Karandras, the Shadow Hunter

Here's the second in my set of Pheonix Lords, Karandras, founder of the Striking Scorpions. Karandras has quite a bit of personality in his backstory. He is not the first Striking Scorpion Exarch, but deposed his Chaos-tainted predecessor, Arhra. He is described as living for the hunt, lying in wait for decades before launching his ambush. He only seems to come alive when slaughtering the foes of his people.






I wanted the model to look dark and sinister, hence the very dark armor. The edge highlighting is not that bright (Camo Green), but it looks pretty bright in contrast to the extremely dark recesses of the armor. I also didn't want to use any metallics on him if I could avoid it, as it doesn't seem to fit with his ambush style of warfare. Too much reflection. Therefore, the only metallics are the tubing on his back, which I painted very dark silver. All the areas which are usually metallics are painted in bone. I think this, along with the red gems, provide some good points of contrast with the dark armor.

Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at you, he doesn't seem to be living.

The description of Karandras in the Codex reminded me of Jaws, where the shark is described is seeming dead and unresponsive most of the time, only coming alive when killing. As a reference to this, Karandras' eyes are reflective black, rather than the orange I used for the rest of my Eldar. I think this more than anything else makes him look sinister. 

Next up should be Fuegan.