Dark Angels Imperial Knights commission finished!

Hi folks,

It's been a while. Between starting a new career and house renovations hobby time has been at a premium lately. As the title may suggest, most of my own projects have taken a back seat to my latest commission project which is now all wrapped up and so expect to see more of my own project stuff, mainly Orks, making an appearance sometime soon.

This commission has been a couple of months in the making due to a 3 week trip to the USA shoved in the middle but has ultimately been a great and rewarding project. My client wanted two Imperial Knights to go with his Dark Angel army, some of which I have painted for him previously. The only brief was that he wanted two Knights to be named Lion and Luther respectively and for them to be magnetised.

From this I decided a few things. First, they should be different colour schemes with some unifying themes, kind of like a reflection of each other. Second, I wanted to use the Dark Angels brass etch on them as well as some of the Knight decals. Third, the colour schemes would be an amalgamation of the main Dark Angel successor colours.

I always like to have fluff in mind when undertaking a project and for this one, in my mind anyway, I had an issue from the start; namely that an honoured and revered war machine like a Knight would not likely be named for one of the most villainous figures in the Chapters history. However, I overcame this by using the name plates from the brass etch set to give them different names each, with Lion and Luther being more their 'nicknames' if you like. Added to this I dreamed up a scenario where the nicknames were given for the Machine spirit of each of the Knights. Luther being a more callous and brooding machine, while the Lion is a more majestic and noble one. Lastly, I thought it would be a nice touch if the Knights took part in an annual ceremonial duel to recreate the battle between the real Lion and Luther.

Fluff aside, I added brass etch to various parts of the body in order to make them more unique and closely affiliated with the Chapter they are service to. For colour schemes, I went with Green and bone with Gold trim for the Lion and a Black and green inverse scheme with red trim for Luther. There are some subtle differences between the two also to keep things interesting.

Very pleased with the final result and hope that they bring much glory to my clients army. Cheers.