Back in December I found myself falling to the temptations of the Great Horned Rat and painted up some Skaven for the first time. In signing off that post, I mentioned that I'd a couple more of the ratmen in the works in the form of a Warlock Engineer with warplock musket and a Clawlord on Gnawbeast.
Sadly, the Clawlord's gnawhole must have taken a wrong turn as a Lord-Vigilant on Gryph-stalker materialised in its' place. Although the mix up wasn't all that much hassle in the grand scheme of things, it threw a bit of a wrench into my plans, so I focused my attention elsewhere during the festive period and so it might have remained, had I not popped into Warhammer Falkirk while Mrs TC and I were visiting the in-laws just before Hogmanay as the manager there mentioned the forthcoming New Year New Challenge event and when I looked a bit puzzled, handed be a bingo card:
This was actually the first I'd heard about New Year New Challenge but it seems to have replaced New Year New Army which is actually something of a relief, at least personally speaking, because army painting is something I find a struggle to stick with.
After looking over the bingo card and thinking (and then thinking some more) about what I fancied having a go at completing (and what I might realistically actually complete), the Warlock Engineer came back to mind. I could kill a couple of birds with this 'stone' I thought. So having checked with the Inverness store manager that he was doing New Year New Challenge, I set my sights on the first challenge for the year being Paint a Warhammer Age of Sigmar character miniature and got to work on the Skaven that was lurking in the corner of my desk...
To tie this verminous sharpshooter to the Clanrat and Stormvermin, there are some common elements across all three, such the skin, tails, teeth and claws, but as the Engineer hails from Clan Skryre and would no doubt have scrambled up a few more rungs of the ladder of what passes for Skaven society, I drew quite a bit of inspiration from photos of the studio colour scheme and included some more 'exotic' colours across the model as well.
The 'worky-gubbinz' on the Warlock's back presented a great opportunity to have some fun with various metallic tones as well as the sparing application of some corrosion to help suggest that the kit could be maintained with a little more care. The warpstone power source offered another opportunity to add a splash of additional colour to the model as well with the slightly sickly green visible no matter where the model is viewed from thanks to the cables and eyepiece.
I mentioned in my previous post just how well I think the designers and sculptors did in updating the Skaven range, and I think one of things that shows across all of the new miniatures are the 'wee details' that not only add character but also offer options to the painter and the Warlock Engineer is no exception, from the wood grain of the musket and work gloves with knuckle guards to the rat emerging from beneath its robe and the mechanical right leg which could be a replacement for a limb lost in combat, or just the result of the Engineer enhancing its' body.
With the Clawlord remaining ensconced somewhere in The Gnaw, it's quite likely that this will be the last Skaven on my hobby desk for the time being, but it's been great fun to paint a few of the new miniatures up and it was also great to use New Year New Challenge to get re-inspired to work on a project and to be finishing up another model pretty quickly as well . With Paint an Age of Sigmar character miniature now completed (well, once I get the bingo card stamped anyway), my thoughts have begun to turn to what to work on next and as usual I've a few ideas most of which involve something from a skirmish game - I'll save more details for a future post though.
Until then, as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.
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