Rogue trader fishman - Zhar d'uin, piscean prince

After painting a brutal demon of violence and malevolence for last post, I decided to go with something a little more elegant and refined. I've had this piscean warrior model for quite sometime, (actually got it with my Space minotaur) and had yet to make something of him. The model is a fishman based on the original piscean warrior from the first Rogue trader release and sculpted by Diego Superstar Serrate.

picture from Solegend

Now, Diego's version, though inspired by the original, is a lot different in the details. The sculpt is taller, thinner and it has a very noble pose with his hand on the hilt of the sword (instead of holding a boltgun) and its elongated limbs. I'd even go as far as to say I prefer this one to the original (good thing for me since getting my hands on one of the originals would make my wallet bleed).

Now, I do like to paint a model with fresh eyes but Axiom's and Suber's versions have already set a high standard on top of taking the cool ideas for skintones... (damn you guys), that meant I had to find a way to make my own fishman look a little different !

Well since the exotic skintones had been covered by brilliant painters before me, I thought I'd have a go at something really plain and common but that I would try to make it realistic to compensate...

Well that was the plan at least, so I pretty much had THAT in mind :

I have to admit this was the very first time I was considering fish skin on a model and I therefore didn't know how to procede. One thing I knew though was that I wanted the skin to be shiny but not in a glossy way. I wanted the irridescent look of fresh fish skin like above.

Tha lead me to start with a dual basecoat of beige for the more "fleshy" parts like the belly and humanoid limbs and some metallic (GW Leadbelcher) for the rest of the scaly parts. That made the model look like that :

From that point it could turn out either as a complete disaster or as something rather cool so  I followed with some big marine blue wash (diluted with medium to desaturate it and water to make it flow nicely) and green glazes on the middle part (junction between the metallic and beige base coat. That lead me there :

I have to say I was very pleased with the result though it seems nigh impossible to photograph properly... With some added highlights of a mix of mithril silver and beige and some more glazes here and there, I really had a skin that changes depending on the direction you look from.

The eyes were then painted with pure mithril silver with just a black was and a dot of black in the middle and anothe rone of white to make the reflection.

To enhance the very Noble attitude I find in this model, I decided I'd paint his power sword as being made of red coral, this would emphasise the marine origin and it lifts the apparent social class a bit I find.

 The rest of the equipment was painted in fairly neutral colours of bone and brass as I wanted to avoid steel and iron as much as possible (first of all, it rusts and on top of that the whole body is already based on that) I think it helps give a strange look to that already singular model.

One thing, though, the model being taller than average, I first based it on a 40 mm base but it was a little too big for him. After grabbing a fistful of 30 mm bases from EM4, I rebased him on that and found it looked much better (in fact, any slightly taller model looks better on 30 mm and I'll be rebasing my terminators on 30 mm bases instead of oversized 40 mm ones)

Bad 40mm base on the left and few friends

From the picture above you can see I had some companions ready to join but I've found some more to add to the crew !

Apart from the 2 early RT fishmen (bought from the Foundry) and the old beastman rider on the far left, I've added 3 Asgard Trimotes. I know those are meant to be 3 armed apes but with their retro sci-fi look, their strange suits and weapons, they looked just the part and I cannot wait to try and paint them (Just check out Don Hans' on his fabulous blog).

Good 30 mm base and more friends

Zhar d'uin is the prince of the Watatsumi planet from the Nammu Empire. He and his brother Sui j'in have managed to establish outposts for his species of higher fishmen on many planets of the surrounding sectors. He and his brother can rely on the many other marine species that dwell on Watatsumi and their colonies. Zhar d'uin is the most level headed of the 2 brothers and he's therefore more often sent for delicate missions.

Zhar d'uin is ever exploring for new opportunities to secure the fragile empire they have and for that purpose he tries to build treaties with ground species when he can and he sometimes resort to more extreme direct actions whe he must.

All in all, his role is not far from that of a rogue trader for the Imperium, his mission only a lot more delicate due to the fragile empire of his. The limited population of his empire (planet wide compared to galaxy wide for other races) also means it's firmly bound together and he can count on the utter support of his people... Wherever there is life on this Galaxy, there is water and the Nammu empire needs sources of clear and  pure water (which is getting rarer and rarer in this galaxy).

Zhar d'uin is currently investigating about evidence claiming long time ago, more than 2 thirds of Terra were covered in water... given Humankind's poor understanding of the true value of seas, there could be some treasures there... But to make sure of that, Zhar d'uin would first need to reach Terra...

Still don't know what I'll paint next but these days I feel like painting models from other fellow hobbyists so that may influence me for the next model to paint...