As pre-orders of Warhammer’s gigantic new model of the winged Daemon Prince Be’lakor shipped out on Saturday, Warhammer Age of Sigmar Studio Manager Jes Bickham celebrated “Be’lakor day” by sharing his own magnificent, maleficent miniature paintjob on Twitter. And, well, to use the young people’s lingo… it absolutely slaps.
Online miniature-painting celebrity Darren Latham (who designed the new Be’lakor sculpt himself) tweeted back to congratulate Bickham on a job well done, along with assorted Games Workshop colleagues – including Warhammer TV presenter Nick Bayton, and Warhammer Community preview stream regular Eddie Eccles.
Naturally loyal to his own team’s game world, Bickham chose to build Be’lakor in his fantastical, Age of Sigmar variant (as opposed to the Space Marine helmet-adorned 40k version), and has painted him up in glorious, meticulously edge-highlighted detail – drawing attention both to the model’s preposterously over-the-top badass elements (how many hooks, chains and skulls does one wing need) and the subtler areas, such as the scaly ridges on the daemon’s coal-black skin.
Among the model’s stand-out details is the green-tinted flame running along Be’lakor’s huge sword – and, upon a tweeted enquiry, Bickham sportingly offered up the recipe:
Thanks! It was really just chunks of colour inexpertly blended: Skull White, Moot Green, Warpstone Glow, Caliban Green, Abbadon black at the tips. Glazed with precious reserves of Waywatcher Green, with a teeny highlight of Ushabti Bone down the smoke trail.
— Jes Bickham (@jes_bickham) April 25, 2021
Be’lakor is one of a growing club of old-school Warhammer characters to have their “awesome in their day” miniatures replaced with new plastic sculpts that are at least three times the size, and boast at least twice the detail.
The big winged fella joins such illustrious company as the necromancer lord Nagash, who was reborn in coils of big swooshy death magic alongside Age of Sigmar’s launch in 2015, and the scheming Dark Elf queen Morathi, whose “giant snek” Medusae form hit tables in 2018. Not forgetting, of course, the recently-unveiled new model for floaty toad wizard Lord Kroak, greatest of the Slann Mage Priests. We don’t yet know when he’s coming out, though.
Warhammer 40,000 is also present at the “big plastic makeover” party, of course – with titanic new models for the Daemon Primarchs Magnus and Mortarion coming out in 2016 and 2017 respectively – plus new, chunkier versions of Chaos Warmaster Abaddon in 2019, and famed Ork Warboss Ghazghkull Thraka in 2020.
We just can’t wait to get back to an actual game table and see Be’lakor’s massive wings in the (hell-spawned) flesh. Soon, eh, readers? Soon.
Want to learn to create your own painted models as gorgeous as this one? Check out our full guide to painting miniatures. Or brush up on your Age of Sigmar armies with our guide. Perhaps you’re still looking to start out in the Mortal Realms? Here’s how to pick out an Age of Sigmar starter set.