A Cock And Trice Story

The monster I alluded to a few weeks ago has finally been finished. It takes longer when you daren't look the creature directly in the eye.

Watch the birdie!

It's the Cockatrice! That poor maligned monster of 8th Edition - introduced in Storm of Magic, but not featured on Forge World; not included in the Warriors of Chaos army list, but hidden away on the website. Before the AoS re-categorisation of all the races, I'm sure the only way to find this model was via search engine.

A waste of a cracking model - but it's been reborn in Age of Sigmar, fully-integrated into the Warriors of Chaos army, with its own WarScroll and everything.

... and see it coils so well around a round base!

This monster is part of my 'what the hell, I just like the model' policy in Age of Sigmar. I'll throw it in with my Beastmen Gor, add in some other recent acquisitions (dun dun daaan...), and see how it goes.

Painting this was a new challenge, not least because I don't usually paint large winged monsters. I was also trying to balance the look of a creature that was obviously magical and unnatural, but with some colours that were grounded in reality.

The key element was the plumage - it's a real focal point of the model, one of the reasons it caught my eye, and it gave me an excuse to break out my Hawk Turquoise (I love that colour, I need to find more things to paint with it).

Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue. Beautiful plumage!

The basic idea was to make the body fairly plain, and just improvise with the feathers and tail.

• Plumage: Hawk Turquoise base, thinned-Blue Ink wash, Caledor Sky drydrush, Caledor Sky/White Scar drybrush
• Feathers: Emperor's Children base, thinned-Red Ink wash, Emperor's Children drybrush, Drakenhof Nightshade wash, Ushabti Bone drybrush
• Tail: Scab Red base, Nuln Oil wash, Mephiston Red drybrush
• Beak: Dryad Bark base, Dryad Bark/Golden Yellow layer, Golden Yellow layer, Yriel Yellow layer
• Talons: same as Beak, but with Agrax Earthshade wash
• Tongue: Worm Purple and Emperor's Children layer
• Body: Zandri Dust base, Agrax Earthshade wash, Zandri Dust drybrush, Ushabti Bone drybrush
• Wings: Balor Brown base, Agrax Earthshade wash, Tallern Sand drybrush

For the yellow beak, I thought I'd branch out from my usual 'wash n' drybrush' routine and try some layers (that every other painter in the hobby seems to do). I started with brown, then worked my way up with yellows. I'm not sure it made any more difference to throwing on brown ink, then drybrushing, but it's early days.

This is why the Cockatrice is always shown in profile.

For those interested in mythology, a Cockatrice appear to be pretty much the same species as a Basilisk (an egg laid by a rooster, hatched by a toad, with a deathly stare), except Basilisks have no wings and better casting agents.

"I could have been in that Harry Potter movie, you know..."

Anyway, I'm glad to finally have this one done - it's been on my wish list for a long time, but I never had the spur to get on and buy it. So I've got Age of Sigmar to thank for it.

But I'm still hedging my bets, so I magnetized the model and gave it a Chimera base too.