Rogue Quest level Five : The paladin !

So here we are, time for level five of the Rogue Quest ! After my wizard and Axiom's Rogue, it's time to get on with some new characters !

This week's entry is special for me, I've always had a great fondness for Paladins as previously discussed. They are one of the most iconic and characterful classes you can have and because of the many rules and limitations for them, you have to be in tune with that sort of characters they are to fully enjoy them.

Interpretation by Olivier Ledroit, see how he's lawfully good AND gets the (dirty) work done ?

The ideal paladin is obviously a lawful good warrior that fights for the good of all, always puting his own safety and personal interest in second place. A good paladin will usually take the greatest care of his gear and body as they're his tools to do his duty. A paladin will usually have a great constitution along a high charisma. To represent that I knew I had to use a space marine but didn't which one to use. I've considered using a terminator at some point to represent their tanking role but that looked silly amongst very lightly armoured models so I opted for this one piece Space marine designed by Bob Naismith (IIRC). It had just the perfect heroic pose I was looking for !

The model is also nicely linked to the marine you can find on the cover of Rogue Trader as he's basically a mirror reflexion of him with the helmet to his belt.

Like many of the models he was released along with, his power armour is a little more crude and less refined technically speaking with the model being very fine and precise at the same time. the work with the undercuts on this one is particularly striking and if you've never looked at it closely, just see for yourself if you have it under hand.

I like those one piece marines with their wires and cables all around, you can see a great attention to details has been had and the later ones with their big leg armour (which will remain a signature after that) must have been designed to simplify things (someone must have understood that they'd be sculpting a good load of those...).

Picture from Solegend

I often use fantasy models I convert to use in 40k but for once I had a 40k model I wanted to link with traditional fantasy. To achieve this, I simply used the property you often find in magical items : elements.

Most fantasy spells use elements like fire, lightning, wind, etc. and enchanted weapons are often upgraded with elemental properties. To reflect that on the model, I decided to divide it into 2 parts : Fire and Lightning.

You can see in the picture below the left side is the lightning side with the power fist charged and the plasma pistol ready while the meltagun on the right arm is glowing from the heat. This opposition reinforces the duality of the elements and makes it a little clearer I think.

To reflect this a little further, I painted the main skull on the shoulder plate with a side white and the other black to reflect the duality a little more nothing to do wih Malal I'm afraid).

Fire side

The armour was treated in true metallic metal and to have a nice vibrant metal I used glazes of blue on the undersides of the armour to make it look better with added brown in the nadiral direction. This does not show obviously but more in a suggested way which was the purpose. I did not want a blueish armour but just one that looked worn out but well looked after. It was tempting to get a paladin in rusted armour but that doesn't fit with the archetype. The only bit of aging I did was the repair made on the right thigh to reflect the Paladin had to fix his armour as he could at some point but that he still keeps good care of his suit.

Lightning side

As you can see below the model is clearly different from the other 2 I've used so far. That's not much of a problem honestly, it's an interesting path to use all those different models from different artists really. I'm still having troubles with sculpted pupils in the eyes as it doesn't leave you much room for interpretation but I'm not one to stop at details like that so I just painted the left eye as he was meant to be and that was all !

I'm now at 50% of completion for this project and I'm eager to work on the next classes !

I'm terrifyingly late on my Orctober entry and I've just made arrangements for a game to use my Chaos renegades against a force of squats. I will probably have to paint some more chaos to have enough so that means all my present WIPs are going to get a bit of delay... Not much of an issue as long as I manage to finish my commisions in time ;).

I hope to have more painted by the end of the week so cheer me up and receive all my good waves for your own projects !

PS : Do not forget to follow Alex's take on the Rogue Quest project. The damn guy is already at his 4th character with a new Bard !