Zone Secundus: The Church of the Red Athenæum - Marcelo Lythgoe

By Endurance We Conquer.

After finishing converting two members for a new Church of the Red Athenæum warband for the Zone Secundus setting, it was time to paint one. I decided to start with the heavy weapon specialist, Marcelo Lythgoe, finally putting some paint on the BAR conversion I did years ago!

Marcelo Lythgoe, an assault weapon specialist for the Church of the Red Athenæum.

Lythgoe wears a red sash over his shoulder, signifying his membership in the Church of the Red Athenæum.

I wanted the model’s color scheme to speak towards the treacherous conditions present in Hive/Zone Secundus. And what better way to show a hardened survivor than with beaten and worn leather? Aside from the red sash on his shoulder, nearly every other item of clothing on the model was painted as some form of leather. Using a series of brown and grey paints, I did my best to create a range of different looking leathers. Instead of traditional glazing or wet blending to highlight each type of leather, I used stippling to create interesting textures and marks to imitate natural leather wear. Vallejo makes a really nice Wood & Leather paint set that I used several of the paints from.

I took special care painting several different varieties of worn leather on the model. Much of the wear on the leather was accomplished through stippling.

Marcelo Lythgoe is massive, virtually the size of this true scale Space Marine.

Having painted one of the new Church members, the vision of the new warband is starting to coalesce. I plan to paint the gunfighter soon, before starting to convert a few more members of the warband. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions on Lythgoe or any of the other members of the warband!

- Adam Wier