'You can't just cry to whichever god suits - pick one and pray like hell that you picked right, like the rest of us do!'Gotrek Gunisson, the underhalls of Skeltmorr
Having painted up Maleneth Witchblade back in May it seemed only right to have a crack at the most (least?) successful slayer of all time Gotrek Gurnisson as well.
Before I set about doing any painting though, I had a good rummage through my bits boxes because out of the box Gotrek is intended to be assembled on a scenic base covered in fallen Skaven and their shattered wargear and I wanted him on something more similar to the crumbling stonework of Maleneth's base. After a thorough search, I turned up some tumbled columns left over from an MESBG Gondor Tower that I put together a couple of years back. Combined with the judicious application of texture paste to cover a couple of gaps in the parts, I was pretty confident that once the base was painted, Gotrek would look right at home next to Maleneth - as he should after their travails across the Mortal Realms together.
Playing around with more of the recipes from 'Eavy Archive, I decided to have a wee go at something a little different for Gotrek's skin since there's quite a lot of it:
Starting with a basecoat of Cadian Fleshtone, I used a 1:1 mix of Fyreslayer Flesh and Contrast Medium as an initial shade before adding a drop of Targor Rage to the mix and painting it straight into the deeper recesses of Gotrek's muscles and facial features.
Once the shades were fully dry, I used thinned Cadian Fleshtone to start establishing some highlights, which was followed up with a 1:1 Cadian Fleshtone and Kislev Flesh to refine them. This took a few passes but once I was happy, I applied pure Kislev Flesh as a final highlight. Once I was happy with how Gotrek's skin was looking, I thinned down The Fang and carefully painted the tattoo on his scalp - I debated adding others, but my freehand skills aren't that strong so I erred on the side of caution rather than make a mess of things. To help suggest the tattoo is actually 'under' the skin, I glazed the design with a little of the 1:1 Cadian Fleshtone and Kislev Flesh mix.
I was pretty happy with how things were looking at this point, so to finish off, I used a glazes of Fyreslayer and Guilliman Flesh to tie everythingtogether a bit more before re-applying Targor Rage to around some of the muscles where I felt a little definition had been lost as well as to Gotrek's facial scar and his nose.
Gotrek carries some singular wargear in his journeys about the Mortal Realms and I spent time lavishing attention upon that too. Despite his disdain for the followers of Grimnir, Gotrek wields an heirloom axe of Fyreslayer origin known as Zangrom-Thaz. I added some slight tones of blue to the blades to hint at the exotic alloys that might have gone into it's forging and threw in a couple of extra splashes or brass to the haft to break up the large area of silver.
The most fun part however was painting the glowing coals caged in the head of the axe. From a basecoat of Averland Sunset, I layered on some Flash Gitz Yellow and then added some highlights using a 1:1 mix of Flash Gtiz Yellow and White Scar. I then used successive shades of thinned Fire Dragon Bright, Wild Rider Red, Khorne Red and finally a 1:1 mix of Khorne Red and Abaddon Black to build up the infernal glow. To finish up, I carefully painted thinned Leadbelcher into the middle of the bars of the brazier so it looked like the glow was coming from behind them.
Crafted in the likeness of a Flamescar Lion an apex predator of The Parch in Aqshy, the shoulder plate of Edassa armours Gotrek's left side where once stood his friend and chronicler of his doom Felix Jaeger. The Warhammer studio team painted the one on the boxart black, but after looking over the covers of the Age of Sigmar novels featuring Gotrek, I felt that a more metallic scheme was more fitting. Starting with a basecoat of Iron Warriors, I shaded the shoulder plate with Agrax Earth and then Nuln Oil before applying highlights of Ironbreaker. Stormhost Silver was then used to pick out some fine highlights.
Gotrek triumphantly brandishes the Master Rune of Krag Blackhammer just prior to hammering it into his own flesh to defy the machinations of the Skaven and while I think it's meant to be made of ur-gold, I thought it would look better in a colder brass tone. I used a basecoat of Runelord Brass to begin, which was shaded down with Agrax Earth. I then layered on a little Brass Scorpion before adding some highlights of Canoptek Alloy. This wasn't quite popping enough, so I went back and used Stormhost Silver to push the extreme highlights a bit higher.
Painting up Gotrek Gurnisson has been great fun, and working on the miniature inspired me to give the short stories
One, Untended,
The Dead Hours,
Death on the Road to Svardheim and
The Neverspike a read.
While One, Untended and The Neverspike (published in 2018 and 2019 respectively) are ok, they suffer slightly from not really adding anything to either Gotrek or Maleneth's characters or the relationship that's beginning to form between them. I think this blandness (for want of a better term) is the case for quite a lot of the e-shorts written around this time though and could be the authors trying to illustrate that at this point in the overarching narrative the pair are barely more than grudgingly in the same place rather than genuine companions. Either way, I'm not going to complain too much as they were entertaining enough for the couple of quid they each cost.
On the other hand The Dead Hours and Death on the Road to Svardheim (both published in 2020) are much more enjoyable. The growing bonds between Maleneth and Gotrek are explored more substantially and doing so reveals more about both of them individually as well as shining light on what life is like in the Realms they are traversing. Both stories are also genuinely funny in several places which helps to breathe more life into the protagonists and the way they feel about one another. Being more refined in this fashion means that they work well as standalone stories too, so if you're looking for a quick read that's set in the Mortal Realms and requires little to no foreknowledge of characters or events, you could do worse than these two.
While I was taking photos of Gotrek, it seemed fitting to finish up by having a wee stab at 'book cover' style picture of him alongside Maleneth and I think it came out quite nicely.
I'm not sure what will be on the hobby desk next as there are a few things I fancy working on at the moment, but I'll be sure to share whatever I get up to when I can. Until next time though, as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.
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