Ototo, alongside Shang

As part two of my Ten Thunders Leaders, I've got pics of Ototo! Misaki's brother is a beast. Sure he's all hunched up, but if you measure out his height if he were standing, he's a good head and shoulders over the next tallest Malifaux model it looks like.

I love the idea of this model, but I have to say the pose is a bit strange. I converted him to be more over his own base, but the default has him pretty well not at all actually situated on his base. Also, I can not say this enough: If you want to do a good job painting him, leave him at least partly disassembled. I should have left his helmet off entirely, and perhaps even left his arms disconnected from his torso! I kind of did what I could for his front, but it is nowhere near the level of detail I could achieve if I wasn't having to bend space-time just to get to his mask!

I did a simple pattern on his clothes, in a rich blue meant to contrast the armour, and to look like traditional robes of a warrior. His hair is a simple grey, as is most of the ground. I did little jags of lightning, because of course, and like Yamaziko, he's got lots of red on him.

His helm is painted in a way I'm trying to perfect, which is a NMM style (non-metallic metals) but with metallic paints. This way you still get the significant shine in person, but have controlled to make the 'colour' really rich and deep.

Also, according to Google Translate and a few other sites I used to verify, the symbol on his helmet means "Thunder" (or "Lightning") in Japanese, because again, Ten Thunders...

Originally I was going to make his club solid metal, but I changed it at the last minute to be wood. I have to say, the club lacks a lot of detail, so be very careful when spraying it or trying to paint it.

If I ended up with another Ototo, I would go whole hog on making him standing. This pose doesn't seem to fit his persona fluff-wise. Other than that, neat model.

Because that was just one set of photos, I shall also include Shang, Misaki's sidekick/familiar:

I know I'm not the only one to say this, but there is absolutely no reason for him to be on a small base. If they're concerned about corpse tokens (which I don't think he drops) they could give him the "willowy" rule they gave Yamaziko.

So, on to talking about how to paint fire. There's two ways with models. The first is to paint the darker reds towards the base/core of the flame, highlighting to white as you move towards the tips of the fire. Problematically, that isn't how fire works in the real world. The other option is to imitate real fire: White at the hottest/brightest, moving through yellow to orange. I've tried that on this guy, base-coating him in white, and then highlighting him up through the yellow and orange stage. The last orange step was so necessary, because before that he looked like a popcorn demon, not a fire demon.

And just for fun, another over-lit image showing how he would appear as fire:

Shang and Ototo are certainly the weaker two models in the Ten Thunders box, I think. Misaki's nice and dramatic, the Torakage are so distinctive and evocative, but these two have enough flaws that I wish I could edit...

Next time, Misaki herself! Then I have to get back to painting a bunch for my next run of stuff.