Friday, May 29, 2009

Fury of Khorne Bloodletter, Frost Brand

A slightly different painting scheme to normal for this bloodletter eneables it to stand out from the crowd (potentially as a herald or an upgraded bllodletter with the fury of Khorne gift). The concept here was to use the same standard Khorne colours (red, black, and brass) and go for a different looking hellblade: a frostbrand.

A frostbrand, at least in dungeons and dragons (or similar) linguistics, is a magical sword made from ice. But, what would a hellbound daemon like a bloodletter be doing with a frosty blade rather than a super-heated one or a very jagged and serrated one? My answer to that is that in certain mythos, the concept of "hell" is not a modern biblical "hot" place, but a cold, freezing one. Hence, there is a narrative reason to suppose (in-game) that this bloodletter is simply feeding off that.

The painted frostbrand (above and in the other pictures) was created in much the same way as the other (hot) hellblades were: a quick blending of whites, through blues, down to blacks to suggest a supernatural freezing blade.

The bloodletter itself is also different to my normal troops. Instead of a red base colour, I've opted for black. This gives a good contrast for other highlights on the miniature such as the Khorne rune and the frosty hellblade.

The black of the base coat was drybrushed with a mixture of red and black to give an indication of where the contours lay. The contours themselevs were picked out in a blend of reds and blazing oranges. The little "bumps" on the back of the bloodletter were meticulously picked out individually using bleached bone. Final highlights included the rune and the nails. The toe nails are probably a little too bright as well, but that is correctable.

The miniature is based on a portion of a rhino door. The door is in a similar colour scheme to the bloodletter: deep reds covered with muck and highlighted with oranges. Whilst I did originally think this might be a Blood Angel's wreck, I stumbled across a funnier thought: Which World Eater summoned him from inside a rhino? Come on, own up.

5 comments:

Tigerstyle said...

The frost blade is a really good effect, and it's really nicely blended. Cool base as well.

Farmpunk said...

I like it. I don't see why bloodletters would have to have fire based weapons. I like the idea of them having crackling blades of electricity as much as I do one with an iceblade

Raptor1313 said...

I think that's a solid contrast to the others.

you could also say it's crystalline; it brought me back to my days of Diablo 2 where they had a Crystal Sword type of gear; good damage but not so much durability.

You also bring up the point that there are plenty of views of the underworld. Fiery, burning hell is actually a relatively recent view of hell; back in Dante's Inferno the 9th circle is actually icy, kept cold by the constant flapping of Satan's great leathery wings.

jabberjabber said...

Hi Guys - thanks for all your positive comments :)

Unknown said...

Very cool idea on the frost brand.
I too am looking for a way to define fury in my blood letters.

Here is a different take on its effectiveness and the reason he might have it:

Lets say for the purpose of this we do stick with the accepted modern myth of hell as a "fire and brimstone sort of place". The opposite of fire is ice. So wouldn't that potentially be the most opposing and effective weapon against a "fireborn" creature? Kind of like to them it would be their version of a "kryptonite sword".

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