After a year of wandering, in solitude, tired and weary, among rooks and ravens in the shadows of dark Northern forests, I have found my way home to the dimly lit hallways of FPOA...at least for a while as I will most likely loose myself in the boreal once again.
From craggy and pinecovered fells I have brought with me a small but precious - for me at least - collection of relics, which have been lost for many moons. The first two, Melancholia I and II, are in many ways thought of as a pair. They are beacons of sight and sound, now found and finished:
Melancholia I has been inspired by a hauntingly beautiful painting by Caspar David Friedrich from 1818 of a wanderer lost in a sea of fog. It depicts an Imperial Navigator from the Navis Nobilite (thank you Krautscientist for clarifying) and his servants on their way through the vast expanses of a wartorn galaxy. The Navigator himself is centuries old, tall, thin and pale. His assistants, a burdened, crippled and hunchbacked servant and a blindfolded cherub. Apparently none of them can see, blind or blindfolded as they are - lost in a sea of fog.
Together they make up a small entourage fitting the theme of FPOA eloquently balancing as they are between the visible and invisible worlds of the darkness of the Warp and the light of the God Emperor. And as I have hinted at in earlier FPOA posts there may - literally - be more than what initially meets the eye.
Melancholia II has been inspired by the weathered, dystopian and deeply sensous paintings of artist extraordinaire John Blanche. It depicts an Ecclesiarchy Echo Priest who himself - albeit only through hissing and analogue sound - has haunted the lost Arkke, a vast Space Hulk aimlessly adrift in a silent and long-forgotten corner of the galaxy. Weathered and beaten.
A hunchbacked servant of the Ecclesiarchy preaching the echoes of a millionstrong choir of dying God Emperor devotees. Echoes which can still be heard as a musical discord, an ambient resonance of prayers past, in the vast soundclouds of the Imperium here.
As my painting skills are rusty to say the least the painting process has been trial and error - experimenting mainly with inks and glazes in order to paint more quickly than I used to in the past. So Melancholia I and II represent my point zero. From here onwards I intend to progress and get both better and faster.
But these relics of the past are not all I bring back with me to FPOA from the cold north:
First of all there are now several more relics in my Cabinet of Wonders, which I am working on getting finished and look forward to share with you in the hallways of FPOA. All of them are showing that the divine light of the Emperor works in truly mysterious ways - and that there is a fine line between darkness and light in the wartorn galaxy of the 40K universe.
Secondly, one dreary night while stumbling my way back to FPOA through the boreal I caught glimpses of what appeared to be weathered figures twice the size of ordinary men. Soaring among the craggy pines of the fells. Their distant voices were coarse, rasping and leathery. Like archaic drones they bore through the dimly lit forests with a deep and resonant sound of dry parchment, which, like a palimpsest, had several layers of tones intertwined in each other.
What had caught my eyes - and ears - that night in the boreal were ravens gathering!
When I was asked py PDH to take part in the latest Arkke Retour as eloquently presented on The Tears of Istvaan I began working on my Ecclesiarchy Echo Priest. I imagined him being part of a million strong choir spanning star systems echoing the
dying voices of uncountable God Emperor devotees.
The Echo Priest was to be a beacon of holy, hissing, analogue, mechanical, vox-com sound in a silent and forgotten corner of the vast Imperium - the drifting dark hulk of the Arkke.
Sadly I didnt manage to finish the miniature before the event took place in April.
Instead, as I really wanted to have at least the idea of the Echo Priest present in the Arkke during the game, I managed to pursuade | D R E A M B I E N T | to compose a fitting soundpiece, which PDH played at a certain moment during the game:
Echo Priest Vox-Com Choir
| D R E A M B I E N T | is electronic sound making by composer Martin Darlan Boris, who among other things collaborates with astronomers in the US and Europe. A collaboration I thought was fitting for a game of Warhammer 40K, set as it was, in a dark corner of the galaxy.
I look forward to share with you the finished Echo Priest...until then please do check out some of the other compositions at | D R E A M B I E N T | :
| D R E A M B I E N T |
:)
I have done some more modelling on the =][= Ecclesiarchy Echo Priest.
Added some more flowing robes in order to really capture the sense of him flying. I am working on a single servo skull which will assist him.
Next up some final touches before the paintjob; thin wires, more work on the robes and some parchment/seals here and there.
In between painting my Melancholia Project - where I am now almost done with the blindfolded servant - I do other stuff.
The current project being an =][= Ecclesiarchy Echo Priest. A concept of my own devising inspired by Migsulas wonderful Mirror Master as well as referencing the title of my blog, which in turn is inspired by a wonderful Echospace track.
I imagine Ecclesiarchy Echo Priests as part of a million strong choir spanning star systems echoing the dying voices of uncountable God Emperor devotees. Where the Navigator of my Melancholia I project is a beacon of sight, an Ecclesiarchy Echo Priest is a beacon of sound!
Hissing, analogue, mechanical, vox-com sound echoing a thousand dying souls each. In the words of Michel Serres (read it while thinking of Migs Mirror Master too):
”We resonate with echoes and rhymes. Robinson [Crusoe] visited a desolate valley, a narrow gorge which threw
back the last word of the verse he had uttered aloud: ’my soul’, ’my
soul’, ’my soul’, repeated until silence, the multiplying mirror of his
cogito." (Michel Serres, 1985)
The only thing touching the ground will be the staff. I will do some Servo Skulls assisting in carrying the priest and staff. Also add some more flowing robes, cables, wires and Purity Seals.
