The Box of Shame, and the Renaissance

Sometimes we start projects and fail to finish them. Quite often in wargaming circles, new shinier models come along and grab our attention. Sometimes we start something with great enthusiasm, but find our excitement sapped by the sheer amount of work required to turn our vision into reality. Sometimes we're just plain lazy. Put your hand up if any of these apply to you.

My hand is raised. I am so bad at completing things. I think I have made over 50 Inquisitor figures, and failed to finish at least another 20. Why? I'm not sure I can come up with an honest, comprehensive answer. I'm probably over-critical of my output, and if something doesn't look like it will live up to my expectations, it never gets to see the light of day. I'm also lazy, and I have a demanding job. I am listing excuses here.

Just a selection from the box of shame...

If I was a fanatic, I would stand up here and swear that I will never again fail to complete a project and make it my life's goal to dig out all the half-built, half-painted models from my attic. I'm not though, so I have a far more mundane promise to make.

The point of this blog is to get people excited by Inquisitor again, whether they are old-timers like me, or a potential new recruit that's never heard of the game. The principle I am working from is that content inspires more content, and that dormant Inquisitor players need to be reminded of the joy that the game brings, and new players need to have their attention grabbed. My promise then, is to get building and painting Inquisitor models and show them off to the world. It's not much, but it might just catch the attention of enough people to get them in a building mood and start them sharing their new creations.

With all that said, let me show you how I go about building models.

I usually have a simple, one or two word basis for any war band I dream to put together. Monodominant, Ecclesiarchy, mutant rebels, Genestealer cult... you get the idea. This nucleus lets me start thinking about the general philosophy of the group. For example, is the Monodominant bombastic and outspoken, or does he work behind the scenes? Once I've worked out the answer to the question, I think about which archetypes would lend themselves to the group. A bombastic Monodominant might draw to him followers of the Red Redemption, while the more subtle Inquisitor may have a cadre of silent assassins.

Whole bodies, legs and torsos from my bits box.

Once I've settled on the plan for the group, I sort through my bits box to start piecing components together. I usually start with legs and torsos and try out combinations that look like they'll roughly fit together without too much work. Severina/Sevora's legs clearly aren't going to work with Tyrus's body, but there are plenty of combinations that work, or will work with a little bit of sculpting or disguising of the join with ammo pouches, holsters, books or whatever other bits of ephemera the denizens of the 41^st millennium lug around with them. I love Sergeant Stone's legs – their wide stride lends a great sense of dynamism and menace to every character that includes them, and Slick Devlan's quilted flak jacket-wearing torso works for just about every possible archetype. I usually look at arms next, often in combination with weapons to work out what suits the pose and finally the head. The head is the focal point of every model, so it's important to have it well-positioned. This often means cutting or extending necks and sculpting hair and hoods to get things right. I find Slick Devlan's head to be a good all-rounder, as it's in the mid range of sizes and comes with a reasonably lengthed neck. Heads that are trickier to work with are the Judge's, which are quite a lot smaller, Covenant's, which is a lot bigger, and Tyrus has an incredibly long “neck” so that the head sits above the collar of his armour. Sawing it to fit other torsos is a necessity.

Parts for four new models laid out.

I have started a new war band this week to further explain my building process. The nucleus for this group was “Ordo Obsoletus”. This minor Ordo investigates the mysteries of the galaxy, and is something I haven't yet covered in all my war bands thus far. My Ordo Obsoletus Inquisitor would need a group of skilled investigators to cover every potential branch of study. To this end, the group thus far consists of the Inquisitor, a sort of Noir detective, a Techpriest to apply the knowledge of Mars, a Psyker to divine the answer, and an Arbitrator to get the truth out of suspects.

The Inquisitor has one of Kal Jerico's heads, two of the Bounty Hunter's arms, Eisenhorn's torso and Josef's legs.

The Techpriest has Gruss's head, legs and unattached mechadendrites, Slick's torso and bionic arms from the "Cyborgs" by everyone's favourite Russian manufacturer of 54mm toy soldiers.

The Psyker has Sergeant Stone's dynamic legs, Sergeant Black's torso under the ProCreate and Von Castellan's coat tails. His arms are from Malicant, but haven't been secured yet.

Lastly, the Arbitrator. Eisenhorn's legs with the Thorian's torso and attached head (previously sawed from his legs for another model), the Judge's shotgun arm and a bionic arm from the aforementioned "Cyborgs" with cut down 40k bolter.

There's a long way to go. I have started some sculpting to fill in gaps and align parts, but there are many components to be attached yet. This process will likely take a few weeks, so stay tuned. I will be updating a thread on The Conclave as I go. As always, feel free to share your WIP pictures on Facebook or on twitter (@T_C_Inquisitor).

The Carthaxian Inquisitor