Boris the Executioner

After the serious nature of my last post (thank you for the comments everyone, much appreciated, there's likely to be a similarly themed post in the future, and how miniature painting helps), it's back to miniatures again.

Is it just me (and the guys at Reaper and Heresy) or is Boris a really appropriate name for a fantasy warrior?  This chap is "Boris the Black" from Reaper, he's another from my half-finished list, and he's been sat around for a long time.

To be honest he wasn't the most fun miniature to paint for some reason, and in the end I just wanted to get him finished and out of the way.  The black armour is my current usual method, without the final black wash, as I was happy enough with the way it looked.  The horn on the shoulder pad worked nicely, but the horns on the knee-pads look a bit flat, and I'm tempted to wash them with Devlan Mud to tone them down and shade them.

I'm really pleased with the axe-blade - at one point, after shading and highlighting, it also looked flat so I went back to it, and using Dryad Bark and Black, I painted in some more shading - kind of like how it's done with non-metallic metals, and it now looks much better (shout if you don't think it looks right...).

The cloak lets the miniature down in my opinion and I think I'm going to try some sort of subtle freehand on it to liven things up, it doesn't help that I can't get the spray varnish (Testor's or Tamiya) dry matt on it, so it's hard to see the shade and highlight contrast.  It was a base of P3's Cryx Base, highlighted up with Catachan Green and Deathworld Forest, then washed with Agrax Earthshade - I think it could have done with a reapplication of the highlights afterward.

So a request from me to you the readers - any suggestions on what would work well as a freehand motif on the back of the cloak?  I'd like to keep it subtle, so I'm thinking along the lines of something in black, dark brown or dark red, or possibly a lighter green - what do you think suggest?

The skin I'm actually pleased with - it's a base of P3's Beast Hide, washed with Ogryn Flesh.  The highlights are then built up through the base to a final highlight of P3's Ryn Flesh.  To add in a little colour and variation, I carefully applied some Leviathan Purple to some of the recesses on the face and to the scars/veins on the arms.

He looks good with Valaska Syn, so I think this maybe the start of a new warband (for what, I don't know yet), a group of selfish, rather nasty mercenaries, with some slightly evil/chaotic tendancies.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!