The Return of Don Clawleone, Genestealer Patriarch

 I've been feeling a bit rough the last couple of days - nothing serious, just enough to keep me indoors and generally get in the way of the small holiday I'd booked off work (typical!). So I got out the old Genestealer Patriarch model and had a go at improving him a bit.

This miniature really is one of the great moments of Oldhammer. Yes, he's completely out of style with more recent models, but the sculpting is superb (the sheer detail is amazing, considering that this thing was sculpted by hand) and the sense of character is great. He's 40k's equivalent of Jabba the Hutt, a bloated, wily crime lord sitting on his excessive throne. You can imagine what he'd be like just from the way he looks. Together with his seedy magus advisor, he's almost a diorama in itself.

Anyhow, I added two resin plinths to the back of the model (thanks Ruth). One of the plinths had a burning brazier on it. After a lot of thinking I decided that Don Clawleone the Patriarch would display one of his favourite trophies on the other plinth. A skull, perhaps? How about the helmet of a Blood Angels Terminator, the old enemy from Space Hulk?

I also put a Mantic scenery bit, representing some documents and a knife, next to the magus. I painted a little Imperial Eagle on the papers. In the UK, it's traditional for lawyers to bind documents with pink ribbon (God knows why, this country makes the Imperium look logical), so I painted a pink string tying them together.

I tried to add a bit more highlighting and to tidy up a bit of the old painting. In a move that surprised even me, I added a bit of weathering powder to the sculpted base, which is meant to represent rusted metal plates (I've no idea where it came from). There's a nice bloodstain along the floor, and the Don is cleaning blood off his claws, so I suspect that he just made someone an offer they couldn't refuse (because they're now dead).