Word Bearers marine with lightning claws

I might have mentioned at some point in the past couple of months that the Chosen from the Dark Vengeance box were simply screaming "WORD BEARERS" at me from the very moment I got my hands on the sprues.

My thoughts about including these in my Death Guard army are thus: I don't see any realistic reason why they shouldn't go off campaigning with the Death Guard. They are both original traitor legions, so I'd like to think that there ought to be some kind of commonality of purpose on many different levels. If you choose to disagree, then it's like The Dude says in The Big Lebowski: "That's just, like, your opinion, maaaan."  And like I say: "It's not as if your opinion even counts."

The Dude abides.

Anyways, I've obviously been doing my Death Guard in pre-Heresy colours, so I then had the choice to make. Do I do the Word Bearers in pre-Heresy or post-Heresy colours? Well, the pre-Heresy colours for these guys struck me as being a bit lacklustre, being all plain granite grey and all.  Plus, the models are pretty chaosy, and don't lend themselves too well to a pre-Heresy scheme.

And the post-Heresy colours didn't really sit quite right for me either, being blood red and silver.  I just didn't think the contrast was quite right.

So I searched back through what I'd read about them, in particular, about their Primarch, Lorgar. Variously know as Aurellian or The Urizen.  For now, I must digress...

So, to summarise Imperial history (and no doubt bastardise the 40k cannon in the process) Lorgar and the Word Bearers were the first to realise the Imperial truth, as it were, and notice the divine might of the Emperor.  They were the first to preach this word to worlds brought back to compliance in the Great Crusade.  Obviously, the Emperor was in denial of his own divinity, and his Great Crusade was aimed toward reuniting the lost colonies of mankind, and freeing these colonies from the oppressive yoke of the  ignorance of all religion.  So it comes as no surprise that  he'd be ticked off at Lorgar's zealotry. Lorgar gets a sound telling off, and feels hurt and betrayed by his father. Time passes, blah blah blah, Lorgar is led astray by some of his lieutenants who have been secretly worshipping the chaos pantheon, blah blah blah, visit the Eye of Terror, blah blah, visions of the future, blah blah blah, and eventually show their true colours as puritanical daemon-worshipping zealots.

Digression over. Suffice to say that the Word Bearers worship the very ground on which The Urizen walks, and would therefore seek to imitate him where possible.  Seems the guy liked to paint his face with gold leaf, and panda out his eyes with kohl, much like Gothy Simon from the 6th form (apart from the gold leaf part at least). Anyway, an idea was beginning to form.

I decided that I would use the idea of the Urizen's golden visage to be the influence on the trim of the armour.  For the colour of the plate, I would take the post-Heresy blood red and darken it to a rich burgundy colour (influence taken from Oxblood leather sofas), the better to contrast with the gold trim (and to more solidly differentiate between the red and brass of Angron's boring World Eaters).

Anyway, here is what happened, in like pictures and that:

Yes, I realise he doesn't have lightning claws.  I forgot to take pics of this step.
Basically, I started out by giving anything on the miniature that was metallic,
or what I considered to be part of the armour trim a dry brush of Tin Bitz to
make it stand out.

Same as the front.

At this stage, I'd used Formula P3 Sanguine Base to block in the burgundy
on the armour plates. The trim has been roughly picked out in Brazen Brass
and the silver looking parts are done in Formula P3 Pig Iron. Which is a
really great dull / matt metallic colour. Quite chaosy.  Then the whole lot got
a wash with Devlan Mud.

Same as front.

Here, I've added another layer of Sanguine Base to the plate. A layer of
Formula P3 Blighted Gold has been roughly applied over the Brazen Brass.
The eye lenses have been picked out in a mix of Ceramite White and Necron
Abyss, which I thought made a reasonably nice contrast to the warmer
colours on the rest of the model.

Same as front. Do you see a pattern emerging?

These two shots are to illustrate how dazzling the gold
colour can be when lit up with a flash.  This was quite
fortunate, considering my idea of the Urizen's golden
visage.  His eyes seem to glow quite strongly here, too.

Don't make me say it...

Same deal only unflashed. If that's even a word.  However, this time I'd also
added a wash with the old GW Chestnut ink to the shoulder area. This adds
an almost reflective sheen from the burgundy plates.

To finish, I re-picked out the raised areas with more Blighted Gold. I high-
lighted the burgundy areas with a mix of Sanguine base and GW Go Fasta
Red (remember this one?). I also picked out the eye in the shoulder guard,
as well as the tongue, which got a coat of Tallarn Flesh, followed by a
highlight of Elf Flesh. And that, as they say, is that.