Forge World Obsidious

[Tyriks]

So, I'm redoing the fluff for my Forge World.  I haven't finished that yet, and was planning on waiting to start posting pics until I made progress there, but then I started painting and now I want to post pics.  

 

Nothing is finished yet, and C&C is welcome.  

 

A Kastelan:

http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee443/Tyriks/IMG_1108_zpsqugxalqi.jpg

This pic is slightly outdated already.  I wasn't very happy with the Dawnstone highlights on the Mechanicus Standard base, since it looks so bright.  I toned it down a little bit since then and it looks better.  I also highlighted all of the blue (Kantor Blue base) with Macragge blue which does not show at all, so I redid a lot of that a little bit thicker with some Caledor Sky highlighting it even further.  I think it looks better but I might tinker with it more (or just start the other Kastelan, which is still all gray, and see if I can do better).

More pics:

http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee443/Tyriks/IMG_1110_zpslqhaelow.jpg

The brass on the hand blasters and the casing for the shoulder blaster came out a little flat, so I might redo them a darker color when I pick one up.  Also uncertain what color I want to the paint the ammo box on the shoulder.  And, for keen observers, yes I put the thigh guards on wrong.  Whoops.  I tried prying them off but was worried about damaging the model.  Oh, and someone here had the idea to turn the head around to make it less goofy, I think it looks a lot better this way.  I just remembered he needs some kind of squad marking, too.

 

More will come as I make progress and take pictures.  I think right now I am planning on doing one test model from each unit and then I'll try finishing squads.  

[HackedDuck]

Not sure if it is the light but the blue areas are so dark I mistake it for black at first so you might wanna brighten them bits up. Other than that looks good! Highlights are very neat well done sir!

[Olis]

Coming from a forge world with a name curiously similar to the word 'obsidian', I'm surprised that there's no black (glossy or otherwise) to be seen. It's a bit cheeky to say so, but I think you've missed a trick, Tyriks. ^_^

 

That being said, the paint job is a decent TT standard. Are you going to be using washes?

[Beardbattered]

Nice work, Tyriks! I really like the scheme. I will echo what you and others have said, the blue needs a little bit of tinkering. I think just a teeny bit more of a highlight would go a LONG way. Just enough that will make the eye immediately recognize it for what it is.

 

Can't wait for your fluff! The name intrigues me. Maybe they come from some sort of volcanic obsidian-heavy world? Can't wait to see!

[Tyriks]

The blue is definitely more blue now - I'll see if I can't get new pics up tomorrow.  You guys are probably right though, I might need to lighten it more.  I think the improper lighting darkened the blue on the chest, which I washed a little too heavily with nuln oil, I think. I wanted it kind of muted, the way things look at twilight or on a bright night with no lights, but I maybe went too far.  My apartment has crappy lighting though so maybe I should take them to one of the local game stores to see them in that light before deciding what to do.  I think that since the gray was much starker than expected I got timid with the blue highlighting and it came out way too weak as a result.  I might mix some mechanicus standard and some dawnstone together for a weaker highlight and then use a tiny bit of pure Dawnstone for very fine highlight, because I think that is just too stark a contrast for me.  

 

As far as the name goes, it's a very remote world that is, for some reason I haven't come up with yet, difficult to get to.  It's about as far away from Terra as you can get, and so it turned into a bit of a haven for radicals and hereteks, so I wanted something that sounded appropriate.  They also lose touch with, and "go dark" from, the Imperium as a whole pretty easily.  I haven't put much thought into the landscape, let me see if I can pull off a volcanic base before I decide that!  

 

I actually didn't consider that there's no black on them, since my plan had been to have a lot of the cloth parts of the army be black and they don't have any.  I will rectify that!  Not sure where I'll put it yet, but I will decide that when I'm not so tired.  Right now I'm thinking probably the shoulder's ammo box, fist gun casings (the part that's currently gray), and maybe some of what would be soft armor on a space marine (I was toying with the idea of doing them in metal anyway, black would be better though).  I'm very tired but the more I think about it the more I like the idea of having all the weapons in the army being partially black (so maybe for the shoulder blaster, making the brass casing black and then doing the ammo box brass).  I will think more on this later, thanks for the feedback!  Sorry for rambling!

