In my last post, I've been muttering about converting my bird-mask resin cast into an inquisitor character for Inq28. My initial idea was to make him some kind of semi-Astartes - what was partially caused by the fact that the initial sculpture was made for an (renegade) Astartes character. Fortunately, I've seeked advice at
the Ammobunker and those wonderful folks there told that the Astartes thing is not a good idea. Instead, I was encouraged to make an old school
homo sapiens sapiens character. In turn, a different concept was excogitated, as pictured on the following sketch:
Using a pair of legs from the GW's Greatswords sprue, some other bits and many layers of putty I was able to translate this idea into reality. Again, fellows from the Ammobunker were really helpful during this process.
The semi-biographical background of de Lorme is yet to be devised, but I'm going to list some thoughts below to help you better understand what it is all about. Some of these were coined by the members of the Ammobunker community.
So:
First of all, he is a dandy; the mask and the wig are here for theatrical purpose rather than, for example, to cover some kind of deformation.
Obviously, he is rather a puppeteer than a fighter; that's why he is probably affiliated to the inquisitorial Ordo Hereticus.
His second name is Pantagruel. As for the first - I was thinking of Cyrano (as a kind of citation regarding the beak-nose). Cyrano is not really a name, but then again, mayhap it will become one in the next 38k years.
He's got a kind of aristocratic provenance. It is possible that he can trace back his ancestry to some semi-legendary person from pre-Imperial times (might be made up, though). Through millennia his family has acquired plenty of titles, mostly meaningless.
That's why his personal servo-skull basically serves two purposes:
Firstly, it is a kind of announcer that can list dozens of fancy titles and names, in effect introducing de Lorme to whoever is listening.
Secondly, the skull acts as a heraldic supported, carrying de Lorme's family coat of arms around.
This idea was an attempt to combine the characteristic type of Wh40k fandangles with the popular nobleman portrait composition with a coat of arms painted somewhere on the background (which in turn looks a bit like if it was hovering).
His right arm is a mechanical prosthesis.
The orb in his right hand is suppose to be a reference to two things. Firstly, it's form is based on the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from that marvellous movie that we all have watched more than once.
...And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O LORD, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy." The idea was coined by Jeff Vader from the
Officio Convertorum. Since the orb he's holding now is a bit rough, I may swap it for the one from GW's Black Templars conversion bits.
Secondly, the grenade is there to show a kind of attitude that de Lorme sometimes use to deal with other people - in other words, it's a "give me what I want or I will blow up the whole place" type of attitude. This may be considered a reference to the
Return of the Jedi or to the
Dark Knight movie. This kind of action may be a sign that de Lorme have the nerves of steel or rather that he is just insane. It is not yet clear to me which one is "true".
In the other hand, he carries a walking stick - which is there to complement the dandy idea. The cane itself is made from a kind of thorn tree. I was fully convinced to that idea only after finding a similar motive in one of John Blanche's pieces from the
Emperor's Will artbook. That being said, the initial idea comes from the old cRPG
Planescape: Torment, where the protagonist came by a mysterious plant with thorns that could be somehow miraculously reshaped with thought. It is yet to be revealed if de Lorme's walking stick has this kind of unnatural properties.
So far I have no idea how to paint it. On the one hand, I am tempted to use a limited palette of colours, peat brown, red, burnt sepia etc. On the other hand, the whole dandy idea just cries for a plularity of vivid colours: blue, purple, yellow, violet and so on.
Moreover, I'm interested how those fragile copper wires on the servo-skull are going to behave. Transporting this miniature anywhere outside my flat is going to be a real fun! Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to it.
I hope you like the miniature so far. Thanks for reading and till next time!
