Today, I present you with an Emerald Claw Soldier (WizKids Abberrations #30) repainted as Captain Othelstan from Hoard of the Dragon Queen. He’s accompanied by two Axe Soldiers (War Drums #04) as his personal Cult of the Dragon bodyguards.

The WizKids miniature from the Abberations series came out quite some time ago. I immediately thought of the miniature when I saw the illustration of Captain Othelstan from Bryan Syme. It has a flail, medium armor and a nice full beard. Okay, it also has a silly helmet (which oddly covers only one eye) and a shield with a claw on it. But the claw could also represent Tiamat with its five fingers, right? And in his stat block in the adventure, Othelstan was described using a shield anyway. Perfect fit!

Basing and Priming

The get rid of the factory paintjob, I used my usual method to prime the miniatures. That is, after adding some pebbles and sand on their bases.

Painting

Captain Othelstan is my first miniature ever with dark skin. I googled some color recipes and went with Vallejo Model Color Chocolate Brown as base color. I shaded with Reaper Paints Brown Liner and highlighted with a 1:5 mix of Vallejo Game Color Bone White into Chocolate Brown. If I would paint the skin again, I would go for a lighter brown color. The skin is very dark, and the black beard does not contrast well with it. On the other hand, the Forgotten Realms Wiki cites that the Othelstan had “unusual black skin”, so I may be correct after all 😉

The chainmail was basecoated with VMC Dark Sea Grey, Drybrushed with VMC Gunmetal and then whased with Vallejo Black Ink. This way, it’s very dark and looks similar to the reference picture. For the plate parts of the armor I used VMC Polished Gold (washed with Vallejo Brown Ink) to make it really stand out and give the armor a warm tone.

The plate mail of the two Axe Soldiers was painted in a similar way: I used VMC Black as a basecoat und just drybrushed the VMC Gunmetal on it. For the highlights, I used VMC Silver.

I painted the cloaks of all three miniatures in purple with a little bit black in the mix for shading and white for highlights. After seeing the finished miniatures, they could use a little bit more contrast. I should have highlighted the cloaks a little bit more. Well, better luck next time, I guess.

I decided to not use grass on their bases. Sure they would look more colorful with green on their bases, but these are evil men fighting with dragons for gods sake. No, they would have to stand on barren land. Here is the final version of the repainted miniatures as Captain Othelstand and his two bodyguards: