In my mind I have a vision of a piece of GW artwork from the
late 90s – a Catachan Jungle Fighter in a body of water, with a Lictor rising
above him.
Whether this piece of art actually exists, or it’s what I envisaged when I
started this project, I don’t know… but that was the plan: a diorama involving
a Lictor, a Guardsman and some water. I
never got further than hollowing out a wooden plinth and completing the Lictor.
I know I tried to recreate the Lictor from a piece of art; it’s either the one
in my mind, or this one by Mark Gibbons:
Still, it’s not far off. The original Lictor model looked like this:
For me the original model doesn’t quite click, I think due to the head and the position of the claw arms at the back. It does still form the base for the conversion with some bending of limbs, addition of lots of spikes and other claws and some quite extensive sculpting with Milliput, especially the head. A lot of pin points went into this (as well as into my hand!) and plenty of ‘niddy gribbly bitz from GW Mail Order. Back in the day GW would provide individual model components through Mail Order and it was superb, sorely missed. Now they like you to buy the whole set just for a specific head or weapon (but there are plenty of good bitz sellers online).
This was a pain to paint, literally! It’s metal, was fully built before painting
so is fairly heavy and has lots of pointy bits.
I think most of my best models have had some blood in the process for
similar reasons (or slipping with the scalpel), but I don’t suggest you try;
Khorne has no influence over your brushwork.
A very simple, limited, earthly set of colours with a natural pink spot colour. I wanted this beast to appear as if he had
been camouflaged, so he was painted with similar colours to the ones I used on
the base. The claws and spikes were painted
up to a natural ivory white to stand out and make it look even more dangerous.
The base harked back to the original idea, with the Guardsman who had just been
dispatched by the Lictor, slightly hidden among the reeds with just the odd
limb and his rifle poking out. Little details
like the helmet strap make a difference, while things like the positioning of
the wounds tell the story.
It’s just as well I never went for the whole diorama, at the time I created water by layering gloss paint… a lengthy, painstaking process, but it allowed me to give it some shape as well, like the poisonous drool from the mouth tentacles.
The wooden tree root in the water was made from a piece of wire with superglue soaked tissue paper wrapped round it and shaped. It sets really hard but can be shaped as it dries, you could use an accelerator to set it harder, quicker. There is a Lizard in there too… he had no idea the Lictor was there, otherwise he’d have scarpered. This base also used the toothbrush bristle grass mentioned previously.
And to my surprise a lucky gold!! This year was the one I
remember properly meeting my chum and long time friendly rival Mark Lifton – he picked
up a bronze in the same category with a great Ork Warboss.
Check out the other winners here: http://demonwinner.free.fr/uk/1999/golden_demon_winner.php?categorie=2#1st
Thanks for reading... thoughts, tips, questions and comments are welcomed :)
