Showcase: Horus Ascended with display base

As promised, here’s Part 2 of my Horus Ascended showcase, now featuring the mighty display base. Skulls, skulls, and more skulls in this post.

Honestly, I’m not entirely satisfied with the display base. The design with the pile of skulls and skeletons is a matter of taste. But somehow, I’m not quite happy with the colour distribution. The light skeletons and skulls were meant to provide a contrast to Horus’s dark armour. However, since I painted Horus’s wolf pelt white instead of dark, unlike the studio version, the contrast doesn’t work as well. Also, the remnants of the red Blood Angels bodies stand out, and combined with the green Sons of Horus armour parts, the base is perhaps a bit too colourful? Narratively, I wanted to tie my version of Horus to Beta Garmon, so the dead Blood Angels and Sons of Horus make sense.

If you have any ideas on how to improve the base, please leave a comment.

The painting process

All in all, I spent 3 to 4 months working on Horus. I started in the spring of last year and then, after a long break, finalised the model during the Christmas period. More on that in Part 1 of my showcase post, where you can also see the model without the display base.

For the painting, I followed my free Sons of Horus painting tutorial. However, Horus has significantly more detail and a black rather than sea green armour. So, I had to expand my colour scheme. During the time I was painting the second half of Horus, I also worked intensively on my 7-in-1 colour matching document, and the document was a great help to me in compiling the expanded colour palette. I was also able to use the document to convert almost all of the Citadel paints I still used for my Sons of Horus colour scheme into the closest matches from other paint ranges. Due to my long time in the hobby, I still have many Citadel paints in my collection, but in recent years I’ve tested so many excellent paint ranges that I’m slowly looking to switch.

Over 1,100 accurate hand-painted colour samples, covering the seven most popular miniature paint ranges (Citadel, Warpaints Fanatic, Vallejo Game & Model Color, AK 3rd Gen, Pro Acryl, and Two Thin Coats). Sorted by colour families, hue, value, and saturation, in an interactive PDF document with a handy navigation and helpful appendix about colour reproduction. Check out my Patreon shop for details.

Even though I’m not a hundred percent happy with my paint job, especially regarding the display base, I’m still glad to have this excellently sculpted model in my collection. All the new Horus Heresy era Primarch models are absolute bangers, including the recently revealed ‘transfigured’ version of Angron.

Next, though, I definitely need more infantry in my collection, as I’ve painted almost exclusively tanks and characters so far. I’m thinking of a MkIII Despoiler Squad with the new close combat weapons and some Sons of Horus resin bits, so look forward to that.

Feel free to leave a reaction, or drop a comment below, I’m also happy to answer any questions on our friendly hobby Discord server. Thanks a lot, and happy hobbying!