Standard and Poor

More props to the warhammer-empire.com forum for their ongoing monthly project challenges. Their schedule has proven surprisingly motivational to me, and I'm really happy to have made the progress I have on my empire these last months. The steam tank was waaaay over due. Similarly, I've had plans, and even figures picked out, for some of my characters for quite some time, but since the empire feels like a very long term project to me, that sometimes saps any sense of urgency I might have to actually knock things out. For november the theme is Battle Standards. So I pulled this figure off the shelf, where he has sat with his halberd clipped off, collecting dust for at least a year. I fussed around with various finial ideas, mostly of the simpler variety of which I am generally overfond, but eventually came around to something a bit more ornate:



It is a bit more flashy than I'd usually go, but it /is/ my army's symbolic raison d'etre after all, right? It is appropriate for it to be a little more over the top. Plus, I've had these dragons for years, waiting for the right time to use such unique pieces... waiting for the right time is what has caused me to have a steam tank in a box for 15 years, and no painted general or imperial standard for about as long. So, I hacked it together, and came up with something that I think will make a fitting rallying point for the poor men of the empire who slog it out against dirty rats and stinky orcs time and time again. They deserve something kind of fancy I guess.