Grandmaster Kal Draco

 Next in the line of Grey Knights characters is my Grandmaster. Kal Draco. His name was taken from the Kill team manual and must therefore have a long and distinguished career as an elite small unit fighter before being elevated to Grandmaster.

Technically the 6th Brotherhood of the Fortress is led by Grandmaster Anval Laraon but I figured attrition is a thing with the Grey Knights. They fight only the greatest threats and most don't return. Therefore in my head cannon Draco has either taken over if Laraon fell or he is from another time and is being allowed to continue in service. 

I wanted all my Characters to have bare heads, with the exception of the Chaplain, obviously. The heads supplied with the kits are super dorky with their Monk like skull caps for psyhic hoods. Draco therefore got a head from the Intercessor kit. The other thing I wanted to do was make the heads look good. I"d always avoided faces because I always turned them into lumpy mutants that should be in a death guard army somewhere rather than leading the emperors finest. 

 Thus I turned on YouTube and listened to the sage advice there in. I then went and bought some new flesh paints as the ones from 2004 though technically usable were probably adding to the lumpy effect. 

 I was quite happy with the result and have been going for more non-helmeted builds as a result. 

 Should anyone be interested I watched this one here. I was also watching a lot of Pete the wargammer and Miniac. I've gone off Miniac although his painting is epic and his videos are well crafted he has an airbrush and the better he gets with it the less he shows what he's doing with his brush work where as Pete shows all his juice conversions giving lots of inspiration.

 Shameless linking aside. The Grandmaster has lots of weapon options. Able to take any of the heavy weapons and the usual melee stuff I also wanted to magnitise him. I decided against magnitising his sword because the only way I could was at the shoulder joint which required more of the "captain" pads then I had. The gun was easy. There is a nice thick flat area on the wrist and on the guns, even the storm bolter to put the magnets into. Good news is I can do this to all my terminator armed heavies to let me swap load outs. Yay the power of choice.

 To make the model standout I wanted a big banner on his back like that on my terminator sergeant from my Death Tempters. Such pageantry suits the Knights and I thought it would look cool. Once I glued it on I had a problem. The contact patches were very small so the whole mini was very delicate.

 I solved the problem by adding purity seals to the back. Fortunately there were two large ones that are perfect for the job. I added a little book to the top with the same support using the smaller seals. 

The sword is still unfinished as I want to practise more with the lighting effect on the force blade before I try his as he is supposed to be a centre piece for the army.