# A Kroot; critique welcome.



## Golgothas (Sep 28, 2008)

Something I painted for a friend. 

Note: I did not assemble or do any assembly prep work on this thing. He just gave to me a few months ago already primed to paint it up because he saw I was going insane while painting my orks and said I needed to paint something different or I was going to turn green and break all my stuff.










So I dug the Kroot out a week ago and gave it a nice paint job.

I decided to give this Kroot some real nice features - specifically I experimented with some texture work on the skin and the stocks of the two guns he's carrying around, while trying to keep everything else simple enough so that I wouldn't end up spending weeks on it.

This is my first time doing texture on such a small surface area (my previous experiment was a rock texture on an Everblight Carnivean), so I hope I did a decent job.

Critique is welcome.


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## greenee22 (May 12, 2011)

great painting man! I like the 'hair'!


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## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

Nice attempt with the wood. it's got nice detail but i think there's a way to go before it'll match up with the rest of your painting.

Rest of the model looks awesome, great scheme and good execution :victory:


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## Salio (Mar 29, 2009)

I really like the texture work on the skin there, man. Kinda looks like rippling muscles. Very cool. Like the color scheme as well. +rep


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## MetalHandkerchief (Aug 3, 2009)

Dude! Your Kroot are almost completely identical to mine, I'm going to give you rep just for that alone  !

Other than the fact that you have the optimal color scheme (  ) for Kroot, your execution is pretty good. I see where you're headed with the wood, neat idea.


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## arumichic (May 14, 2011)

Nice. Like the highlights on the skin too. Though as you get down to the legs and feet, it seems the "muscle" look is too big for the muscles there. but other than that, good detail work!


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## elmir (Apr 14, 2011)

MetalHandkerchief said:


> Dude! Your Kroot are almost completely identical to mine, I'm going to give you rep just for that alone  !
> 
> Other than the fact that you have the optimal color scheme (  ) for Kroot, your execution is pretty good. I see where you're headed with the wood, neat idea.


This type of bold statement demands a comparison pic!! 

Anyway, OT: looks really sweet man. The skintone really does make the model look like a lean, slender carnivorous type creature. Good accentuating of the top muscles.

Overall, the model is really well balanced too, with the bright highlights of the red-ish skintone still shine compared to the darker detail work on it. The dark woodgrain is an excellent choice, nice and subtle, yet still noticable. k:


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## DijnsK (Mar 29, 2011)

really awesome highlighting! good job!


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## Golgothas (Sep 28, 2008)

I'll take a few minutes to respond to everyone here.



arumichic said:


> Nice. Like the highlights on the skin too. Though as you get down to the legs and feet, it seems the "muscle" look is too big for the muscles there. but other than that, good detail work!


Yeah, I think I may have rushed the feet. Also, I do not know if you can notice this fault but when I based the model - which I had to do because it was given to me with no basing material - I accidentally got some of it on the right 'toe' of each foot, so now he looks like he has two left feet.



MetalHandkerchief said:


> Dude! Your Kroot are almost completely identical to mine, I'm going to give you rep just for that alone  !
> 
> Other than the fact that you have the optimal color scheme (  ) for Kroot, your execution is pretty good. I see where you're headed with the wood, neat idea.


Is that so? I want to see your Kroot. Also, this is not necessarily my Kroot, but it is in fact the colour scheme of the Kroot I had years ago when I played Tau. I fell in love with the Kroot - both from a modeling perspective and a narrative perspective - so I had this great big massive story built up around them. Here's a picture of the old Kroot.










Now with 100% more forever ago. Originally painted those up in 2006. I've come a long way since then and it was nice to revisit an old colour scheme to give it an update.



Varakir said:


> Nice attempt with the wood. it's got nice detail but i think there's a way to go before it'll match up with the rest of your painting.
> 
> Rest of the model looks awesome, great scheme and good execution :victory:


The wood made me really nervous. I have never done it before and I always wanted to try, so I buckled down and just tried the first thing that came to mind. Surprisingly, the experiment seems to have worked...

Thank you very much! ... You've seen my other work?



greenee22 said:


> great painting man! I like the 'hair'!


Haha, thank you very much. Those are spines by the way, quills. Like a porcupine.



Salio said:


> I really like the texture work on the skin there, man. Kinda looks like rippling muscles. Very cool. Like the color scheme as well. +rep


I figured the Kroot need that more than anyone else. The technique I used for the muscle is really just five layers; dark red working my way up to orange with an unwatered little streak of yellow on the tips of the lines to bring out the corded muscle.



DijnsK said:


> really awesome highlighting! good job!


