Verminlord

Back with more Skaven, this time the big cheese himself: the Verminlord!

Specifically I built the kit as the named variant Screech Verminking, and he is by far the tallest model in the army at 6.5in/ 17cm. Ever since this kit came out right at the end of the old world Warhammer I’ve wanted one, so it’s nice to finally have an excuse to buy and paint it.

It’s a fantastic model, but I found it quite daunting to paint, because of its size and the amount of detail all over it. I’ve been practicing techniques I knew I would have to use on this model on other models in the army, refining my big model skin on first the Stormfiends then the Hell Pit Abomination.

The skin was painted in multiple stages, alternating airbrushing and brush work to get a nice mix of smooth gradients and nice texture all over the model. The early airbrush work set the overall tones (darker reds below, light skin above), followed by layering and highlighting by brush in three stages, painting in detail where the model was a bit flat (painting the rings on the tails took some willpower!). Finally I used the airbrush again to add some more tones in, with some dark reds and purples to enhance the shadows. A final brushed on highlight took care of any areas where I overdid that last airbrush pass.

Overall I’m very happy with it, I painted it roughly over a week and a half, in a few paint sessions scattered over the period. It makes a nice centre-piece for the army.

With that, I only have a few heroes and a small weapons team left to complete my 2000pt list. Will I have the willpower to stick with this and see it through, or get dragged back to the North African desert or some other project entirely? I have no idea and will find out over the next few days!