Belial Grandmaster of the Deathwing

I went to the extra effort of sculpting a broken blade on Belial's Stormbolter.

Belial, the incumbent Grand Master of the Deathwing order. This model acts as the jewel in the crown of my Deathwing force and is atypical of the design principles I have used throughout the project. 

Belial has been inspired by the classic artwork of Gabriel, the former grand master of the Deathwing Order (printed in the Angels of Darkness Codex). Whereas the Ultramarines have classic Roman and Greek influences, and The Blood Angels are paragons of Renaissance ideals, the Dark Angels have always had a Gothic sensibility to their aspect, inspired by medieval Europe. 

In the creation of Belial, I knew I wanted very ornate armour styled like a Gothic Cathedral. This allowed me to indulge in researching some beautiful works of architecture and learn a few of the defining principles of the movement. I learned that height, vertical emphasis, light and majesty were of paramount importance to the creation of a Gothic Cathedral. I absolutely fell in love with the Milan Cathedral in Italy and the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, and decided to introduce the towering naves to the armour.

I wanted lots of candles on the miniature to introduce the aspect of light to the miniature.

Abbadon proved to be an excellent base to this Belial conversion. With minimal sculpting, I could have the scowling daemon heads and iconography already present on the armour function in the same way Cathedral ornamentation communicates religious allegory. 

And here's something new to me; a video. The contrast is awful, there is no music and he's spinning a little quickly, but I'm encouraged as to what this could mean in documenting my work in the future. 

And of course, he gets his own Iphone contact page: 

"In a profound sense every man has two halves to his being; he is not one person so much as two persons trying to act in unison. I believe that in the heart of each human being there is something which I can only describe as a "child of darkness" who is equal and complementary to the more obvious "child of light."

Laurens van der  Post