Thank you!



elmir said:


> This type of bold statement demands a comparison pic!!
> 
> Anyway, OT: looks really sweet man. The skintone really does make the model look like a lean, slender carnivorous type creature. Good accentuating of the top muscles.
> 
> Overall, the model is really well balanced too, with the bright highlights of the red-ish skintone still shine compared to the darker detail work on it. The dark woodgrain is an excellent choice, nice and subtle, yet still noticable. k:


Agreed with this man, give me an image of your Kroot sir. I wish to see them.

Thank you for the compliments as well. I hope my friend likes the finished result. As you can see from the early photograph linked into this post, they originally wore green coloured pieces of cloth on their bodies but I decided to throw that out. These Kroot come from a desert planet, so they need some Tan. The sand there is rust red, like Mars, due to its heavy iron content. They've also evolved steel beaks to bite through the hard carapace of the local wildlife (large serpentine creatures with iron-like exoskeletons. All the delicious mushy stuff is on the inside).

I think I'll work on finishing two NPC ships for my Rogue Trader game next. They do not have the same amount of detail as this Kroot does, but they look nice nonetheless.


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## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

Golgothas said:


> The wood made me really nervous. I have never done it before and I always wanted to try, so I buckled down and just tried the first thing that came to mind. Surprisingly, the experiment seems to have worked...
> 
> Thank you very much! ... You've seen my other work?


I meant in comparison to the rest of the model, but i'd be more than happy to see more of your stuff 

If you wanted to take the wood grain experiment further, there's some nice tutorials out there. This is one of my favourites:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1487-painting-woodgrain-on-a-smooth-surface


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## Golgothas (Sep 28, 2008)

Varakir said:


> I meant in comparison to the rest of the model, but i'd be more than happy to see more of your stuff
> 
> If you wanted to take the wood grain experiment further, there's some nice tutorials out there. This is one of my favourites:
> 
> http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1487-painting-woodgrain-on-a-smooth-surface


Ah, thank you very much. I'll send you a PM with another piece from my collection.

I've bookmarked the woodgrain tutorial. I'll use it when I put together my John Wayne ork.


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## DestroyerHive (Dec 22, 2009)

That's delicious. I'd love to see a bunch of these bad boys and a Knarloc charging into battle some day... Also, just some personal advice, if you haven't already, I HIGHLY suggest making a few Kroot holding their guns in the air. They'll look fantastic.









Like the guy all the way in the back (*these are not mine btw*)


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## Golgothas (Sep 28, 2008)

DestroyerHive said:


> That's delicious. I'd love to see a bunch of these bad boys and a Knarloc charging into battle some day... Also, just some personal advice, if you haven't already, I HIGHLY suggest making a few Kroot holding their guns in the air. They'll look fantastic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't play Tau anymore, but I'd love to take that idea on as a commission.


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## fatmantis (Jun 26, 2009)

dont know to much about kroot, but its the nicest i have seen well done


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## jlaughter001 (Mar 15, 2011)

Excellent paint job...but, my curiosity is peaked by the prospect of a 'John Wayne Ork,' and I must know more.


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

Those are some of the nicest Kroot I've ever seen. Very realistic looking skin effect. Well done. Have you any tau to go with them?


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## Guarder22 (Jan 15, 2011)

Really nice looking Kroot, I always wanted to try the orange skinned kroot but I don't trust myself enough to do it well enough yet so all of my kroot are olive-skinned.


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## Golgothas (Sep 28, 2008)

Guarder22 said:


> Really nice looking Kroot, I always wanted to try the orange skinned kroot but I don't trust myself enough to do it well enough yet so all of my kroot are olive-skinned.


Thank you very much.



Khorne's Fist said:


> Those are some of the nicest Kroot I've ever seen. Very realistic looking skin effect. Well done. Have you any tau to go with them?


I do not own Tau anymore, this Kroot is just a gift for a friend.

I would however, not mind painting up a single warrior or a crisis suit with that amount of detail for a commission! Or if someone sends me one for free or something.



jlaughter001 said:


> Excellent paint job...but, my curiosity is peaked by the prospect of a 'John Wayne Ork,' and I must know more.


My Blood Axes are American themed. Currently I have Captain Amorika who acts as a boy in my Stormboy squadron. My Weirdboy dresses up like Unkle Sam and runs around screaming tenets of his best written work: DA KONSTITUSHUN, and my Warboss runs around with a looted American flag.

The John Wayne Ork will be a Nob.



fatmantis said:


> dont know to much about kroot, but its the nicest i have seen well done


Thank you very much!


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