Wanting to have a go at making an Age of Sigmar Tomb King I thought: I've got plenty of skulls, what else do I need? Turns out you don't need much else. Read on for the sad tale of Emperor Khác Mù Ngọc...
In life, the powerful Emperor Khác Mù Ngọc aspired to rule over all the mortal realms, and made substantial inroads towards that goal, until a younger successor usurped and murdered him. Fortunately for the mortal realms, that successor was a poor ruler and the former Ngọc Empire soon dissipated and was lost from memory.
Nagash, being amused by Ngọc's hubris, cursed the Emperor in death to rule every place, over every land he walks, for all eternity. Scattered and absent-minded, Khác Mù Ngọc now walks purposelessly across all the mortal realms, and goes about reigning over every land he finds himself in. He and his small court coerce the beleaguered inhabitants to submit to his rule until he simply strays far enough away and finds himself in another land, whereupon he sets about enforcing his rule again. When Nagash thinks to check in on Ngọc, he sometimes transports him far across the realms, and sometimes between different realms, just to keep things interesting. Sometimes Nagash will grant the Emperor a small contingent of skeletal warriors, or animate terracotta soldiers who shatter at the slightest blow.
In death, the Wandering Emperor has none of the acumen that made him a great warlord in life, and his intermittent periods of rule in different places are marked by contradictory and nonsensical edicts, neglect, paranoia, and usually little lasting effect. Lands forewarned of his approach can simply humour the Emperor, discreetly maintaining their normal politics under the pretence of following his rule, until he simply wanders off to check on his endless other kingdoms.
I've modelled the Wandering Emperor with a few attendants: a canopic bearer, whose brazier burns incense and who bears a small pyramid on his back containing some of Ngọc's embalmed organs. A diminutive standard bearer heralds Ngọc's arrival, and a stone sphinx accompanies him.
Another scratchbuild, Ngọc is a big pile of bits. His lower half is a Chaos Warrior cloak folded in half. He has two ribcages- instead of taking them from skeleton models, they're from a crypt ghoul's trophy (his skull is from the same trophy) and a scenery bit from the forest goblins kit. There's loads of rough milliput holding the rest of him together. While greenstuff is no question better for sculpting, milliput's coarseness helps him look like a big pile of bones and gristle. The rest of of his torso and right arm is scratchbuilt and covered with various ribbons (mummy bandages), strings of beads (a flagellant flail) and a scale armour made from beastman spearheads. Most of all I'm pleased with his hat and collar, which are sections cut from the barrel of an Empire cannon.
For the paint scheme I wanted Ngọc to look horrible, a big mass of dried gristle with flesh indistinguishable from his robes. I also wanted to finish the paint job fairly quickly (as is the Tomb Kings tradition). The result is he's brown all over with extra attention payed to his skull and some green oxidized bronze as a spot color. There's some patterning on his robe that's dulled down with grimy brown– this pattern is mimicked on the tiny attendant's banner. The trickiest part of the painting was the flame on Ngọc's canopic attendant. I think the flame itself looks ok but then the lighting on nearby surfaces is very difficult to get right. I painted each character separately before combining them, so the flame's warm light against Ngọc's cloak was the last thing I painted.
By the time he was done, Ngọc was starting to look like fantasy version of a 40k Tech Priest, which I like. I was keen right from the start to regard him as a Tomb King model instead of a new Age of Sigmar -type undead. Bits of Nighthaunt-ish lore crept in but I've been reading the Tomb Kings fluff and conceived of him as a sort of Pharoah from the start (so he gets a little pyramid and sphinx, natch).
This is my first model for Age of Sigmar! My previous fantasy excursions were all set in Mordheim. Plenty more AoS on the way with my Relic Lizardmen army...
Previously on Instagram, I teased a WIP scratch-built 40k Tau. I think that's gonna be the next model I finish. Keep an eye out here or follow me on Instagram.
Hek
No comments:
Post a Comment