Here is another rare miniature find that I really enjoyed to paint. Straight from the Island of Blood here comes the Blood Rat, my version of the Skaven Warlord. One cannot buy this beautiful miniature alone, since it can only be found in the Islands of Blood box set from Games Workshop. Here below is my version of this miniature, I named the Blood Rat. Keep reading below where you will find its’ story, how I was inspired to paint it this way and a complete work through.
From the Island of Blood comes my version of the Skaven Warlord - THE BLOOD RAT - Clisk to buy.
Character’s Story: Those very few to have seen it and survived know it as the Blood Rat. Where ever it goes only blood follows. Clad in a rusted blood red amour, red rags and covered also in red fur. It trusts only on its’ halbard and chop knife to win its’ battles taking pleasure only from seeing it’s favorite colour flow more.
Inspiration: When I saw it the inspiration on how to paint it came straight from the box set title. The Blood Islands. Why not having a skaven warlord which loved the colour of blood to be totally clad in it and always searching for it to flow more 
, so it was that the Blood Rat was born.
Cleaning: Cleaning this miniature was quite a bit of work. The miniature is full of detail just where the seam line is flowing. I had to be very careful not to damage all this detail.
Pre- Assembly: The Blood Rat came only in 2 parts, which I did not assemble for ease of painting. I only made sure that the parts fitted well before undercoating.
Painting: As the Blood Rat, red had to be the main colour. All possible items that composed this miniature had to be red but I did not want to over do it. Another important factor I kept in mind was the nature of this warlord. In essence this is a rat. All know that wild rats are dirty and do not care about their appearance. To keep to its` character this warlord had to be dirty with damaged, rusted armour and equipment plus torn cloths. Being a Blood Rat meant only one thing the this particular rat liked blood so blood had to flow as much as possible again without overdoing it. This is why I used extra weathering and lots of blood on this miniature to keep to it’s name and story.
I first started with the red for the skirt rag. This was given a different red base so as to make it clear that it is a cloth not metal. Once finished I base coated the armour flaming orange, then covered it with red and shaded it. Once done I went around with black which was then highlighted with chainmail to reproduce the scratches and damage on the armour. This was then covered with a wash of ogre flash and black to weather the armour even more. Highlights were kept to a minimum. Finally I finished all the detail giving particular attention to cover the weapons with splattered blood and make them look old and much used.
For the banners I used the same method as for the skirt. I only added the skaven symbols but roughly so as to keep in character with the skaven brutal look.
The Warlord’s pendants, banner symbol and flame were all given a greenish warp stone magical look to make them pop out from the rest and reinforce the skaves’s bond with warpstone and it’s magical properties.
Special: As a special I concentrated on making the base look elfish as much as possible. I also added a fresh High elf rolling head to link the Blood Rat with the Islands of Blood.
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