INQ28 Daemonhost- WIP

Low image quality warning, Shot with old camera

I started working on a daemonhost for my INQ28 project back in November.  I'd posted on the Deathsquads forum which is a great site with a solid community and worthy of attention.  When I did my build I'd been taken by the potential of the Warhammer wraith as a basis for the conversion due in no small part to the fine examples utilized by persons involved with their own INQ28 projects that I'd come across on many of the fine blogs and forums I'd been frequenting.  The utility of the model is quite incredible and suggest so many possibilities.

There was the problem.  The wraith was such a fine subject but the quality of existing work out there was so high I was daunted and the project has languished on the back burner as a result.  I like (probably need) to find inspiration but it seems pointless to mimic or reproduce imperfect copies of what has come before.  In some manner we all stand on the shoulders of giants but I'm a bit of a defeatist and wonder sometimes where my own lines are demarcated in matters of flattery and forgery.

Treacherous idea board: Inspiration or Imitation?

•  Closing on Christmas I considered Dickens' Jacob Marley.  Daemonhosts and unquiet spirits possess an affinity and the mournful figure in his rattling chains formed the basis of the composition.

• Pitiful and powerful.  I wanted to show weakness with a sense of something godlike beneath the surface.  The limbs and faces of the Warhammer Corpse cart were suitably wretched.  If I could echo the tragic air of those models by use of it's parts I thought I was heading in the right direction.  I'm trying to figure out how to paint the model and hope to further convey this theme with the colour choices.  I'm apprehensive how it may turn out on account of my brushwork but the idea of the mortal shell being wrought down to ash by the forces within it would be nice.
• Binding.  Kwaidan and Conan both used script as warding against the spirit world.  If I could manage the inner light effect I mentioned above dark sigils crossing the skin would really be a nice touch.
• The Old Man.  This Spiky Rat Pack model blew me away.  There is nothing overtly malign occurring in the composition but the atmosphere of menace suggested by the figure is staggering.  If I totally miss the mark in my own project it's because I'm trying to move too far away from what this model achieves.
• John Blanche's host.  Seems this figure achieves just about everything I'm setting out to achieve.  Strange that:).  The kicker for this image is the unnatural degree of contortion that wracks the body.  The lost of humanity to the alien where something unnatural wears flesh like an ill-fitting suit.

If you have already seen this model at Deathsquads this article doesn't offer much in the way of compensation for your time.  I had made the transition to a better camera fairly early in the thread and have in the interim managed to decipher some of the nuances if it's operation so this article features some better quality images.  When I posted I gave a brief description of what did but had no ideas on the painting process.  Hopefully the idea board format added something here as it's the third time I've shared using that format.  If nothing else I'd like to know if you find the format worthwhile.  Any comment (good or bad) much appreciated.

Primed white into open face of cloak, black to rear exterior.  Will it make any difference?  Hopefully.

On a final not I have been examining the blogs points of referral and have come to the conclusion I should be more sensitive to the wants of viewers regarding content.  It seems the best of my modest traffic wants Inq28.  I'm very much an, "as the mood strikes me" hobbyist and can't conjure worthy models at will.  If I deliberately set out to produce suitable models I feel I would be doing a grave disservice to a rich hobbysphere and there are already wonderful creators and their labours to sate your hungry eyes.  It'll come, just give it some time