Xhorik 87th Commission Art

We have something a little different today.

A few months ago, I came across some nice-looking art for an Imperial Guard regiment on a hobby community site. I was intrigued enough that I reached out to the artist and asked what it would take to get a piece done for my Xhorik 87th Drop Troopers. The price seemed reasonable so I decided to give it a try. I shared with him the little bit of story I had written on this blog and a bunch of photos of painted models. I told him to just create whatever he felt would represent the models and the background.

After a few months, here is the result:

Antax pattern lascarbine sketch

I am very impressed with the effort he put into capturing the unique model of lasgun I converted. 

The second thing he created were the markings and emblems.

He drew a firebird based on the regimental banner model that I painted. And if you look at the badges, there are a lot of 8s and 7s in the imagery, such as the 7-sided polygons inside the 8-sided polygons or the numbers of spears, to represent the 87th. He used spears to represent this regiment being the spear tip of an Imperial army. And of course lots of orange, the regimental color. I really appreciated all the thought he put into the symbolism. The small badges are meant to be at a resolution that could be printed onto transfers for shoulder pads, if I ever want to try that.

Drop trooper sketch

Drop trooper in action

Here is everything put together. 

I think it turned out pretty great. You can tell he put a lot of thought into the project. The art of the trooper is a little busy for my taste, but I like that he captured the unique helmet (on the ground) and lasgun from my conversions and tried to convey a sense of what a drop trooper would be doing: calling in bombing strikes rather than fighting in the trenches. Overall, it was pretty cool to collaborate with someone else I've never met on a hobby project.