Before the end of 2014 I will post my third completed miniature of 2014: An Imperial relic from the past originally built as part of a Golden Demon entry in 2004 and now, a decade later, found and finished - and part of my (luckily) growing Cabinet of Wonders.
But before that I will wish you all a great holiday and, with two small things to share, thank you for hanging on to FPOA:
First of all one of my favourite treats of this December has been the Christmas Countdown over at Miniatextures by the ever-so-talented Jakob Rune Nielsen. It was a pleasure to follow his journey of finishing an Imperial Knight in 24 days - and even though the result is a true beauty it is the experimentation and testing of new colours and techniques, which I really want to compliment.
Secondly I have been re-reading Dan Abnett's brilliant Pariah and Perihelion on the recommendable Alizabeth Bequin and the continued journeys of Gregor Eisenhorn and Gideon Ravenor: A re-reading which has inspired me to begin a third Melancholia piece, which I look forward to share with you in 2015!
After a year of wandering, in solitude, tired and weary, among rooks and ravens in the shadows of dark Northern forests, I have found my way home to the dimly lit hallways of FPOA...at least for a while as I will most likely loose myself in the boreal once again.
From craggy and pinecovered fells I have brought with me a small but precious - for me at least - collection of relics, which have been lost for many moons. The first two, Melancholia I and II, are in many ways thought of as a pair. They are beacons of sight and sound, now found and finished:
Melancholia I has been inspired by a hauntingly beautiful painting by Caspar David Friedrich from 1818 of a wanderer lost in a sea of fog. It depicts an Imperial Navigator from the Navis Nobilite (thank you Krautscientist for clarifying) and his servants on their way through the vast expanses of a wartorn galaxy. The Navigator himself is centuries old, tall, thin and pale. His assistants, a burdened, crippled and hunchbacked servant and a blindfolded cherub. Apparently none of them can see, blind or blindfolded as they are - lost in a sea of fog.
Together they make up a small entourage fitting the theme of FPOA eloquently balancing as they are between the visible and invisible worlds of the darkness of the Warp and the light of the God Emperor. And as I have hinted at in earlier FPOA posts there may - literally - be more than what initially meets the eye.
Melancholia II has been inspired by the weathered, dystopian and deeply sensous paintings of artist extraordinaire John Blanche. It depicts an Ecclesiarchy Echo Priest who himself - albeit only through hissing and analogue sound - has haunted the lost Arkke, a vast Space Hulk aimlessly adrift in a silent and long-forgotten corner of the galaxy. Weathered and beaten.
A hunchbacked servant of the Ecclesiarchy preaching the echoes of a millionstrong choir of dying God Emperor devotees. Echoes which can still be heard as a musical discord, an ambient resonance of prayers past, in the vast soundclouds of the Imperium here.
As my painting skills are rusty to say the least the painting process has been trial and error - experimenting mainly with inks and glazes in order to paint more quickly than I used to in the past. So Melancholia I and II represent my point zero. From here onwards I intend to progress and get both better and faster.
But these relics of the past are not all I bring back with me to FPOA from the cold north:
First of all there are now several more relics in my Cabinet of Wonders, which I am working on getting finished and look forward to share with you in the hallways of FPOA. All of them are showing that the divine light of the Emperor works in truly mysterious ways - and that there is a fine line between darkness and light in the wartorn galaxy of the 40K universe.
Secondly, one dreary night while stumbling my way back to FPOA through the boreal I caught glimpses of what appeared to be weathered figures twice the size of ordinary men. Soaring among the craggy pines of the fells. Their distant voices were coarse, rasping and leathery. Like archaic drones they bore through the dimly lit forests with a deep and resonant sound of dry parchment, which, like a palimpsest, had several layers of tones intertwined in each other.
What had caught my eyes - and ears - that night in the boreal were ravens gathering!
