"Blue Beaked Beasts" - Tzaangors

Tzaangors are bright of colouration and sharp of intellect. 

Their beaks clack as they chant blasphemous refrains 

in their dark tongues, gimlet eyes glowing 

in their aquiline skulls.

Games Workshop

Hi there, welcome to another Friday on The Art of Caesura!

Next week is the big birthday party of the blog, so make sure to come back for the festivities!

After a few weeks of The World of Smog: On Her Majesty's Service busts we're shifting gears back to Silver Tower! I managed to get the final group of "rank and file" troops painted, leaving only the heroes (and Gaunt Summoner) remaining! We're getting there!

When they first came out, the internet was aflame with commentary about the Tzaangors. Most people agreed that they were beautiful models, but that all the filigree and other details on their armour made them taxing to paint. Man, after painting all six together I hear ya, but it was nothing that the side of a small brush couldn't handle ;)

Obviously I wanted these beaked beastmen to fit in with the other denizens of the Silver Tower that I've painted to date. This was particularly true of the Kairic acolytes (who have similar armour) and the blue horrors who share a skin tone. I placed an acolyte and a blue horror in front of me while I was painting the Tzaangors to act as visual cues. 

For the Tzaangor armour I started with my own blend of Warboss Green mixed with Altdorf Blue. I glazed this with Nihilakh Oxide for a nice chalky patina - differentiating it from the texture of the skin. I also like the look of having the armour lighter than the skin, many of the official pictures have been the opposite with a pale blue skin. 

The skin then is The Fang, shaded with Drakenhoff Nightshade and built back up with The Fang and increasing amounts of Ushabti Bone.

I've become so accustomed to painting my warm metals copper (Hashut Copper that is) that it felt weird going back to gold. The only gold I have is Retributor Armour, so I made sure to shade it down with loads of Seraphim Sepia (I wanted to keep it cleaner than my usual Agrax Earthshade would have been).

Like with the Kairic Acolytes, I painted their gems with the (still relatively new) gem paints Soulstone Blue over Stormhost Silver (which I also used to dot their eyes. To pre-empt the inevitable (and very welcomed!) questions about how I made the bases, you can find my tutorial back here.

I hope you enjoyed that look at the Tzaangors, which not only look cool, but are FEARSOME in the game of Silver Tower. We'll take a look at the other four of them in a couple weeks time, because next week is the Super Special Second Birthday of The Art of Caesura!! See you then!

P.S. As always, if you have any questions, comments or complaints; quandaries, queries or quips please feel free to post them below. Also a little housekeeping detail, long term readers may notice that I am in the process of adding a "descriptive" part to the titles of past blog posts. For example "The Big Bull(y)" has become "The Big Bull(y) - Ogroid Thaumaturge" I'll try to get as much of this done before the 2nd birthday next week. It may seem like a small detail, but in the years to come it'll make finding specific posts much easier (you can always use the blog's search bar too). Right, see you next week!

Reading: Mythos - Stephen Fry

Watching: Jeopardy!

Gaming: Vermintide

Next Week:

The Big Blog Birthday Bonanza!!