A Year in Miniatures 7: The Lord Executioner (Kranon the Relentless)

This miniature holds a special place in my heart. Sometime around going to university I lost touch with miniature painting, probably due to lacking the time, space, and disposable income required to maintain the habit. That changed in 2012 with the release of the Dark Vengeance box set. I’d been into Chaos Space Marines since accidentally buying the wrong codex when I was 9, and something about the enormous sword, flowing cloak, and wildly impractical horns just spoke to me. One short trip to ebay later, and I was the proud owner of the Chaos half of the set, and a renewed love for miniature painting.

I had no interest in the Crimson Slaughter, the khornate warband Kranon canonically leads, so I became one of the many, many people painting up Kranon and his Chosen as their own preferred flavour of Chaotic Marine. And, because I’m deeply indecisive about these things, my Kranon has been variously a member of the Night Lords, the Iron Warriors, the Word Bearers, and, briefly, the Thousand Sons. My interest in each of these usually lasted just long enough to nearly finish the model before deciding to strip it and start again.

This time I’ve taken a somewhat different approach. Realising that the thing I kept changing my mind about was the story behind the character, I elected to simple leave that aspect undefined. I focused instead on the tone I wanted to convey, taking my cues from the model itself rather than any specific lore. I realised that what I wanted was a dark, demonic presence, utterly implacable and ultimately unknowable. A monster whose very presence on a world is a death sentence for all who dwell there. And, in keeping with the minimal lore principal, I decided this particular chaos lord would go by a title rather than a name: The Lord Executioner.

In terms of the actual colours, I chose to base them around the Black Legion, although I knew from the start that bright gold trim would not give me the result I wanted. I went through three iterations trying to get it to look suitably dark and ominous, ultimately ending up with a burnished brass look that, along with the purple notes in the main armour panels, probably takes this The Lord High Executioner closer to being a Night Lord. Normally that’s the kind of realisation that would have me starting over, but since I’m not worrying about the lore I can simply be happy that it’s conveying the tone I wanted! I ended up repurposing one of the brighter variants for the designs on the cloak, so even those failed experiments bore fruit. The recipe I ended up using actually came about by accident while I was working on the shield for the Goliath Barbarian from a few weeks ago.

“A dark, demonic presence, utterly implacable and ultimately unknowable. A monster whose very presence on a world is a death sentence for all who dwell there.”

I’d initially planned to render the sword in muted but clashing gradients to try and convey its demonic energy, much as I had for Abaddon. However, having put in the red of the cloak, eyes, and plasma pistol, I realised that I wanted to keep red as the only strong colour on the model. I instead went the other way, painting the sword blade the same way as I had the armour panels, with the hilt matching the armour trim. I actually ended up liking this effect a lot more than I expected, rather than the weapons feeling like tools he is using, or cursed objects he has found, The Executioner's weapons seem to be forged from the same arcane matter as his armour, as if rather than being corrupted from a once noble form he has stepped fully formed from the warp itself.

One of the most valuable things I think I’ve learned from painting this model is about adding texture to large flat areas. Specifically, while the upper sides and edges of the pauldrons are pitted and scarred, the undersides are both smooth and, frustratingly, very visible. Luckily, it turns out you can simply paint highlights and shadows as if detail existed, even when it doesn’t. Who knew? Once I’d got in some practice on that particular trick, I went back over the areas of trim that I felt were lacking in a bit of visual interest, and added highlights as if there were ridges lined up behind the points where the trim spikes inwards, with a concave curve between. I’m genuinely really fond of this effect, and will probably use it across the rest of The Lord Executioner’s warband.