The only thing more horrifying than the Inquisition succeeding in our goals is our enemies succeeding in theirs.

– Inquisitor Kant, Ordo Digna

This is Inquisitor Syman Kant, founder of the Ordo Digna. The Ordo Digna is a (very) minor Ordo of the Inquisition charged with overseeing the quality and purity of religious art in the Imperium. You can read more about Inquisitor Kant in my short story A Matter of Time on the Cold Open Stories website. As you can see I’ve incorporated my usual LED flourishes (more on this below) in the form of a wrist-mounted data slate and a bionic eye for Zelial, Syman’s servo skull.

Influences

I imagine that all Warhammer 40K players have an archetypal Inquisitor that they picture when someone mentions these sinister agents of the Imperium. They might picture Eisenhorn, or perhaps Draco from the Inquisition Wars trilogy, or even the venerable Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau. But for me, it was this anonymous black-clad Inquisitor from the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook that really captured my imagination when I first got into the game.

As you can see, Syman Kant is a reasonably close copy of this Inquisitor, even down to the heraldry. This is a model that I’ve wanted to recreate for years, and now I’ve finally found the time!

LEDs

As regular readers will know, I normally like to build my LED circuits from scratch. But in this case I used a Warhammer 32/40mm Base Lighting Kit. This is a pre-built circuit from Small Scale Lights that they kindly sent to me for evaluation. The kit can be seen in the photo below. It comes with two nano LEDs in a colour of your choosing – the LEDs on the one I received were both red. Both LEDs must be the same colour, presumably this is to keep the circuit simple. It runs from a single CR1220 button cell, which is not included. According to the Small Scale Lights website this battery will power the LEDs for 40 hours. The circuit is switched on and off by a magnetic reed switch, which is a slightly more compact solution than the slide PCB switches I often use. A single 3mm magnet is included to operate the reed switch.

As the name of the product suggests, it will fit into a 32mm base. That’s what I used for this model. I just followed my normal technique (as seen in my LED Eye Lenses tutorial) of cutting out the top of the 32mm base…

…and inserting the circuit in the gap.

Next I used some modelling putty around the rim of the circuit to secure it in place while I made the rest of the model. At this point it’s worth checking two things:

1. That the base sits flush to the table with the circuit in place, the battery inserted and the activating magnet attached to the reed switch (although I understand that the magnetic switch is latching in the latest version of this product and the magnet does not need to remain in place). If you don’t check this your finished model may be wonky!

2. That you have offset the circuit to the side of the base enough so that you can still access the battery when the time comes to change it. This should be easy enough in a 40mm base, but in a 32mm base it will require careful positioning.

Once the circuit was in place I then drilled 2mm holes in the legs, torso and arm of my model to run the nano LED cables through.

One LED went into the servo skull (the wire is disguised as one of the skulls trailing leads), and the other went into a resin arm data slate that I custom cast. Once I’d finished assembling the model I coiled up slack from the wires beneath the model’s feet, covered the circuit with modelling putty and then basing text medium. Then it was ready for undercoating – but don’t forget to cover the LEDs with blu-tack when spraying!

Here’s a 360 degree video of the finished miniature. I’m very pleased with the effect. The Small Scale Lights circuit has held up very well so far and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to get into LED model kits but doesn’t fancy doing any soldering!

That’s all for this week, I hope you found that interesting, thanks for reading!