Eye of Terror

I converted and painted this piece for the "Master painting challenge" run by my local warhammer store. I got Abaddon assigned by diceroll at the end of february and, had to complete it by end of may. It also hat to fit the challenges theme "treasure". For that I considered some options, but, thanks to some friends input, ended up going with the idea of the crushing of Cadia being a "treasured moment" for Abaddon.

To raise the chin as seen in the reference, I had to build the mini without the iconic top knot and sculpted the planet from scratch while fitting the claws into it while still layering the putty. I also had the idea of using epic scale marines for the black legion below Abaddon and converted them with plastic putty and some scalpel work, so they felt proper chaos aligned.

Color choices were very straight forward. I interpreted the art to show Abaddon standing in literal flames, which the tiny black legion marched through and painted it accordingly. The backdrop was a mix of stippling and glazing in saturated colors, just like I did on the Space Horses last year.

The most interesting aspect of this project has been the constant decisionmaking of how to best reimagine this iconic piece of art in miniature shape and how to create cohesion between the details depicted by Karl Kopinski and those which are not, in a way that is respectful to the original and that works as a standalone piece.

Absolutely incredible project to work on and call finished now.