I was posting my various projects as individual posts, but I guess folks here prefer them to be in a long running log thread. So, by request, I'll keep a record of things here.
I've been collecting empire since around 4th Edition. I get distracted easily however, so there have been long stretches of time where it has sat unloved and received no new painted units. Lately, I've been making a point to get back at it and put some work into the figures I've been collecting over the years, and rounding out ideas for new acquisitions.
I always liked the idea of the far reaching Empire with components drawn from all over. This probably comes in part from the early fluff that included ogres, halflings, kislev, dwarves, etc. As such I never started off painting things all from the same province or anything. There is no denying how awesome a thematic army from one city-state looks, all festooned with a consistent color scheme etc, but that never appealed to me.
For whatever reason, I started basing the units in my collection around themes of global domination, religious zealotry, secret societies, conspiracy theories, etc. That stuff always amused and fascinated me, so my empire began to take shape as militant representations of all these ideas. They provide wonderfully rich background inspiration, and researching iconography for them has always been part of the fun. After reading books like Focoult's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, the idea of them all being interlinked in one massive uber-conspiracy is too much fun to resist too. So, that is why the units all get different treatments.
And now, the Grand Army of the Order of the Temple of the Illuminati; Because sometimes The All Seeing Eye and the Hidden Hand need a mailed fist!
To get things going and make this blog a bit more interesting in the meantime while I work on new things, I'll back fill it with some of my old stuff, as well as more recent additions since I've started doing work on the empire again. Bear in mind my photography and painting skills have both improved over the years, so some of the old stuff will be pretty rough by comparison. Hopefully that'll be some inspiration to others. . . practice, and you shall improve.
OLD stuff:
Jesuit Handgunners:
Handgunners 2 (I forget where the iconography came from... Order of St Giuseppe I think is on the other side of the Pomeranian flag)
Crossbows (Cult of La Virgen de Guadalupe)
Greatswords (I don't seem to have a picture of the unit, but its currently 20 strong) (Pirate / Templar Marines flag)
Selcuk Turks:
Templars:
Teutonic Order:
Some older artillery units:
A cannon emplacement:
Cathar flaggelants (Thats not all of them, I think I have 25... should really re-shoot them)
When I began sinking my teeth into the empire, the 4th Edition list had an extensive beastiary. You weren't limited to pegasi and gryphons.
This made sense to me, again, with the far reaching empire, that they should have an amazing Imperial Zoo. So while my friends all gravitated to the biggest things on their lists, like dragons, I had fun collecting other things for the zoo keepers to herd into battle. I have a unit of giant scorpions with an imperial champion, for example (still only have one painted, must finish!
) as well as spider swarms. It may seem odd now a days, but hey, they were in the list, so why not use them?
One of the projects that did get finished was my imperial count on hydra rider. Again, very old, and very rough, but fun:
I think the hydra was from Grenadier.
Then I needed some pegasi. This guy still needs to be rebased with something more sensible, but at the time it was the most involved conversion I'd ever undertaken, and I was very proud of it.
Then I took it a step further, and made another one:
That wizard is pinned, and the I have a charachter with a lance that fits on there too.
Warwagon! Love that model:
And my war altar, based on Peter the Hermit from the Crusades. The crucified skeleton was something I had in a bitz box. Its really pretty poorly made, and I'd like to replace it with a better piece.
I think that about covers most of my first era of work on the army.... which was from about 1993 to 1999.
