Devout Bodyguard

Introduction

This week we decided to join forces again and all do a Devout to show the variety of these new more posable ‘jacks. The Devouts typical role is that of a bodyguard for a warcaster, so I decided to pose mine in that vein. Let’s look at the pieces.

All of these parts might look a bit intimidating at first, but the Devout isn’t complex at all. With all of the points of articulation you can easily modify this ‘jack to suit your needs without a lot of or even any cutting.

The Bodyguard

The “standard” pose for the Devout is a running one, with the right leg back behind. It’s easy to create a standing pose from this, just swing the leg forward before you attach it. If you don’t want to cut and reposition the foot, simply add something on the base for it to rest on.

You might notice that I filed the tip of his “beak” down. I think it helped the asthetics of the head tremendously. He looks much meaner now.

I used an Epicast “Ice” base to match my Protectorate force’s current basing scheme. I pinned the left foot to the base and built up a mound from greenstuff to rest the right foot on. In retrospect, it would have been easier to build that mound from cork, and it would have matched the base better. C’est la vie!

To Arms!

Attaching the arms is simple. Just pay attention to the molded “R” on the right side and mate it to the arm with the corresponding “R”. I pinned mine to the body even though they are light. My models do a lot of traveling to cons and such these days, so I build for durability. I’ve also drilled holes in the wrist joints to pin the hands on.

At this stage he reminds me of some sort of gun mech. When positioning the arms make sure to take into account where the hands and weapons will be. In this case, I wanted the Poleaxe to be upright so I held the hand on the end of the arm while I glued it in place to ensure that I had room.

I found it easier to attach the shoulder pads at this point without having the weapon and shield in the way. You can align them with each other, or I chose to align them with the upper shoulder box.

The beauty of these arms is in the wrist articulation. They allow for such a wide range of positioning it’s really quite ingenious. Mine are pretty straightforward, but I turned the wrist in on the shield to look like the Devout was actually protecting itself. Normally I would paint the model with the shield off, but my “temporary” glue joint at the wrist proved stronger than the thin pistons of the forearm. That is the one liability I found with this model. Make sure you like where your hands are positioned before you glue them on, especially with pins. You’ll likely break the forearm trying to get it back off. So, painting with the shield in place it is.

In case you’re curious, this particular pose measures exactly 3.25″ tall. He will need a 4″ tray if you’re using the Sabol Army Transport and stand it upright.

Prime Time

I started off with a good coat of Black Dupli-Color Sandable primer. Over this I brushed on a thin coat of GW Chaos Black to touch up any areas I missed with the spray.

After this, I decided to try an experiment. I used this on the Stalker last week, but didn’t show it. There’s been a lot of discussion on the WARMACHINE forums about “zenithal” priming. It’s really just a physical representation of how light will fall on the model. It’s a great guide for shading later on to add a bit of realism to your paint job. All I did was I took a can of White Dupli-Color Sandable primer in my right hand and held the model in my left, with the top towards me. (I had a latex glove on to protect my hand.) Then I gave a light dusting only from the top. Where the paint landed is where light would land too. What remained black would be hard shadows, and the “grey” areas would be partially lit.

As I got deep into painting and more of the primer was covered up, it was helpful to refer back to these pictures for a lighting reference. Give it a try if it interests you.

Finished

Here is the final result. I had fun painting this piece. Maybe I should paint a model for an article every week. I might finish my forces by the year 2010 then! I’ll leave you now with pictures of the finished piece.

Until next time.

–YW7–