Not
many times in one's hobby life you come across a great opportunity as recently I did.
One of my closest friends was lucky enough to get his hands in almost a brand
new bundle of 15xTeutogen Guards with an Ulric warrior priest and Emil Valgeir,
the Ar-Ulric of Middenheim .
WARHAMMER LORE:
If
you are into Warhammer Fantasy lore, their background goes as follows:
The Teutogen
Guard are the elite bodyguard of the Ar-Ulric in his role as Elector of
the Empire, accompanying him both at state occasions and on the
battlefield. Unlike the Greatswords who are drawn from the State
Troops, the
Teutogen Guard are instead selected from the ranks of the Knights of the
White Wolf by the orders of the Grand
Master and the
Ar-Ulric himself.
They
are often members of the Order's Inner
Circle, although
the selection process takes account only of merit and not rank and ordinary
brethren are just as likely to be chosen if they are worthy. Being selected for
a tour of duty with the Teutogen Guard is one of the highest accolades that a
Knight of the White Wolf can receive, and the warriors already fearsome resolve
is strengthened still further by the weight of the honour and duty he bears
Emil
Valgeir was the previous Grand Master of
the Knights of the White Wolf, but ascended to the position
of Ar-Ulric after his younger brother, Jarrick Valgeir, fell from grace
during the revelation of a conspiracy involving the Cult of the
Purple Hand. A warrior as well as a priest,
he fought alongside the Teutogen Guard against
the Beastmen of the Drakwald, and in the Empire’s campaigns
against other foes, winning the grudging admiration of Reiksmarshal Kurt Helborg.
THE INCEPTION OF THE CONCEPT
This
models are such a relic and are so rare that they are now sold on ebay for
small fortunes, with prices ranging from £30 to £60 per miniature as they are
really a collectionist's treasure.
Covid-19
has had an impact in the world as we haven’t seen before, and of course it
affected me during this time. I found myself isolated with not a lot of people
to share the love for the hobby with. After my friend told me that he got these
miniatures I offered him to develop the concept of this unit and bring it to life as a shared effort.
The
idea of doing a project together is great and the way I planned to execute is
that I will suggest a Concept to help him release his imagination: My friend is
not a very imaginative person, he struggles to try new things and usually gets
stuck trying new concepts, colour schemes or new techniques in his miniatures. He usually follows the paint schemes displayed in the boxarts displays in the boxes. This is something normal, specially when starting in the hobby-the fear of failing trying something new.
Sharing this project will help him breaking the fear of trying new things, will teach him new skills and above all, two friends will have the chance of sharing their passion for the hobby and have a great time doing so! 😉
THE CONCEPT
These
miniatures are valued an small fortune each one of them, so for the unit I want
to implement both a display and the capacity of playing with them. For that
reason I will suggest using a display plinth with removable bases to fit the
need.
To
enhance the display and ensure that all the miniatures are well displayed we
have 2 options, either spread them on a flat surface allowing separation
between models so they can be clearly seen or…..displaying them on a slope.
This is not the first time that I do this, you can see examples of this display
design Here and Here.
Now
is time to build some background and history to these bad boys. In my mind,
these sturdy warriors are going to battle , they have been called to aid one of
the empire Generals in the region and to do so they are moving through one of the
Middle Mountains mountain passes.
To
represent this we will be sculpting a rocky mountain pass and we will enhance
the northern look of it by using snow…lots of it!
For
the display base I would like to give eminent positions to both heroes, Emil
Val Geir leading the unit at the front and the Ulric Priest at the back. This
display will allow us to give more display space to the front line of the
display.
PAINTING:
For
the painting, I would like to reflect the northern and cold aspect of the
Teutogen Guard to the project. To help me achieve that we will
follow an Split complementary Triad with the key colours being
·
Blue
violet for armour plate
·
Blue
green for arms (We will have to see if it works)
·
Desaturated
orange for the base
The
intention of using an split complementary scheme is to give a lot of tension to
the colour palette but at the same time reducing it compared to a strict complementary scheme . How it will look??? I don’t know, hopefully it will
work…in my mind it does 😂.
For
the exposed skin of the warriors, we will use as reference some of Adrian Smith
Illustrations. They fit with our scheme background and display a kind of suntanned skin
that only people surrounded by snow can get.
For
the snow we will use andrea model snow and Gloss varnish.
Inspiration
One of the biggest inspirations for this unit is the magistral work done by the creator Alexi Z, with her awarded Golden demon unit in 2005. For some reason I couldn't find this pictures in CMON and I had to go into the deep web to rescue them:
Wrapping up
Now that we have a road map it is time to discuss this with my friend and see where our skill takes the both of us and these wonderful miniatures.
Most progress to come.
Regards