[Akrim]

Cool Castellans, I don't mind the paint job. I think the decals will make it pop out a bit more. Some metal chipping or some similar effect might look really good on them.

 

I like my darker models too, a brighter color on the base can help off set that darkness.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Akrim

[Vel'Cona]

Since I'm bad at painting in general, I find darker colours and schemes far more forgiving, personally.  I find the blue you've used here striking in a more muted way than a brighter colour might be.     Do you have any smaller infantry to show that could give us a measure for comparison?

[Tyriks]

Cool Castellans, I don't mind the paint job. I think the decals will make it pop out a bit more. Some metal chipping or some similar effect might look really good on them.

I like my darker models too, a brighter color on the base can help off set that darkness.

Yeah, I intend to do some weathering as soon as I learn how, haha.

 

Since I'm bad at painting in general, I find darker colours and schemes far more forgiving, personally.  I find the blue you've used here striking in a more muted way than a brighter colour might be.  ^_^   Do you have any smaller infantry to show that could give us a measure for comparison?

Not that are done yet. I just started on a sicarian test model, though, so maybe Saturday when I have some free time I'll be able to finish it up.

 

I tried painting some black on the wrist guns, and it looks awful! I definitely need different colors to highlight with. Mechanicus Standard looks really dark until it's on black, and then it looks bright as hell. I most likely won't have time to do anything about it today, but I'll see what I can do.

[Tyriks]

Here's an update.  I think the blue looks better with more highlight.  I thickened up the Macragge Blue and then added a tiny level of highlight with Caledor Sky.  I like it a lot now.

 

I have had a really hard time highlighting the black - considering giving up on it, actually.  I tried GW's recommended Abbadon -> Dark Reaper -> Fenrisian Gray, and the Fenrisian was just way too bright for me.  The Dark Reaper was greener than expected but I was okay with it since it attracted attention.  But I have been looking into black highlighting and none of it is that appealing to me - it ends up being too bright.  I'm so happy with the blue though that I might just redo them blue since I know I can get that looking pretty good.

 

http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee443/Tyriks/IMG_1119_zpss5aljtoh.jpg

[HackedDuck]

Yeah that blue looks a lot better imo.

You could try eshin grey for a highlight for the black? It's pretty dark so it will be a bit more subtle.

[Tyriks]

I forgot to update here.  I gave up on the black.  I'll experiment with it more later but I just wanted to finish the painting so I painted them blue.  I don't think I had finished highlighting when I took this picture (the front edge of the guns are missing it, I think).  

 

http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee443/Tyriks/IMG_1125_zps8ldfnnge.jpg

 

As far as utilizing black in the color scheme overall, I am thinking I'll have the scheme be a little different for my Skitarii than it is for my Cult Mech.  This could represent some of the FW's history.  The FW was founded in the DAoT but was struggling badly (being even more isolated than most worlds, and just having had a lot of bad systems failures over the years).  During the HH, a magos of Mars who was generally pro-Imperium but against the restrictions on using xenos tech or studying AI, sided with Kelbor-Hal but kind of half-heartedly.  When the war went much worse than he expected, he fled to escape punishment for his crimes, and found Obsidious and used his more advanced knowledge to renovate their systems and bring them back up to full efficiency (thus enabling him to assume command).  So maybe the colors of the Cult Mech are his personal colors from before he fled (or the colors he assumed while fleeing to hide his identity as a renegade), while the Skitarii are his colors mixed with Obsidious's old colors (so throwing some black in there).  This would help to differentiate the more elite Cult units from the Skitarii peasants (and give me more time to learn how to paint black, haha!).

