One thing I’m still of a mixed mind about in the Chaos Space Marine Codex is the whole icon thing. Having to have one model in a unit being an icon bearer is a bit of a pain when it comes to WYSIWYG modeling. It’s not so bad for vanilla CSMs, as they have the parts for having someone tote around an icon on the sprue. For terminators, though, it’s a bit trickier. For one thing, there’s no comparable parts. For another, they don’t have any free hands. At a loss for what to do, and not really feeling like drilling into a terminator’s body, I pulled out my Green Stuff. Now, before the other night, I’d never really used Green Stuff for anything but patching gaps and doing pseudo-pinning, but suddenly I felt brave. What if the icon bearer’s armor itself was the icon? Of course, this meant one thing – putting the mark of Khorne on him, and that meant sculpting. That’s the mark of a good hobby – it encourages you to stretch yourself and try things you haven’t done before. Getting my Green Stuff, hobby knife, and cup of water ready, I got to work.

I was happy enough with the results to repeat it on his shoulder, and then again on my Terminator Lord, who also bears the mark of Khorne. So, how’d I do it? Here’s how:

1. Put a small blob of Green Stuff where you want the mark, and smooth it out a bit until it’s the roughly the shape and size you want.

2. Using a hobby knife (and remembering to keep it wet/lubricated), trim the excess away until you have a square.3. Cut away a triangle from the top center of your square.4. Carefully cut away a thin, rectangular piece with one angled end, trying to keep close to the angle of your triangluar cut above.5. Just below your rectangular cut, cut away another triangle.6. Repeat the cuts on the other side, trying to stay as symmetrical as possible.7. Okay, now comes the part where you cut away the triangle in the middle of the mark. You could just try to dig out a triangle, but that doesn’t work terribly well. It’s cleaner and easier to subtract more than you need, and then add back pieces of what you cut away. Cut away a triangle from the bottom of your Green Stuff, larger than the one on top. Set aside the piece you’ve removed. You’re going to need it for the next (and final) step.8. Finally, take part of the triangle you just removed – approximately half of it – and reshape it into a narrow horizontal piece. Place it at the bottom of the area you just removed, and smooth the ends so that it’s one piece with the rest of your mark.

Trim up any rough edges from the ends, and you’re set – one mark of Khorne wherever you want it. Once it’s cured, you can sand it smooth to even out any marks from your fingers/sculpting tools. Throw it on shoulder pads, backs, the sides of Rhinos, or anywhere you might need to venerate the Blood God!