Clan Stryke…

Hell-o,

Unfortunately I had my first big setback on this project…that didn't take long!

I built the Clawlord model that used to be the named character Queek Headtaker formally of clan Mors minus the trophy wrack as previously stated in my last blog, the hole in his back was harder to fill than I thought it would be. I'm not used to this kind of thing so it looked really obvious that it used to be a hole so after much messing about with it I'm pretty happy with it. It's not super flat but it looks like it could have been damaged and patched up or just shoddy Skaven ironwork.

I went with an undercoat of black (Abbadon Black if you must know) and a spray of "ard cote" to stop scuffs and this is what he looks like:

Stage one, complete! Oh and at this point I decided to magnetise the base to make storage easy in future. I think this will work out in the long run but being my first attempt, I definitely had fun with Milliput, magnets and shallow bases, I'll let you fill in the blanks here.

After this I now had a good look at him and decided on quite a bit of lore while just trying to come up with a name for him; I'll probably expand on the lore stuff in a later post but let's just say, this guy is called "Ratu-Phan" which means thirteen or "Leader who appears" in the clan Stryke code-speak. He is the Grandmaster of the clan which is known as The Dyn.

That's enough about the lore; let's get back to painting him!

Stage two is all about the colour scheme (duh!). My clan Stryke is based on the colours of the "true" clan Stryk (without an "e") which means, black armour and purple cloth are today's flavours so:

For the chainmail: Drybrush (gently) all chainmail with Dark Reaper, Drybrush all chainmail (where the light would catch) with The Fang, Shade all chainmail with Druchii Violet, Pick out the highest areas of chainmail with The Fang… I'm not sure if that's it finished but it's ok for now.

The cloth: All cloth is picked out with Naggaroth Night, Highlight the cloth with Xereus Purple

I then do a thinner highlight with a mix (approx. 50/50) of Xereus Purple and Daemonette Hide, after this do a super fine highlight of Daemonette Hide.

Next I'm on to the fur and skin:

I wanted the white to be a kind of champagne / cream gold colour (it will all make sense in the end, trust me) so I painted it as such:

Fur: Pick out all the fur with Balor Brown, Highlight almost all of the fur with a mix (approx. 70/30) Zandri Dust and Balor Brown (just leave the darkest recesses Balor Brown), Highlight a little less of the fur with a mix (approx. 50/50) with the above Zandri/Balor and Ushabti Bone, Highlight a little less of the fur with a mix (approx. 50/50) with the above mix and Screaming Skull, Highlight just the tips with pure Screaming Skull, Do dots of a mix (approx. 50/50) of pure Screaming Skull and White Scar.

Face: To this point you've just done all the face with fur, now add some Flayed One Flesh to the mix (about 50/50) and start highlighting the fleshy bits, Do a final highlight of pure Flayed One Flesh to the most raised areas.

As you can see he's starting to get there and it's bringing out a nice bit of personality to the model but he still has a long way to go. The painting process (once I gave him a proper bath and got rid of all the releasing fluid residue that was killing my undercoat (I swear it's a trap!)) was a dream… the same can't be said about the building and cleaning up of the mini. I did not have fun with this guy and as my first experience to "Citadel Finecast" I can promise you I will be doing everything in my power to dodge this kind of thing in future! ("Let the hate flow through you!" - Palpatine on finecast) Yes, I'm not a fan of building miniatures anyway but all the supports were so badly placed on the model that I ended up butchering the poor bugger just doing clean-up, hopefully I can cover up my barbary with some clever paint magic but we'll see. Maybe I was unlucky and this was a bad model or a bad casting but in all honesty it would pretty much have to be life or death for me to even risk it in future.

Rant over, I still believe I can get this guy finished in time for the end of the month deadline I set and I (fingers crossed) hope that I can get a good amount of next month's project set up ready as it's going to be a big one. I will refer to units as "Mischief" as in "a mischief of rats" as they are known (like a murder of crows or a gaggle of geese)… so my next Mischief are purchased and have been dubbed "The Yanni-Kumo" so that's something to look forward to right?

Anyway that's enough for now, I'll be back soon enough.

Yours,

Forever in horror,

Poison226

PS. For those of you who have read this far, the "big setback" I refer to at the beginning of this post has to do with my health not the project, not the mini, not even finding the time to paint or inspiration but at least this has given me time to write lore, prepare and some other stuff which is in the pipeline. There's nothing to worry about, I'm mostly fine, I'm not going to die or anything but it's just one of those things that just slows me down from time to time. I hope you're all doing ok and your projects are going well, feel free to message me with what you've been up to this month, it's always great to talk to others who are doing their own projects.