[Tyriks]

Alright after months of ignoring my AdMech on the hobby side, I'm back. I've learned how to highlight black in a way that looks good on the table but is still subtle enough for my tastes, so that's solved. To save money on paints (and to avoid more prolonged trial-and-error mistakes) I'm just going to use the same colors as my BA DIY chapter. That way they'll look coherent if I ever ally them together and when I get some knights built up and painted they will mesh well with either army.

 

I'm basing their beliefs off of very old western alchemical philosophy - they thought everything was composed fundamentally of three elements: mercury (which represented spirit), salt (body) and sulfur (soul). The FW will have adapted this to fit better within the AdMech hierarchy but one of their specialties will be repairing/rehabilitating (and possibly fabricating new, not sure how that works as of yet) Machine Spirits, so they will focus on mercury. I'll bastardize the mercury symbol for the FW logo. As an extension of this, they will be secretly working on AI, believing the Machine God wants humanity to bring the three together to make themselves perfect. The Emperor, instead of being the Omnissiah, will be the earthly representation of Sulfur (the soul, psychic potential). So, he'll still be divine, but not in the same way. Working out the rest still.

 

As a result of this, they pride themselves on only taking volunteers for their Skitarii regiments (though they "encourage" recruitment by keeping life on the planets in their system pretty terrible so enlisting looks better), and using minimal control devices on them. They abhor xenos technology since it lacks Machine Spirits, but they'll study it sometimes to better fight against it. Their primary goal is finding artifacts to help them better understand Machine Spirits and recreate AI. More tomorrow, I hope.

[Vel'Cona]

Looking forward to seeing some updated models!  The background you've got here is good stuff, too; will you be coming up with some for your characters/leaders/etc.?

[Tyriks]

Looking forward to seeing some updated models!  The background you've got here is good stuff, too; will you be coming up with some for your characters/leaders/etc.?

Yeah hopefully I can come up with a little tonight. I'm just trying to decide if I want to start at present and work backwards or start at the beginning and move forwards. I'll probably do the former for expediency's sake. I'm off tomorrow so I hope to get a few models done and posted.

[Tyriks]

Alright, a bit more detailed history:

 

Founded untold ages ago, many historians believe they wound up so far out from Terra due to warp accidents. They originally settled on Obsidious III. It had no known contact with Terra for at least ten thousand years (records noted a particular, distinctive supernova which was also recorded on another Forge World, so calculating the distance to each gave them a reference point). They were too far away to be hurt by many ravages of Old Night, though they lost a moon colony to Orks and battled the Eldar several times. They gradually expanded to several planets in the system, favoring the separation of the civilians and the more technically inclined. Obsidious III ruled the colonized planets and moons.

 

At some point, for unrecorded reasons, they stopped using AI. Outside historians believe they must have deleted records of the war with the Men of Iron, but historians from Ob III believe they more likely fell out of use or just gradually died off and no one thought much of it. There are some mentions of AI in ancient histories that might line up with that, but not conclusively. They did seem to be closer with their Men of Iron than most. I don't actually know a specific time line for the war with the Men of Iron, but the BRB places it before through Age of Strife so I think this would fit.

 

When Old Night came, the system survived the first several millennia without anything too bad happening. However, much of the machinery that ran the FW was ancient, and was beginning to fail. As a result, the colonies away from Ob III began to declare independence, violently overthrowing the governments put in place on each planet. These wars lasted centuries, as Ob III would reclaim ground only to have munitions plants fail and be unable to hold it.

 

As the wars raged on, the intellectuals of Obsidious III accidentally developed what would become their theology. It started as propaganda to justify the war and demoralize the enemy, claiming that they had the power of the mind (Mercury) which would triumph over body and soul. This really caught on, and each faction began identifying themselves more and more with one of the three elements. The other planets found strength in this also, claiming without a strong body (Salt) or energetic soul (Sulfur) you couldn't fight anyway. This led to the development of the Cult of Mercury (which definitely needs a more grim dark name - I'm thinking Cult of Hydragyr from the old Greek word for Mercury), as well as the corresponding other cults. The other cults don't really exist anymore, having been assimilated into the Cult of Hydragyr.

