Prepare To Be Boarded!

A fine model which I bought from Reaper to get free shipping on my order.  I think his actual name is "Rumscratch, Dwarf Wereshark," but my wife dubbed him "Pirate Shark" and it stuck.

 

Though I bought him on impulse (because pirates are cool and sharks are cool), it's a really well-sculpted model with lots of neat details: the hermit crab parrot, the key to the treasure chest on his belt, the pegleg.  This is also the first time I used my airbrush to basecoat a model--I airbrushed him grey and gave him a zenithal highlight before I put all the colors in with more traditional methods.  I also thinned my paints much more than usual, and tried a little harder to make the metal parts seem to reflect light in a realistic way.  It's an ongoing process, but I'm happy with the result.  Painting single models is great because you can focus a little more on trying new techniques.  If you have a 20-model squad to paint, you usually want to stick to tried and true strategies that you can apply quickly.  In the future, I plan to alternate between single models, squads and larger models (tanks, dragons, and so forth)--each type of project teaches you something different.