Last week I posed to you a simple proposition that for some reason stuck in my head; the idea that the Kroot - the mercenary race that have sworn themselves to servitude under the Tau but also for anyone willing to pay their price - are also quite common in Eldar Pirate crews. Not a startling idea I'm sure, but the thought of vicious Kroot boarding a crippled alien vessel in space under the command of Eldar pirates was a real departure from the dust-ridden close assault infantry we see in the service of the Tau. It also brought froward the idea of real characters - a hardened crew or individuals rather than that teeming mass the Tau use them for. So I set about making a small contingent and finally have one finished! |
I went with a very limited pallette (as is my want) and pretty much just have the blue, green, some browns and a touch of black.
The blue was built up in layers, first starting with Fenris Grey from the old paint colours, then mixing it with Celestra Grey from the newer paint range, adding more Celestra Grey until I have 4 layers.
A final lighter mix was then very lightly drybrushed over the model.
The face with then very lightly drybrushed with straight Celestra Grey..
Fenris Grey was then watered down and used around the muscles and the teeth line and face recesses.
Notice the Dark Eldar shin armour is untouched. I wanted this to be really dark and be like it was almost made from shadow. If I shaded it I was worried it would turn out like the flak armour and then miss the point that it was taken from a Dark Eldar he had killed - a trophy as such!
I may gloss this in time - but for now it can stay like this...
I went darker with the shading toward the roots and did very little highlighting only because I wanted it to be a bit subtler. The original vision has white and orange patterning in the spines - maybe for the captain..?
You can see here the tine used for the wrist and also the gold trinket hanging from it. I figured that loot would be a big part of these Kroot's drive in combat, so any trinkets they would have would be valuable looking - certainly more so than their Tau land-based counterparts would have or even see as valuable..
It's not perfect (and the photos are a bit unforgiving I have to say) but looking at the miniature technically it's pretty good; it's clean, there's very little colour bleed from area to area, no metallic contamination in other colours, the drybrushing is controlled, the blending worked well (my first time really blending) and the lines are crisp!
I only did it with the weathering on the flak jacket and the leather loot bag.