 

Ultimately, Obsidious III got its forges working reliably again and reconquered its neighbors. Part of the treaty included clauses that all children would take periodic aptitude tests and no one could prevent gifted children from being "allocated" to the Forge World. As the planets were being rebuilt, new governments installed, et cetera, an expedition fleet from the young Imperium of Man found the system. Before they could prosecute compliance though, the Horus Heresy erupted all over the galaxy and the fleet pulled away to fight. A couple months later, that fleet was decimated in a nearby conflict and survivors sought out Obsidious III thinking they had a better chance trying to get help there than if they tried to survive alone.

 

So they returned, but traitors followed. The Heresy came to Obsidious, with the recovering FW originally fighting both sides. Ultimately they signed a treaty with the loyalists and helped secure the area. The fleet survivors (now too few to muster a sizable force) stayed behind to help integrate them. The tech priests working the ships found the now dominant Cult of Hydragyr to mesh well with many Mechanicum teachings, and helped them begin building warp - capable ships again. Due to the war going on, they left as soon as they could, and didn't realize the nascent Cult of Hydragyr was beginning to look towards developing new AI as a result of the mixture of their beliefs and the Cult Mechanicus at large.

 

One of the conditions of joining the Imperium was to release their hold on the other planets, since all would be governed by the Imperium. However, Obsidious III was appointed as guardian over the others, since it was obviously stronger. One stipulation was that they could recruit from the other worlds but it had to be voluntary, so they began using their tech and strength as leverage over the other planets to make people want to join if they were gifted enough. Over time they got much more subtle at this, quietly removing opponents and upsetting economies across the system to bolster recruitment.

 

When the Heresy ended, a tech priest from Mars named Jahan Athanatos came to Obsidious. He had sided with Kelbor Hal against the Emperor, but not maliciously. He just wanted more freedom to experiment. He regretted his choice when he saw the scrap code plague they unleashed and the chaos corruption that followed. After Mars was reclaimed, he fled, going to the furthest FW he could.

 

That's all for now, I'll pick this up later.

[Vel'Cona]

As the wars raged on, the intellectuals of Obsidious III accidentally developed what would become their theology. It started as propaganda to justify the war and demoralize the enemy, claiming that they had the power of the mind (Mercury) which would triumph over body and soul. This really caught on, and each faction began identifying themselves more and more with one of the three elements. The other planets found strength in this also, claiming without a strong body (Salt) or energetic soul (Sulfur) you couldn't fight anyway. This led to the development of the Cult of Mercury (which definitely needs a more grim dark name - I'm thinking Cult of Hydragyr from the old Greek word for Mercury), as well as the corresponding other cults. The other cults don't really exist anymore, having been assimilated into the Cult of Hydragyr.

 

^This is very win.  Seconded for Cult of Hydragyr! 

[Tyriks]

Alright, as it turns out, nothing finished for you guys yet, but here's some WIP shots.

I worked on him in the morning. I barely started his edge highlights and wanted a break so I moved on to my TPD before getting much done, but you can see around the feet and shins he's got a little. I like the colors, but I'm not 100% on the placement of all of them. He kind of reminds me of a Star Trek TNG uniform... so I think I will likely make the red plate on his belly black (under the silver one) and maybe make one shin/foot red instead of black if that's not enough.

I also need to decide how to do the cogs for this army. I might do the skull silver with the cog bronze/copper, or I might use those colors instead of black and white how the AdMech usually does it. My hands shake a bit so straight lines and fine details are tough, which is why I lean towards not doing the halved thing.

I spent most of the afternoon working on this monster, and I'm not even does base coating it all yet! I never realized how many extremely hard to reach spots are on this model!

