three occasions. Membership of this body changes periodically to ensure a blend of established wisdom and fresh ideas, but once a Custodian joins the Tribunate, they must serve for at least ten years. During that time, they will not see the front lines of battle, as they will be busy bending all their considerable intellect to supporting – strategically and diplomatically – the Custodes’ Captain-General.
A grand position within a grand organisation requires, in my eyes, a very grand paint job. I had the idea of using purple for the primer and base colour. Then keeping the robes in purple whilst building up the gold which all sounded very straight forward to me. Then I just got scared and the more I have thought about it the more I think I will make a mess of things. But no more. Regardless of how it was going to look it was going to be painted and it was going to be painted in roughly the way I had originally planned for it. I think the principle for the colour scheme is sound and should result in a cold gold. Whilst I had toyed with idea of using non-metallic metals that was a giant leap to far for this guy, at this time. So, I would be using metallic paints.
The build went smoothly enough and once it was finished it was primed with a Vallejo black surface primer. Using the airbrush, I then added a couple of layers of purple getting gradually lighter with a series of zenith highlights. I also tried to use the airbrush to do most of the work on the cloak to get it as smooth as I could.
A bit like I have done for a lot of my other recent projects I started with the base and used a dark purple over the top of the primer to give a hint of the same colour in the base. A lot of this disappeared with the dry brushing stages but I think if you look closely, you can still feel there is a bit of purple feel still there. This is a nice base, and I could have spent a lot longer on it, although I don’t know if it would look that much different. I was happy with the base, and it gave me that little sub conscious boost that I was able to paint the rest of the mini.
When I first got this mini my original intention was to learn how to do Non-Metallic Metals and use that technique on here. The reality is that still have no more idea how to NMM now than I did back then so that idea had to go out of the window. Although if I can keep the mojo going throughout the year, I will give it a go over the coming months. So, I had to use metallics for this and I decided to go with colder colours for the armour. I thought that they would work well with the purple but would also give it a more imposing feel. Sometimes very bright gold armour can feel a bit gaudy, and I wanted this guy to have much more gravitas. Whether that comes through in the finished article I will let you decide but that was the feel I was aiming for.
I decided to try and make it look like the light was coming from one direction and he would be looking at that light. Because I had used the airbrush to give me a zenith highlight which I used as a guide for how bright the gold should be. In the areas that were catching the light directly I used the gold I had without darkening it but in all the other areas I added various amounts of purple to give me a darker shade of gold. I’m not sure how well this has worked because it gives some quite sharp changes in colour when parts of the armour move from light to dark. But that is how the light would work so that is what I’ve gone with. On the edges that will catch the light I’ve highlighted them with a much brighter gold just to give a bit more contrast. This was slow going because I tried to concentrate on one section at a time, but I think it has worked out quite well.
Once all the armour had been completed, I thought it was a little bit too bright so is use some Angrax Earth Shade wash to knock things back a little bit. This hid some of the purple, but I do think it was a step that was needed to help pull the whole piece together. I then went back over a few of the really stand out areas with the brighter gold on the parts that would really catch the light.
The next big part was the cloak and I messed this up quite badly on the first pass so had to spend quite a bit of time just trying to use glazes to get it back to something that I was happy with. This is the way I should have done it from the start, and I should have used a much bigger brush. I think that is going to be the key take away from this mini because using a small brush on the cloak resulted in me not having enough paint to get long smooth strokes. Switching to a larger brush and taking my time is what worked in the end.
I do have a gallery for the Emperors Talon where you can see some Sisters of Silence who could work alongside the Tribunate
Now that it is finished, I’m finding it hard to be objective about how it looks. For a long time, I had some very unrealistic expectations about how this would turn out in my mind’s eye. And it falls a long way short of those expectations. Everywhere I look I see things that aren’t how I wanted them to look. Having said that I have pushed myself out of my comfort zone on this guy. Both in the time I have allowed myself to paint him and in the way I have painted him, which I think that is good thing. Because you can’t get better if you don’t try. I am happy that I have taken this off the shelf and finished it and when I look at it objectively, I am very happy with how it’s turned out. And if I had a Custodes Army, I would be very happy to field this guy with them.
Getting that monkey off my back just about brings this week’s weekly waffle to an end and to some extent wraps up the last two years of hobby projects. All just in time to jet off to Adepticon again to hopefully top up my mojo and inspiration. My expectations for this year are much lower than I have had in the past but not in a bad way. I don’t think the event will be in any way less than in previous years. In fact, I’m hoping it will be better than in 2022 when the covid restrictions had just been lifted and people weren’t mingling as much as in previous years, for understandable reasons. This year though I am not taking as many classes, although having said that Thursday if full on for me, so what I do learn I should have time to really take in. Then the extra time I have will let me mingle a lot more and really soak up the atmosphere.
I’ve also had a bit of diversion this week and got round to building a Christmas present that has been teasing me. It’s going to end up living on my desk and will cheer me up every time I look at it. Now it is plastic but it’s a whole other addiction of plastic otherwise known as Lego. Specifically Groot. It was just a little filler but I did enjoy it and it puts a smile on my face.
There isn’t going to be a weekly waffle next week because I will be engrossed in the con and don’t want to put any extra pressure on myself to get an update out. Having said that I do plan on doing mini updates each day to give you all feel for how things are going. Then I will pull everything together once I get back for a full update on the 30th of March. My bags are packed, tickets are printed, and my passport is ready so I’m all ready to go. So until I get back I hope you all keep safe and enjoy whatever hobby projects you are working on.
But if you do want some sneak peaks of Adepticon pop back during the week for those daily bits.
And to keep you entertained until next time why don’t you have a look at so other content I’m enjoying at the moment:
