Monday 16 December 2013











Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.

The First Book Of Urizen, William Blake.

[Pict Capture] Lorgar contemplation within the Holy of Holies,  Colchis

Lorgar stands within the inner sanctum of Colchis most revered holy site; The Py Thia Temple, or the Holy of Holies. This site is a cave rather than a man made construction that reached two miles into the Ascendant Mountain Ranges and is a popular ground for pilgrimage from people of the surrounding sector. The name Py Thia derived from Pytho which in myth was the original name for Delphi (cross reference proto Gothic cultre archive). 

The agreed upon theory of Imperial archivists is that the inner sanctum where a priest could communicate directly with god and be induced into a frenzied state was due to the highly toxic vapors rising from the rock. The induced priest would wander out from the inner sanctum speaking in tongues which other holy men would interpret and mark as propheies preserved in Colchisian literature.

Lorgar here wears red as is traditional for seekers of revelation entering the inner sanctum of the Holy of Holies. In this aspect he is the spiritual leader of Colchis, a physical conduit between the realm of the flesh and of the Gods. He wields Illuminarum a master crafted crozius that at its heart contains a fragment of Colchis core suspended in gravitic fields. Upon his right Pauldron rests the Book of Lorgar upon upon the passages "Songs of Innocence and Experience". The pauldron has a energy refractor field & teleportation fail-safe ensuring the work will survive even the bodily destruction of the Primarch. 






Forge World have produced another master piece of the model. My hat is well and truly doffed to Edgar Skomorowski.

Aurelian poses some very difficult challenges to the painter, chief amongst these being the gold script lining his face. A beautifully evocative image, but a nightmare for the figure painter. Forge World very sensibly painted Lorgar's skin lined with black. Gold does not show up well on skin tones nor does it give any meaningful contrast. At best it would look neat, most likely it would be a mess; so I decided to cheat. I painted Aurelian's face as if it were underlit by his suit. This gives the skin a golden tone before I start painting the Scripture, but also halos the Primarchs head quite nicely. I decided to go for yellow over a more contrasting blue to represent fire (Lorgar's head is a bright yellow, the under light is organge, his armour is red and the base is gret/ black). I also had Willaim Blake's Book of Urizen plates in my head and I couldn't escape trying to represent the damnation of the character through the painting.

The image on his cloak is a nod to Blake (see image below). I'll leave the interpretation of the image in relation to Lorgar to you as I beleive there are multiple reasons why the Primarch is sometimes known as the Urizen.

Myles


3 comments :

  1. Ok, so you did a beautiful job painting an amazing model. The thing that strikes me the most about how you painted him is that I get a sense of sorrow in his face. This is exactly how I picture Lorgar. He sees the path ahead of him but he is saddened by leaving his father behind. Awesome. I love the Blake reference, one of my favorite poets.

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  2. nice what colour is the face?

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  3. Amazing work. People overuse 'stunning' maybe...

    ...except now I know what I was saving it for! I was stunned when I first saw this. Unreal nice, perfectly executed.

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