Trajann Valoris is the staple Adeptus Custodes character. Painted at battle-ready level, you can get him table-ready fast while making him stand out with some eye popping details.

Even if this Trajann is the centerpiece for the army, the goal with battle ready models is to make sure that they still fit with the army. As such, I try to keep the armor and weapon in line with the rest of the army and not over do it there.

Now the cloak is where I want to put that extra effort. Red is one of my favorite color to paint, so that helps, but it’s also how you can tell Adeptus Custodes units and characters apart.

Some centerpiece models stand out on their own, like Primarchs, because of their size. This is not the case here, so we have to force it a little bit. The lion is I painted in a very light grey, or off white if you prefer, to really make Trajann stand out from the rest. You could put a lot more effort into it, but again, this is a compromise to keep the price low for a battle ready commission model.