Old Stuff Wednesday - November...40k Templar Dreadnought

Back quite a long time ago I painted up a dreadnought for my 40k Cerulean Templar army. This is one of the miniatures where you start painting and things really start clicking as far as the paint work goes. It was also back in my period of painting in this ultra-stylized method (Heavy Bart Sears X-O Manowar armor influence) for highlighting. And it was the first miniature that I did not use any metallic paint on, yes the “so-called NMM”. I do have a rant that I often use regarding miniature painters and the ridiculous terminology that they use for describing their painting, but I won’t get in to that right now.

This is the only dreadnought that I built and painted for this army, so I did want it to be sort of special, and if I remember correctly it was during my Bolter & Chainsword forum posting days and they were running a contest on painted Dreadnoughts and it placed fifth in the voting which did win me a prize.

The painting work for me was special. When I think of dreads, and the mythology that Games Workshop has created around what dreadnoughts are, I think of special characters. They should be treated that way in the army, a sort of center show piece for the army. So as I was painting, I explored doing some heraldry on the model and sculpted a tabard and a bunch of purity seals, very minor conversion work.

This is one of the very few models that I have kept from the Cerulean Templars army. It’s a nostalgia thing with me. Even if I sell off one of my armies, I normally keep a few pieces of it. Looking at cool models is always far better than looking at pictures. It is also a nice visual when I do paint seminars locally, as once and awhile, fresh people at my seminars will say they recognize a particular model. And it does show a progression in skill and style.

One day I do plan to rebase the model. Back then I really did not have a good grasp on basing and have never been happy with how that turned out. The theme of the basing was this sort of urban fight thing, but I don’t think I really pulled that off very well.

That’s it for now, enough nostalgia, it makes me feel old, back to more modern stuff in the next post. I think for Old Stuff Wednesday in December, I will dig up some photos of a massive battle that Mike Butcher and I had way back, my Templars versus his zombie / Nurgle horde.