Kaedes Nex – The Ghost in the Dark
Kaedes Nex has always fascinated me — not because of who he is, but because of what he represents. The executioner of the Eighth Legion, the silent blade of the Night Lords, the man who kills for others so they don’t have to. On the page, he’s terrifying. In miniature form, though, something’s missing.
The Forge World sculpt is technically fine — sharp details, good proportions, everything we expect. But it doesn’t feel like Kaedes Nex. The artwork and the lore describe a figure that’s half-shadow, half-nightmare — a predator stripped of identity. The model, in contrast, feels too clean, too posed. There’s none of that creeping menace from the novels, none of the sense that he’s about to disappear into the dark before you even register he was there.
So I tried to paint the idea of Kaedes Nex rather than the sculpt itself. The armour sits in muted, broken blues with a film of gloss — like moonlight through smoke. The skin tones are cold and desaturated, more corpse than man. I pushed the shadows deeper than normal, fading the edges of the armour into black to suggest movement — a figure dissolving back into the void.
The lore paints Nex as the assassin who survived his Legion’s madness by embracing it. He serves no master, though Curze once claimed him as his own. He hunts those who stray, not out of loyalty, but ritual. His weapons — twin blades, silent steps — are the echoes of an order long since rotted. In him, we see the Night Lords’ tragedy condensed: brilliance consumed by cruelty, purpose swallowed by obsession.
Painting Nex isn’t about neatness or technique. It’s about tone. Every colour, every transition should whisper, not shout. The real challenge is restraint — knowing when to stop before the darkness swallows everything.
