Acceptable Radiation: The Estallian Peacock

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

The Estallian Peacock

So there I was standing before the largest giant in all of Estalia and I says to him, to him I says, "surrender now, or I'll chop ye' down to my size!" Now, of course, giants aren't the brightest knife in the drawer so he didnae surrender when 'e 'ad the chance. So I pulls out my trusty axe and went ta work...

Much like my HeroQuest orc for the Scale Creep guys, this dwarf is another example of the strange lines that my brain draws for inspiration. It all started when I picked up the Scale 75 Steel Metal N Alchemy set, which includes some colored metallic paints and a guide to using them. I wanted to try out the metallic greens in the guide. After searching through my giant pile of unpainted models, I came across an old Marauder Iron Breaker almost entirely encased in armor. He'd be a perfect test subject!

So the pose on this model just made me think about that the dwarf inside is full of confidence. Then I started thinking about how dwarfs are often portrayed with many characteristics of the Scots. Which of course made me think about one of the greatest movies in the history of cinema: Highlander. A movie with a Frenchman playing a Scot and the suavest Scot to ever live playing an Egyptian who lived in Spain. A character frequently referred to as a "Spanish Peacock." Thus, the idea of the Estallian Peacock was born.

Because he's mostly armor, he was a pretty easy model to paint. Scale 75's guide calls for a base of Emerald Alchemy, which is shaded with Black Metal. Then highlights are applied by first mixing White Alchemy into the Emerald Alchemy and then a layer of Amethyst Alchemy, and a final highlight of pure White Alchemy.

The axe also followed the Steel guide, which is a base of Black Metal and Thrash Metal mixed. With highlights of Heavy Metal, then Heavy Metal mixed with Speed Metal (to pure Speed Metal), with a final highlight of White Alchemy and a final shade of pure Black Metal. I applied some yellow and orange glazes around the runes to give the impression they are glowing.

The beard roughly followed Darkblade's Blonde Beard tutorial. It didn't come out too blonde, but I think it still came out well.

The Estallian Peacock charges into battle against a pair of terrifying ogres

So of course such a resplendent knight needs a squire. And that too got me to thinking. And you know who else was Spanish and had a squire? Don Quixote, that's who! As an aside, if you haven't ready DwarfCrypt's excellent blog post on Don Quixote, I suggest you do. So of course, this adds to the idea that the Estallian Peacock is completely out of touch with reality.

And so Sander the squire was born. For him, I chose another Marauder dwarf (I love the Marauder Dwarfs, best dwarfs ever sculpted!). This spearman just looks tired, which is appropriate as he is stuck following around a lunatic.

Sander is a pretty simple paint job, I painted his coat red and yellow to match the colors of Spain, so as to further tie in the Spanish undertones Additionally, I painted his shield based the Little Big Man Studio El Cid era shields.

That was probably the most complicated free hand I've ever painted but I'm very happy with how it came out, maybe only the dots don't look quite right. I also left of battle damage as, well, they don't get into a lot of real fights. Tree branches probably don't scratch up your shield too bad!