Gotrek & Felix - Dragon Slayer - Painted miniatures

For a while now I had been looking to paint Gotrek & Felix. I finally got around to doing this after rediscovering the books on Audible and listening to them on my daily commute (let's face it, world news isn't exactly much less depressing than the hardships and foe-slaying that goes on in the Warhammer universe! - but at least it's fiction!!). Yes, I know they aren't exactly brain-challenging reading, and were written for kids in another era, but they brought back fond memories and were perfect listening for driving AND they are filled with with enough Warhammer characters, races and rich-world escapism to satisfy any Warhammer Fantasy or Old World enthusiast (and later, Age of Sigmar!).

Unable to find any miniatures for less than extortionate prices on eBay, I tracked down a retailer for the original-looking casting.

But painting the miniatures on their small round bases didn't feel heroic enough, so I went searching for some "dungeon crawler" themed bases on eBay and found these resin flagstone bases.

No spoilers (lol - you can tell what happened from the book title!) but I had just finished reading/listening to Dragon Slayer (Book 4) by William King. Felix needed to have a heroic base to match his pose and worthy of his sword: Karaghul - Rune Sword.

Fortunately, I had the plastic parts left over for a largely metal High Elf Dragon Lord that I painted last year. It was perfect, as it included a head and a tail for me to use with both miniatures and link them together.

Felix Jaeger's red cloak is made out of Sudenland wool. I attempted, given my limited painting skills, to give the wool some texture. I did the same for his leather trousers and vambraces. You'll notice that I avoided the stripey leggings that feature in most cover art. I don't think I recall them ever being mentioned in the books, so I went for something that seemed more in keeping with the text than the cover art, but I do understand this is what most miniature painters expect to see. Not from me though!

The back of the Dragon's head was open as it was meant to be attached to a long scaley neck. This also made it difficult as the jaw wouldn't be attached to anything either. So, using a ball of green stuff I attached the two parts together and made it seem that the head was decapitated. The edges were given some scale effects by rolling the metal grip markings of a modelling knife along the greenstuff and then flattening the "chopped" side and painting it will blood red to distinguish it from the other reds on the model. 

Believe it or not, there are multiple reds in play here... one set for the cloak, one for the dragon scales, and one for the blood effect. 

Given that the jaw was separated, I was able to exaggerate the look of a dead Dragon by misaligning the jaw and giving the impression the tongue was lolling out (hopefully!).

Next up was the fearsome Trollslayer Gotrek himself. Now, in my defence, there's not much of him that isn't fiery orange hair and axe - Az-Dreugidum. 

I had artistic license with the axe here. I know the books mention that the axe runes would glow, and I seem to remember it being a ruddy glow, but I went with a hint of magical blue light.

Of course, the magical blue light had to differentiate itself from the blue of his tattoos. I had a go and freehanding some. Not great, but you get the idea.

The metal work may also differ from the book too, as I know Gotrek had a collection of gold chain bracelets, but I didn't want too much gold along with his belt, so painted the axe and nose chain silver. The book also mentions that Gotrek wore boots, but hey... it's all made up fantasy stuff anyway, so who really minds, eh?

Lastly, I painted the "chopped off" tail blood red and made it glisten with some gloss varnish. I was a little annoyed that I didn't spend a bit more time removing the mold lines from the spines on the tail

Well, that's another little hobby blog done. These miniatures will go on the book case. They don't really feature in any games I play - so they are just painted for me to enjoy. Hopefully my tame efforts will inspire others. I'm happy with the end product, and it's another item ticked off the mental list of things I wanted to do. Happy hobbying all!