A Warhammer Bestiary: Manticore

Ages ago I started a painting project, but like so many others before me, it became lost in the myriad of other projects that I started working on. It was called A Warhammer Bestiary and it was my attempt to paint one model for each entry in the Warhammer Third Edition Bestiary. Clicking on the link will take you through the models I have completed so far, that is the entire 'Intelligent Races' section from the book. I also managed to get a giant painted (the first entry in the 'Giant Races' section, obviously) before McDeath and a couple of other projects took hold. I just checked through my blog and discovered that I first started trying to work through the bestiary over two years ago, and that the last entry I posted was way back in March last year!

Rather by accident, I have started work once again on the project. I had a Jes Goodwin manticore lying around on my workstation for ages and ages, and last night, while I was working on one of this month's entries to A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers, I slapped on a little colour and inked on the shading. He is way off my chronological list ( minotaurs are next for the project) but we can treat him as a detour like we did the treemen. 

As it was reasonably bright this morning (for winter) I put my entry to one side and cracked on with this beautiful beast. Surprisingly, he painted up rather quickly and I was very pleased with the result, though there are a couple of areas I would like to revisit on the mane and scorpion tail - but he will do for now. 

The background for Manticores can be found on p.256 of WFB3 and it states that these chaotic beasts were created as a side effect of the collapse of the Old Slann warpgates. They generally have a head of a man, and I painted my model to reflect this little nugget of information, the body of a lion, wings and some kind of prehensile tail, in this model's case - the tail of an arachnid, complete with sting! 

I tried out a few new things with this piece. Painting a decent orange was the first and most significant. Usually, my oranges come out either too muddy (looking like a yellow clay) or far too red, so I am really proud of the rich tone I have managed to bring out here. My secret? The Foundry yellow triad, oh and some careful highlighting too. 

Painting black can be tricky, so I was keen to try out highlighting the colour with blue on the tail. Andy Craig mentioned such a technique to me way back when, so I thought it about time I had a crack at it. It was fairly straightforwards- I selected a bright blue, mixed in a fair blob of black and basecoated the tail, slowly, I added a little more and a little more of the blue until I was using just blue as the final highlight. 

Having a read through the rules, Manticores are fearsome creatures on the tabletop and weigh in at an impressive 200 points each, 250 points if winged! So this model is one terrifying beast! Have a look if you are interested..

Right, I have a couple of other projects on the boil at the moment as I have already said, but hopefully it won't be months and months until I have another crack at a model in this one. I shall be returning to task next time, as I am supposed to be attempting to paint all of the models in the order they are listed in the Bestiary - so my next piece will be a minotaur!

Orlygg