I thought he had too much metal to have it all be iron-based, so I made a bunch of it bronze/copper. More of the axe will end up copper, I just couldn't keep painting it. Not sure what to do with the tanks on his back - most likely I will just paint them as opaque or full. I tried painting them half-full on my other TPD and it was not good. I do have the blue gemstone glaze paint, I might put some over the silver to look like fluid inside (this works for the Blood for the Blood God version to look like blood vials, so I think it'll work.

This thread needed some good choom, so I made sure I got the copper on this done before I stopped for the day.

[Tyriks]

Fluff: The Cult of Hydragyr is officially defunct, as practitioners got way too bold around the time of the Scouring in their pursuit of AI.  Jahan Athanatos had fled Mars and settled here, and wanted to stay under the radar, so to keep things from getting out of hand he created a secret society within the Cult Mechanics on Obsidious III.  Officially, they adhere to the Cult Mech as normal, just with the themes of Mind, Spirit and Soul adding some unique flavor.   However, much of their history and philosophy has strange clues that, over time as applicants study, seem to develop strange threads for students to explore.  Those who ignore them or can't unravel them are deemed too dull for the Cult of Hydragyr, which values the mind too much to let those not gifted intellectually join.  These are sent out as enginseers, lexmechanics, transmechanics, titan crews, and so on to the rest of the Imperium, completely oblivious to what goes on behind closed doors.  

 

Those that do begin to find clues are discouraged at every turn.  Their teachers and mentors tell them they're crazy, there is nothing to find, they're in danger of censure, et cetera.  If people persist, the Cult welcomes them.  If not, they are either sent away as the other failures are, or are quietly eliminated if they know too much or are offended at what they find.  

 

This process is heavily ritualized by now, with specific clues being shown in perfect order at precisely calculated times in an applicant's life.  It serves many purposes - first, the adepts they send out to other Imperial organizations show they are supporting the Imperium, know no secrets to let slip and they build relationships with the Forge World and other factions.  All of this helps prevent the appearance that something is being hidden.  Secondly, this means only the best, brightest, most determined, and most convinced adepts join the Cult of Hydragyr.  

 

Only members of the cult are allowed to stay on Obsidious for any lasting period of time.  No one else can set up forges or conduct experiments.  Political events are held on one of Obsidious III's moons, where they treat every piece of furniture as a relic and every action as tradition so that they have an easily justified reason to avoid meetings occurring on the planet itself.

 

Upon induction into the Cult, you are renamed.  Your first name is given to you by your tutors, followed by a name you choose for yourself, while your last name is taken from whatever school of thought you pursue (named after the tech-priests and philosophers who founded them in antiquity).  So, for example, Ramin Kashayar started a school of thought revolving around the relationships body and soul play to the mind, and how to maximize mental output by harmonizing the three, so new adepts following that line of reasoning would take the name Kashayar as their last name.  

[Tyriks]

Started working on ruststalker today. Gotta say, these are like a dream to paint after doing the tech priest! Still challenging since there's tons of tiny detail, but hardly any hard to reach but highly visible spots. I had a question, though: Going with the alchemical themes, I considered changing the fluff for my army around the transonic weapons. Instead of having them attune to the enemy, I'm thinking about having them transmute their armor (so turning their fancy adamantium plate into something soft, like gold, or just into something not metal). They aren't ap2 right away because it takes time (though you might get lucky). It fits with the theme, but I have no idea how to represent that. I have two ideas but I'm definitely open to more!

 

I could either paint them gold and drybrush a little rust onto the edge, or I could maybe try a wet blend with metallic to go from gold to silver to copper to bronze, maybe. I don't even know if wet blends work on metallics. Or I could paint them metal and just paint alchemy symbols on them, I suppose. Any thoughts?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the models.

