Finally, Be’Lakor, the Dark Master is complete. I originally started this figure just over three years ago, as part of the original Painting December, which was a personal challenge that became the genesis for our monthly painting challenges. It’s been a rather epic battle to get up the motivation to complete him, due to all the tons of little fiddly bits, and basically, negative inertia towards the model. This is why the challenges exist. To motivate me to get models like this one completed. I based him on the rolled-edge 50mm round base, as a regular 60mm base seemed much too large, while the regular 50mm base seemed a bit.. I dunno. Boring? I didn’t have any official GW 50mm bases at the time (that I could find), so I only had those alternative ones that are a mm or two shorter. I also mounted him up on some cork to increase his height and make him look a little more imposing.
His colour scheme is different to the “official” GW one. It was inspired by a google search I did when trying to figure out how to paint him. It may have been inspired by Noridicus‘ paint scheme, over at Heresy-Online, but given that he talks about how he’s also seen this sort of scheme used, it might have been one of the models that inspired him that also inspired me. I dunno. I know that Nordicus’ model looks great, and I think my rendition also looks pretty good as well.
Finally, I thought a scale shot would be in order, as without it many of these larger models seem to be much smaller than they actually are – so here he is alongside those two bastions of model scale, a Space Marine and a Primaris Space Marine! So, in the end it took three years to get him painted. I’m not sure that it’s been worth the wait, but I’m very definitely happy to have gotten him completed finally!
…now there’s one model left from that original Painting December trio. The Marauder Giant, an otherwise wonderful model with a stupid patchwork tunic. There’s no way he’ll be completed for Dauntess/Diabolical December, but perhaps as a centrepiece model for January?
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
He/it looks great. Very cool way to wrap up your years hard hobby grafting. I really like the “realistic” colour scheme… I’m used to Daemons having the trademark tint of their gods apparently preferred colours. It really lends to the unaligned nature of Be’Lakor. I’m really looking forward to next year’s challenges and seeing wat projects I can work on for the 2019 challenges
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Thanks mate – I’ll likely keep it boring when doing aligned Greater Daemons and Princes, but for Be’Lakor I wanted to keep it different and unique. I do have a bunch or Harpies somewhere that I may paint up to mirror him as Furies. Are they still a thing? I’ll have to check! 🙂
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Great painting mate, love the transition between light skin and dark skin.
Hope you have a Happy, safe and productive new year
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Thank you Dave – and the same to you and yours!
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Excellent! Agree with Pandoras Bitz Box on the colour scheme – it just strikes me as “right”. Nice to get it finished and tidied away for the year end.
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Thanks mate – and you’re so right on finally getting it done to finish up the year!
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Wow, stunning colors. I could look at this all day. Nice way to end the year!
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Thank you Mark!
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Simply stunning!!
Cheers Roger
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Cheers, Roger!
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He looks great. I love the ragged and pierced wings.
Cheers,
Pete,
.
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Thanks. He’s a rather lovely sculpt for sure!
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Deffo worth the wait mate – he’s absolutely spot on!
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Cheers Alex. Very glad to finally have him finished and off the painting desk.
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That colour scheme does look really good on him. The “standard” one is fine, but I feel like this brings out a lot more of the detail, particularly on his wings. Speaking of which, trying to fly with all those skulls on there must be kind of a pain. Probably for the best that the laws of physics are more or less optional for him!
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Yep, he was one of those models where extra bits of detail just keep appearing, seemingly out of nowhere like Randy Orton. I think as an immensely powerful Daemon Prince he’s probably exempt from many of the laws of physics, as you say!
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A very impressive figure in its own right but even more so with a top notch paint job added to it. As others have said, a great piece of work to end the year on.
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Thanks! He was the penultimate model for 2018, but I was (and still am) so very happy to have finally completed him!
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Do you know the band by the same name as this model or is this just happy coincidence?
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I’ve heard of them, they’re a local band from here in Melbourne. They named themselves after the model/character. Bloody Australian Warhammer nerds!
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Haha. So far ive only heard them on ytube a few times. Im taking getting into battle metal a bit slow…
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Fantastic work! I always liked that model.
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Cheers mate – he’s definitely a very cool model.
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Like the rest, I think you have it spot on. I like the contrast between the light and dark used. I never realised he had a dinosaur tail though!
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There are a number of details I never noticed until I saw him in this colour scheme. It really does show off the Model better.
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Yeah. I kept finding more as I was painting him. A bloody headache at the time and one of the reasons he took 2 years to get painted!
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There are certainly a lot of design influences squashed into the one model, that’s for sure!
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What a model – glad he’s done at last. Really like the colour scheme you’ve gone for, the studio paint job is nice but by breaking the model into different areas of colour you’ve really shown it off at its best.
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Thanks! When I saw it done in a similar way on GIS, I knew that’s the sort of thing I wanted for my own version.
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Lovely work, really smart. Makes me think of my old belakor, sitting in a box somewhere rotting away in his undercoat
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Cheers mate! Don’t feel bad, though. Mine was like that for over a decade until 2 years ago. And he spent the last two years sitting on my painting desk, not getting finished. If you find yours, I’m sure you can do a better job on the painting timeline than I did once you get started!
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Wow, that’s a beast! Like your work on the sword there and the bone and the skin. Overall color choice is pretty nice. I do like the GW grey one too, but I think Alexis nailed it, with how you’ve managed to bring out much more detail in what would otherwise be a pretty bland looking big beast.
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Thanks Faust. The sword colouration was very literally one of the final things to get decided on in the final day or two of working on him. I changed my mind on how I wanted to do it a couple of times before settling on the final blue-green shade.
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