It's a plane? It's a beast?

The 30th of August Fimm McCool from the Oldhammer Forum published the official launch of the Golden Gobbo'25, a yearly painting challenge I was ready to participate this time (joined the forum this summer).

I spent 2 weeks deciding if I was painting the Beastmaster (without the hounds, because 0nly one base is allowed to participate), an Iron Claw Harpy, a Minotaur... In the end I had a Bovigor and a Khorne Beastman (that I intended to paint in non-khorne colours), but the lack of proper shields stopped me for a while.

Finally, I chose this one, added a modern plastic shield (a Bretonian shield with a bull's head would have worked better) and started painting. I only had 2 objectives:

• Make it look like it's from an old White Dwarf magazine page.
• Make it unique but recognizable.

The first point was a matter of presenting it with the classic grass base and table, a blue-gradient backdrop and a nice retro layout.

But the second one wasn't easy: Original paint-jobs for some models that made it to the start of 4th edition (but disappeared before 5th) are darker, more desaturated. So the look of the model and the "vibes" don't match and you end chasing something that really never existed but you perceive as familiar.

Then I published the silhouette of the model on Mastodon to make my friends guess which model it was, and Antonio said that "looked like Gotrek but the helm, weapon and shield didn't match" and I started thinking "I already wanted to paint a stripped pair of trousers; this guy has an eyepatch and he's raising the axe... I may paint him as Gotrek, What could go possibly wrong?".

Goatrek, Cowtrek... My friends gave him names and had a laugh. I primed him with vallejo black spray (so I could leave black lines between parts) on September the 24th, finished him the 4th of October.

Blue tattoos on fur did not work. Trust me.

Those two are the images I've shared on the Oldhammer Forum's Golden Gobbo'25 painting extravaganza. Scroll down here if you want to see some close-ups and the fabled behind photo, proving that some of us paint the whole miniature and not only the front half.

Fun Fact: He was going to have less orange, more peachy-yellow body, as Gotrek shows a contrast between the hair and the flesh, but it didn't work on camera, so I ended up painting him like that.

TBH I don't like the shield becase everything's cleaner than that. I tried to blend the transfers using inks and messed it up, that's why it's a lot more dirty than the model. But it is what it is, wish me luck!

PS: Did you find the easter egg about the next beastman I'm going to paint?