Cheers,
I would like to take a moment to explain some of my choices around this image.
_-Character-_
Bloodspiller
I wanted the character to have the characteristics of a true follower of Khorne. What does this mean? Well, in my opinion that means a person who will spill blood for glory, spill blood for honour, spill blood for sustenance, spill blood for healing, spill blood for survival...and all of the above in the name of Khorne.
That might sound very bloody and gory, but Im aproaching this from a psychological point of view, and I dont mean that there wont be blood (obviously there is, you've seen the WiPs) but rather I am trying to show a man who spends all of his waking hours spilling blood. Not all times it will be in a frenzy, some times it will be in joy, in sadness in straining situations and when tired.
TechnoGladiator
Angron has the agressive-augmenting chips stuck to his head. These are meant to augment his agressiveness whilst fighting as a Gladiator. They also make him get uncontrollable fits of rage, which will, after years, decades, centuries be tiresome, even for a Primarch.
Skulltaker
This is more visual, there will be skulls, lets keep it at that.
_-Style-_
Gladiator
I am trying my best to make the armour of Angron look very much greco-roman gladiator-styled. But I cannot do that completely since this is set in the distant future, far out in space.
Images by Wayne England and the cover of Tales of Heresy have stood as influence for some of the details, such as the Bevor stretching behin his head, partially shielding the cabling from behind. The two romanesque chest-shields are also based upon Roman and Greek armour adornments.
Mola Ram
I wanted the character to have certain traits that just looked... characterful an ambigous.
I used several faces as reference for this character, one of the ones that you lot probably had no clue about is that of Mola Ram (played by Amrish Puri) from Temple of doom.
The character is just perfect as inspiration for Angron- shrinking heads, taking out hearts and running a bloodcult, plus he has some features that just made me think Angron- The broad chin with high cheekbones, the dark around the eyes and the red paint on the head - aching to the same thing on all known illustrations of Angron (before Demonprince).
I am still altering the face somewhat though for the most part I am done with it, I am not going to give him more colour like Mola Ram, I dont want it to be a copy, rather just inspired by him. And thats how I use ref nowadays, as inspiration and to get light correct.
Other references
I took a lot of inspiration from painters Kevin Llewellyn and Michael Hussar, aswell as Rubens and Rembrandt (mostly their way of using Chiaroscuro, a way of painting very dark darks and very bright brights- to simplify it alot).
This explains my colours alot.
White Armour?
Yes, I am painting Angrons armour White and Brass/Copper, with small patches of other colours such as red and green.
The reason for this is actually a personal preference based upon something fellow artist an friend Nicholás Giancola (Aerion-the-Faithful) said after having painted Angron:
"There's an official representation of Angron, which I didn't hold too close to my chest when coming up with my own vision. To me, his gladiatorial past was paramount to the character as well as the whole anger stance he should have. On top of that, I also envisioned this Primarch to be like Alpharius: closer to the rank and file soldier than high up above them. Getting dirty is a must for a leader who's watched in horror how all of his battle brothers were slaughtered in his homeworld.
There are a few details I'd like to point out and which hold particular interest to me: the gory axe versus the white of his armour are something I love. I thought about the grim fact that white armour would likely be moist with blood all the time, making it more noticeable and terrible to behold; I chose it over the gold of the official."
This stuck with me, and even though I'm not going towards a blueish tangentcolour to the white, the idea stays the same- Blood just stands out more on white.
I just hope there will be enough white armour to show it when I'm done...
There, some reasoning behind how I paint this personal painting.
and here is the update;
