Commissions for the Holidays...

The latest Angels of Flame work is sort of an exercise in bodyguard theater; a Librarian and his Terminator bodyguard, accompanied by a Chaplain and his Assault Marine friends. Even as these (along with their Ironclad buddy)  rolled out, another commission rolled in, and a Hilda Garde III airship (from Final Fantasy 9) is taking shape on my hobby desk. Again, these models appear brighter than the ones from earlier this year because the photos were taken in a lighhtbox, whereas the previous were by virtue of sunlight and bounce cards. 

I quite like the new LIbrarian model, and was hungry for an opportunity to work on one for some time. I couldn't possibly justify purchasing one of my own, as I have two of the older ones in my own Terminator collection and adding a third to the sixty-strong football team of death would just be too much. For some reason, that right shoulder proved highly resistant to CYA glue, and had to be shaved bare and pinned in place. He isn't stock blue because, quite frankly, I wanted him to tie in closely with the rest of the client's army and quite frankly, the blue look doesn't quite work for me, visually (except in the case of Ultramarines, which are supposed to be blue). I quite like the dark, smoldering look of the army, and it carries well into the HQ/special models with their dark-grey robes. 

His pals are some older-model Termies purchased by the client from eBay. Their previous owner assembled some of them with torsos twisted a bit too far, but I didn't break/repose them for fear of ruining the model, and so left them be. 

Likewise, the Assault Marines came with backpacks attached, which made painting the flame motifs on their shoulders a double pain in the ass. Again, removing the packs would've mauled the models, otherwise I would've done so and painted something a bit more ornate as a squad logo. Oh well. 

The Chaplain himself came to my client with the wolf's head helmet of a Space Wolf captain, which I removed and replaced with bits from his Land Raider box, which turned out to be a wealth of bits for the rest of his army. There was a gap near the jump pack's joint which allowed me to pop it off, giving that winged shoulder pad the attention it deserved. I painted the skeletal angel thereupon in flaming colors (it's there; zoom in and you'll see it) so as to tie him in with the rest of the regiment. 


That's the last of the Angels of Flame for a while until we see progress on the Storm Raven, which depends on the client's parts orders/interest. In the mean time, there's another airship to build, and then those lovely tanks seen in the last post.