It’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted (or painted) any more Legion of the Damned models, but today we have a pair of them – finished as part of Mechanismo May (after missing the end of Armoured April). The biggest reason my Legion of the Damned has petered out so much is because I tend to have a few models from my various projects on the go at any given time, and I like to finish the WIP ones before allowing myself to start more. That way, starting the new models are a “reward” of sorts for completing the previous batch. It takes awhile, but it does work out a lot better than my previous method of just starting new models all of the time, that appears to have just given me a thousand or so neglected models to wade through.

So why, dear reader, did it take me so long to get through this pair? Well, the answer is that I don’t actually like either of these models very much. As much as I like the character of the old Beakies from the Rogue Trader days, my personal aesthetics go with Mark Copplestone and Bob Naismith’s renditions, and the Aly Morrison ones – with their short, blunt helmets and extra-hunched poses are a distant followup. So with that, they can be a real chore to paint, and so this pair has taken me well over a year to get done. I can’t even remember when I began on them, quite frankly.

This pair were chosen for the Legion because of their sculpted details. The skull-shoulder studs and knee-skulls on the first “Brother Morris”, and the big-ass shoulder-skull on the second. Also, being Aly Morrison sculpts, I can “hide” the soft details on their helms to an extent by freehanding skulls on them.

In the end, these models have come up decently, and I am now happy enough with them to incorporate them in with the rest of my Legion. It’s that thing I’ve encountered a fair bit where through the painting process, I really quite dislike the model(s) I’m working on, but once completed, I’m pleased enough with the final result that I no longer resent the models, and can even quite like them in their final form. With a Multi-Melta and Plasma Gun between them, I have the Special and Heavy weapons for a squad here, so I’ll have to check my existing painted models and work out a Sergeant and 7 Legionaries to go with them to fill out another game-friendly squad.