Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
This week I thought it would be fun to compare and contrast an older miniature with something much more modern. It consists of three miniatures, two of which are part of a vignette, two of which are connected to the other, and one of which is considerably more recent than the other two, but still was painted the same way as one of the others...
Confused? Good! 😀
So, what we have here is a vignette of Ephrael Stern and Inquisitor Hand. This is a metal limited edition, produced by Forge World (I think) in around 2000/2001. I'm in two minds about this set, if I'm honest. The Ephrael Stern miniature is a nice sculpt. It's a little flat, although that's not unusual for the time, but it has lots of nice details and holds up quite well by modern standards. Sadly, the same can't really be said for Inquisitor Hand. For one thing, he's actually quite small compared to Stern and his pose is a little uninspired, and his face is just plain ugly (although I'm guessing that's intentional!) The base, also, is a little odd, being composed of random bits of chaos marines and half of some sort of cultist. There's also no interaction between the two characters in the vignette, so there's no real story to it, and I think they'd have been better served doing them as two separate characters, with their own scenic bases. I can't help but wonder what the sculptors would do with a modern version* especially with GW's penchant for diorama-style bases. Anyway, that negativity aside, it was a lot of fun to paint this set.
The colour scheme For Ephrael was pretty easy, as there's plenty of pictures of her floating around, plus her Order is known. Inquisitor Hand was a little more problematical, as I could only find one picture of him in colour, and that is Kev Walker's masterful rendition shown below (available as a print here.)
I decided to stick to the same basic idea, of blue, bronze and green, but I decided to go a little more vibrant than the somewhat desaturated palette in the picture, to contrast with the limited colours in the rest of the set. All in all, I'm quite pleased with how it looks in the end. For those who are interested, here's how I did the blue on Hand's armour:
Basecoat of Ultramarines blue contrast over white undercoat. Blended highlights of Sotek Green, Temple guard Blue, Baharroth Blue and Blue Horror. All-over glaze of thinned Leviadon Blue with undiluted Leviadon Blue blended into the deepest recesses.
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Bringing things bang up to date, we have this limited edition of Tariana Palos. It's very interesting to compare this miniature to the one of Ephrael Stern, looking at the differences that 20 years of advancements in sculpting and technology has brought. The obvious thing to look at is the increase in level of detail and crispness of the sculpt. The modern plastic miniature is so much smoother and more refined than the old metal one. I know there are those that dislike modern miniatures, that they have less character than old ones but I have to say I much prefer the modern sculpt. Painting the two side by side, as I did here, the modern sculpt does it for me so much more than the old one. The main reason for this, however, is not just because of the detailing on the modern miniature but because of the proportions. The modern miniature is far more proportionally accurate than the old one and, because of that, wins me over every time.
 |
||
 |
 |
Looking back on the paint job for Tariana, I should have put a little more blue into the highlights on the armour, and given sharper edges. It would have given more definition and shape to the black. also, the burning flame on the base doesn't look right- too much white and not enough yellow. Also, the close-up shot of her face shows I was a little heavy with the shading around her nose. Other than that, I'm pleased with how she turned out. A really nice sculpt, and I'm hoping to do more Sisters in the future. I have a small force that I'm going to put together for a Kill Team at some point, and I may paly around with some single pieces one day.
One final note. While looking up colour schemes for painting these models, I noticed that one of my old paintjobs is still up on the GW website! I painted this Preacher probably 25 years ago and I can't believe they're still using it!
Thanks for reading!
Stu
*I'm aware there's a modern version of Ephrael Stern available. I'm hoping somebody will one day commission me to paint that and Kyganil (and maybe Canoness Verydian or Amalia Novina too**)
**Or any of the Sisters of Battle miniatures, frankly. Particularly the character pieces, like the Triumph of Saint Catherine- a beautiful piece.
No comments:
Post a Comment