Black Templar - Painting Contest Entry

I got side tracked. Which means that today I have done no painting on my ork objectives, instead I decided that I wanted to do something different. I am going to enter the LO Painting Contest, for once. If you were unaware, I use to run these - for a very short period and then I decided I could not manage it further, so a member took over. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter - in fact I am happy this idea has continued over the long term. I have seen some stunning entries and some average entries, I am aiming for the former.

The requirements are summed up by the theme setter, Minus_T,

Defiance.
A warrior at his final end, a last act of retribution, or simply someone or something that just won't give up... This contest should be all about the feeling of grit and toughness of a model, the hard core of inner being that will never stop fighting. Even a puny grot about to be crushed by a dreadnought could display defiance to the end!

When I read this I instantly thought of a single thing. A Black Templar marine. In fact the infamous image of them:

Now, I am not good enough to pull that off, and as it turns out I didn't have any banner arms left (no idea where they've all gone too). So I settled on a running Templar with a wide out swinging sword and bringing his combat shield up for a charge. So, I would love to show you pictures of such an cool mini...but I cannot. See, I attempted such a mini, but when I was chopping up the legs of a standing marine to make it look like a running one I discovered that... it was difficult. I just couldn't get the posing right and the GS work was terrible. So, I binned it. :(

So, instead I went for a more static posed marine. But before that I toyed with doing a Dark Angel - but just didn't feel it. So, I went back to the Templar. Changed a few things, decided on others and so far, this is what I have:




His base I'm not yet finished. Maybe. I unsure of what to put onto it, it looks too empty and plain. Any ideas? Look for yourselves:


I want it to be all spaceship like. Maybe even a Rok. Dunno.

Anyway, I have looked up the paint scheme for Templars and the Veterans - Sword Breathren? - have red crosses on a black background rather then the black cross on white. I would like to use red on the tabard on the front due to due seeing how cool this mini looked. But then there would be too much red on the mini if I went with the red crosses. What do you guys think?