[Magos Takatus]

Started working on ruststalker today. Gotta say, these are like a dream to paint after doing the tech priest! Still challenging since there's tons of tiny detail, but hardly any hard to reach but highly visible spots. I had a question, though: Going with the alchemical themes, I considered changing the fluff for my army around the transonic weapons. Instead of having them attune to the enemy, I'm thinking about having them transmute their armor (so turning their fancy adamantium plate into something soft, like gold, or just into something not metal). They aren't ap2 right away because it takes time (though you might get lucky). It fits with the theme, but I have no idea how to represent that. I have two ideas but I'm definitely open to more!

 

I could either paint them gold and drybrush a little rust onto the edge, or I could maybe try a wet blend with metallic to go from gold to silver to copper to bronze, maybe. I don't even know if wet blends work on metallics. Or I could paint them metal and just paint alchemy symbols on them, I suppose. Any thoughts?

That sounds like a pretty cool idea. You could call them Midas blades if you want something in addition to the Alchemical theme. 

[Tyriks]

I think my Dominus will have to be done for the moment. He needs edge highlights and some details picked out but I want to get more models painted and washed so it won't look so bad on the table, so I'll save highlights until more of my army is ready (unless I just get in the mood to do some detail work, in which case I might).

I also worked on his backstory a little more. If you just want pics, scroll down to spoiler tags, haha. His name is Dracheris Athanatos, Infocutioner of the Forge of the Forgotten Truth. FotFT was once the premier forge of Obsidious III, and their Forge Lords were almost always the Fabricator General of the planet. For most of their history they were simply Forge Athanatos, where the Athanatos school was founded and based. They taught that divinity would be achieved by mastering all three alchemical elements - mind, body and soul. They believed the Emperor had mastered the soul (hence his psychic potential) and that it was their job to create a "perfect" body for him to replace the Golden Throne, one that was entirely self-sufficient, paired with an AI intelligent and wise enough to bond with the Emperor's soul. Once that happened he would usher in an eternal reign for mankind and their machines to live in perfect union. However, for the past couple millennia the school has fallen out of favor, and the forge soon followed as other schools claimed more and more students away from Athanatos.

Dracheris Athanatos trained under the rival school of Forge Kashayar for most of his scholam years, but claims to have had a vision from the Machine God calling him to Forge Athanatos (at that point pejoratively called The Forge of the Forgotten by others since they had been struggling for so long) so he switched his allegiances at the last moment before officially becoming a member of the Cult of Hydragyr, upsetting many at Forge Kashayar (which became the dominant forge when Athanatos fell out of favor). He quickly rose to prominence, even successfully convincing the magi there to take the insult and make it their own, renaming the forge to the Forge of the Forgotten Truth, essentially insulting the other forges for losing their way. He has been crusading unceasingly for most of his career, even turning down a promotion to Forge Lord that would have forced him to come back. He has been upsetting the political balance of Obsidious III by intentionally disrupting expeditions from other forges and sending so much archeotech back to the FotFT that they have begun to reclaim their prominence. My army will be representative of one of his expeditions.

[Tyriks]

I was working on my dragoon, which had the thigh plates on the wrong sides. I bought the model opened but on the sprue, so t didn't have instructions, so I messed up which leg was which. It's bugged me since I noticed, but I didn't think know I could get them off without damaging it. But it bugged me too much, so I started prying, got one off easily, but the other came off in pieces. I might buy a new plate from a bits shop (though none have it in stock that I'm aware of) so I think I'm just going to glue one of the bigger pieces to the base to have some battle damage. But I vastly prefer that over the plates being on the wrong side!

[Tyriks]

My dragoon surgery had some unforeseen side effects. I accidentally loosened one of the foot plates which fell off when I was painting it, so I had to fix that. I also have been wondering about some things: Should troops identify with their forge itself or their planet? The trend seems to be planet but that doesn't make much sense to me. Every book I've read so far shows the forges on a world as constantly struggling with each other for supremacy, so why don't we see more individual forge identifications? I think I might devise icons for the Forge my army is from rather than the world itself, at least to start.

[Vel'Cona]

I think that's a really cool idea.  What sort of symbols were you considering?