This piece was another (bigger) first for me, being the first piece I've done as a company's official paint job, which was a pretty cool/different experience.
On Koorg, my direction was to give him something of as noble role, with his character being that of a leader, which fit my thought on the model's look to begin with, so, seems like Deadsculpt conveyed the sense well.
I was definitely most inspired by the skin- I wanted him to have a distinctly unnatural look, while keeping it not looking monster-y or creepy, with a bit of pachyderm or dinosaur in there, and a purple rather than red feeling in the recesses, to give more of a sense of not-earth.
I wavered in indecision, back and forth between utilitarian and ceremonial on his clothes, and settled somewhere in the middle, with the ceremonial/rich red cloth as a focus, while the leather gorget and mix of toughened leather and blue metal were simultaneously functional and a little decorative. The ivory crest in the middle got a bit oversaturated in the photos, but I thought a natural crest would have been more appropriate than a more-obvious metal one. I considered jade (actual jade for his crest, and maybe a jade hue for his eyes), but decided that the model already had a lot of color variation, so I wanted to try to keep that palate under control with another gold/brown range.
Mini-Review
(or Mini review)
Koorg was surprisingly large- about 4" to his horn. While the head was a little narrower (face width vs. profile/jaw length) than I expected, I think that was more a matter of perception than an actual issue.
There was a ton of texture on him, and one of the most interesting faces I've ever worked with on a mini, with a lot of nuance and expression in a pretty neutral guise. The armor was fairly ambiguous regarding material, but I feel like that's a good thing, in this case, since it allows you to really pick whatever you want. Since this is obviously a display piece instead of a gaming piece, I feel like indecision due to ambiguity is nice for painters to experiment with, rather than frustrating for someone who wants to get their mini straight to the table.
The casting was excellent, with only one point where I thought there might be a mold line, but I really couldn't track anything past that, and there weren't any bubbles or other imperfections I noticed. The recesses were faithful/deep (as one would expect with resin), and the detail was nice.
In short, Koorg fits into that small class of designer resin, and this was a really solid first showing for a company.
Speaking of which, they're working on several more minis in a more traditional scale, on their kickstarter. (Also, their FB page is here, if you want to follow the line.)
I'm showing my bias a bit in this review, but, really, I'm comfortable with that: Marco was a real pro and nice to work with, and I think he's got some really unusual designs, and it's always nice to see pleasant people with good ideas get some recognition, so I'm glad to see the KS doing so well.
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