Warhammer 40,000 - Canoness Veridyan

I’ve put off painting Canoness Veridyan for a little while now, despite my burgeoning Sisters of Battle army, as I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do with them. As the model is, like the Black Templars Castellan, another recreation of a John Blanche painting, I knew that I wasn’t going to paint them in the same scheme as my custom Order: The Order of the Divine Storm. In the artwork they are in the livery of the Order of Our Martyred Lady so I knew I wanted to pay homage to that but I wasn’t sure how just yet. 

Unperturbed, I set about assembling the model in the hopes that inspiration would strike along the way. All in all, said assembling wasn’t that bad for a resin miniature. Some questionable sprue gate placement was about the only issue I had to deal with. Even the gaps were reasonable. In any case, putting the model together gave me plenty of time to think about how I wanted to paint them. 

I settled on using, effectively, a Zorn limited palette. I had tested this previously on a random mystery model that I had gotten. What gave me this idea was that a lot of Blanche's Warhammer artwork heavily features red and yellow tones with a near complete absence of any blue. A bit like a Zorn limited palette. However, where Zorn’s palette relies on the black paint being a little blue for you to mix the colours you need, Blanche seems to completely ignore that side of the colour wheel in his Warhammer artwork from that era. Such was how I intended to paint Canoness Veridyan. 

With a plan in mind, I finished assembling the model and stuck them down to the base. I also trimmed and stuck down a few extra skulls before smothering the base in Vallejo Red Oxide texture paste to blend the skull piles into the base. Lastly I drilled the barrel on the bolt pistol and left the model for a few hours for the texture paste to fully harden. Once it was dry, I primed the model grey and gave it a zenithal of white ink. Unfortunately, as my primer was quite a light grey (similar to Dawnstone) the zenithal didn’t make all that much difference. 

Unperturbed, I start by giving the armour a coat of Black Templar contrast paint. This can turn out a little green looking, or at least my pot does, when it did I gave the armour second coat of Black Templar to even it all out. To finish off the armour I gave it an edge highlight of Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone. In the artwork the corset is also black so to differentiate mine, I painted with a couple thin coats of Rhinox Hide. In hindsight, I probably could have used Cygor Brown contrast paint as I had gone to the trouble of giving the model a zenithal highlight. 

Next I moved onto the trim, for which I used Squidmar’s Non-Metallic Metal Gold recipe. I started by mixing Mournfang Brown and Vallejo Scrofulous Brown in equal parts. To create the transitions I then glazed pure Mournfang Brown where I wanted areas darker and pure Scrofulous Brown where I wanted them lighter. Both paints thin down to a nice translucency, which made the glazing process easier. I finished things off by highlighting the edges with a mix of Scrofulous Brown and Vallejo Pale Sand. I chose the latter as it maintained some of the vibrancy of the Scrofulous Brown, the mix resulting in a colour with a fair amount of yellow in it. Had I used a pure white for the mix, it would have turned out more beige. 

With the armour and trim done, I could move onto the remaining details. As the zenithal had made the face quite light, instead of painting it I gave it a coat of Guilliman Flesh contrast paint. Once that was dry I highlighted the raised areas with Pallid Wych Flesh as in the artwork Canoness Veridyan has a very pale face. Similarly, to match the white hair of the artwork I gave her hair a coat of Apothecary White before giving it a highlight with Ulthuan Grey. I hoped the colder tones of Ulthuan Grey would differentiate it from the warmer notes of Pallid Wych Flesh on the face. 

For the housing on the Bolt Pistol I first basecoated it with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown, which I then washed with Seraphim Sepia. I then thinned down some Army Painter Matt Black and used that to carefully add the hazard strips on one side of the Bolt Pistol and to paint the fleur-de-lis on the other side. Lastly, I highlighted the yellow areas with some Yriel Yellow. 

The skulls on her chest I had basecoated in Rhinox Hide at the same time as I had the corset. In a bit of an experiment, I layered with Army Painter Skeleton Bone leaving Rhinox Hide in the recesses. I then did a few highlights on the brows with Pallid Wych Flesh. 

Like the corset in the artwork the tabards are black. On this occasion I followed suit and painted the tabards with a couple of thin coats of Army Painter Matt Black. The trim I painted with Mephiston Red, which was then washed with Nuln Oil. Once dry I highlighted it with Evil Sunz Scarlet. 

The last part of the model was all the silver areas. My non-metallic metal silver is nowhere near as good as my gold, so I didn’t bother. Instead I gave everything that needed to be silver a couple of coats of Scale75 Thrash Metal. To give it that grimdark look I washed all the silver parts with Basilicanum Grey.

Moving onto the base, the first thing I needed to do was to paint all the skulls. I was tempted to paint them the same way as I did the skulls on the corset, but in the end I didn’t. Instead I basecoated the skulls with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. I then gave them a wash with some slightly thinned Army Painter Strong Tone. I then highlighted first with some Skeleton Bone and then with a mix of Skeleton Bone and Pallid Wych Flesh.

The ground on the base stumped me for a while, I was tempted to do what I did for the Castellan and use the airbrush to apply some Daler-Rowney FW Red Earth acrylic ink. However, given the number of skulls that I have glued down, I wasn’t convinced I could be accurate enough with the airbrush to get between all of them. In the end, I decided to give the base a coat of Snakebite Leather contrast bite. This is a supersaturated yellow-brown colour that works really well for a rad-soaked wasteland. Where possible I used a damp brush to blend the Snakebite Leather with the skulls to make the transition a bit more seamless. With that done, I painted the rim of the base black and Canoness Veridyan was complete. 

Overall, I’m quite pleased with how this turned out. It might not be the finest example of Blanchitsu, the model does lack a certain griminess that is pervasive in Blanche’s work, but I feel like I have made a reasonable attempt at getting the colour palette down.