Sammael in Ornate Golden Terminator Armor — Print & Oil Painting

Gold, and a great deal of it, painted as old brass rather than as jewellery: warm, scuffed, dented along the edges, studded with rows of round rivets the size of fists, with green gems set into the knee and the shoulder and a red cord looped across the chest.

The pose is a state portrait. The figure stands three quarters on and almost still, a broad flat blade resting back over the right shoulder, a long lance carried under the left arm with its point down. A cloak falls behind, red on the inside and dark green at the hem. Above the head rises a personal standard: a winged skull in gold on a stem, its crossbar hung with five smaller skulls.

The background does nothing, deliberately. A vertical wash of grey into near black, no architecture, no ground line, no light source that can be located anywhere. Every scrap of tonal contrast in the picture happens inside the figure.

The title names Sammael, and it is worth saying that nothing else in the image does. The Grand Master of the Ravenwing leads the Chapter's fast attack wing, the riders and skimmer crews sent ahead to find an enemy rather than to hold ground against one, and that wing is painted black. What we have here is gold Terminator plate standing perfectly still. Read it as a portrait of the office rather than a record of the field. From our Warhammer 40.000 collection, and the same commander riding into battle on his skimmer gives the version that matches the job.