Showcase: Abaddon the Despoiler

One of the most feared denizens of the Eye of Terror has emerged this week for a brand new paint job!  This was a 15-hour piece commissioned by Dave the "Aegman" for his chaos army.  Dave wanted a centerpiece model for his forces and so he asked for an Abaddon that would really stand out on the table top.  To get the job done right, we settled on a 15-hour paint job.  At that time limit, the painting starts scratching Competition Quality work, bringing in time intensive effects like source glow and ambient shading.  I can do both of those in a small way on Schowcase Quality jobs, but on a model as intricate as Abaddon, and with two light sources, I was going to need more time.  In the end, I was really pleased with how he turned out.

Now that the work's done, let's take a look!

Abaddon's basing is made from the mounted Archaon kit.  I've gotten a ton of utility out of that kit, first using Archaon and his steed for a Hades Vampire Counts conversion and then again using a smaller portion of the basing on a recently completed pyromancer.  I knew the rest of Archaon's base would look awesome with Abaddon towering over it.  The only decision was what glow I wanted it to be emitting.  I chose sickly green, or a "Minas Morgul glow" as I fondly refer to it.  I'm a fiend for this color scheme, it's a surefire way to make your featured baddy look unquestionably evil while he's standing over a pit of vile corruption!

The two glow sources on the model were going to be the corruption on the base and his sword, Drach'nyan.  His demon sword has a plethora of trapped souls contained within it and oozes raw power, so a spectral blue glow does a nice job on getting the point across.  With the sword as a heavy left-hand light source, I really enjoyed painting his face two-tone, with one half illuminate by spectral glow and the rest falling into shadow.

The right half of his body falls into a general shadow, being neither lit heavily by the sword or the pit, so I took the opportunity to add some much needed color and life into the eye-of-Horus on his shoulder pad.

And here is again from the front at ground level, the view his victims are treated to before they are summarily dispatched.

... Or the view you are granted while watching your friend get beheaded...

That's it for this week, thanks again for stopping by and checking out what I'm working on at the Monster Lab!

Come back next week and I'll be showing off a custom sculpted dragon chariot base!