Keewa: Krethusa the Croneseer is a very cool new model for the Daughters of Khaine faction, and she’s going to make a fantastic challenge for any painter. The concept is a classic: A creepy lady with crow’s wings atop a piece of broken masonry, with big big big hair and some lovely birds hanging around. I love it; I love everything about it. Now, to be fair, I’m usually opposed to the idea of a model using a piece of hero-rock to stand on since it effectively dictates how you can create the base for a figure, but in this case it’s an absolutely essential aspect, and since the footprint of the model essentially fills the 50mm base she’s similar to an Underworlds figure with a completely sculpted base.
Krethusa was a lot of fun to paint, with lots of various textures to get into — feathers, fabric, smooth masonry, etcetera. I admit, I was skeptical when I saw just how big her hairdo is; I don’t really like painting the kind of hair GW sculpts, I find it a bit of a chore and a bit tricky — but in this case those concerns were relatively unfounded, and painting her hair is ultimately pretty straightforward. But it is absolutely essential to keep her wings separate from the body during painting — they cover up so much of the rest of the figure that gluing the wings in place makes it extremely difficult to access the rear of the model. In truth, I didn’t mind this, because a separate approach allows easier drybrushing of the feather texture on the wings, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind during construction. One other bit of confusion during construction is the way the birds go together, with avians awkwardly separated (the front and legs of the flapping bird are attached to the lump of rock it sits on, but you have to stick on the back and wings separately). It’s probably a necessary part of the moulding to make the legs as solid as possible, and gluing the feet onto the rock would probably cause more than a few headaches, but still I found it a bit baffling in the moment.
I really love this model. This is definitely the sort of thing I like to see from the AoS team; the design is really intriguing and I think any display painter is going to enjoy absolutely letting their creativity loose — I know I did! I chose a moody mixture of Turquoise and Magenta because I’m loving bright and saturated colours at the moment.
MasterSlowPoke: I don’t get to the paint a lot of Age of Sigmar models, but I jumped at the opportunity to review Krethusa. It is a super interesting model with a lot of different, unusual features to paint, and my wife’s favorite animal is the crow, so this was a natural fit for me.
The model can be naturally split up into five sub assemblies: The base, Krethusa herself, her two wings, and her giant hairdo. The wings can easily just use a bit of the sprue as a makeshift handle; the attachment points are small enough that it’s easy to touch up the sprue mark at the end. Just make sure you are gentle with any drybrushing so you don’t snap them off prematurely.
I went with a Shyish-style Krethusa, with a lot of pale greens, blues and purples to give the model a graveyard feeling. Painting her dress was a lot of fun – none of my space marines will ever be wearing a shiny blue-black goth dress, and it was a pleasure to stretch my skill to try to paint that texture. She’s also blessed with three little bird guys, which are always a good time. The only pitfall I can think of is that you’d want to try to mask off the wing attachment ports with a little poster tack. The wings are large and heavy in comparison to the connection point, and you don’t want any droopage while the glue sets.
Even if you don’t play the Daughters of Khaine, Krethusa the Croneseer is an excellent model to pick up to give you a change of pace for your painting muscles. I expect you will find many of them on the shelves of the coming year’s painting competitions. GW really knocked it out of the park with this one.
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