So, let's talk about background, shall we?
When I first begun converting models, I didn't think about a backstory. I just needed an Inquisitor and a few Acolytes to use in my games. We're talking about years ago, when you still had to use 5th edition Grey Knights codex to play the Inquisition. My only plan was having some different models, still focusing on the gaming aspects.
Then though I began looking at what other people made. They had references to obscure games like Necromunda, Inquisitor, Inquisimunda and other things lost in time. I realized people were making models because they were cool, and screw the rules. Then I discovered the Blanchitsu style, and I was hooked.
What happened then is that I began building my own gang, and from there I conceived a full scale project: as I slowly refined what I wanted my first gang to look like, other ideas popped up, and now I have seven factions.
Dramatis personae:
-the Company of Rust
-the Adeptus Ministorum zealots (in search for a name right now)
-the Steel Skulls
-the mutants
-an Adeptus Mechanicus Reclamation Squad
-the Royal Guards
-the Inquisition
Setting: the industrial world of Gorgoth (though I might change the name later on), polluted and desert, with hive cities jutting from the wastes amid the sand and the industrial slag.
The Company of Rust
Let's start with them.
The Company of Rust is a nihilistic, fatalistic gang, set in an outpost outside the hive cities. They
believe that since enthropy is the ultimate fate of the universe, then it must be embraced and
spread. They let their equipment get old and rusty, hence their nickname. A
weapon that fails under the weight of the years is cherished as much as that
which strikes down an enemy. They raid and pillage as much as for resources as
for just sowing ruin and enthropy, and sometimes someone from the raided
settlements follow them as new recruits, embracing their way of life.
They follow the preaching of the Old Man,
an old hermit who has survived alone in the desert wastes, and who has
recently been welcomed in the gang.
Nobody really knows who he is, as he’s always covered in rags and an old gas
mask, but his deranged preaches stoke a fire in the gangers' heart.
The induction of the hermit had also been a political move. The gang’s leader, Iago,
doesn’t entirely believe the Old Man, and he surely sees a high degree of
madness in him, but it was Iago himself who brought the hermit under the gang’s
protection: in doing so, he tightened his grip on the gang by sheer fanatical
devotion. Having to listen to the crazy hermit’s ravings is a minor price to
pay for power.
The first model is, of course, Iago himself, which is the first model I completed for the gang too, and helped me setting the mood for the others.
An autopistol, a chainsword, grenades, a knife, and even a shotgun for good measure. I liked the idea of a more relaxed pose for a leader, as it gives him a feeling of importance and control in the middle of the fight.
I used drybrush to tie everything together, even metals. In this case, it's the dirt and dust of the desertic areas. No highlights on metals, as the equipment is dirty and used. I also played with the clothes: I gave quick, dirty highlight on the leather just to lose the feeling of flatness; the pads, the boots and the cloth were stained in a completely random way, letting washes and drybrush tie the colours together. And I must say I like how it came out.
(my favorite part, though, is the skull hanging from his belt. I didn't actually painted it: I let paint randomly stain it, and I love the result!)
Cheers!
