Miniotaur

So I began with The Roc Warrior. A "Roc (from Persian رخ Rokh or Rukh) is an enormous legendary bird of prey." The huge eagle like birds that come to the rescue of Gandalf in numerous occasions.. However it is also interesting to note that (from Wikipedia):

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word perhaps influenced the word Rook chess piece, though that term mainly stems from the Persian رخ rukh or Sanskrit रत rath, both meaning chariot (thus corresponding to the Asian chess variants).

In Turkish, "Rok" is the name of the special move known as "castling", where the King and the Rook change places by literally "jumping over one another".. So maybe the name "Rok" was inspired by this legendary bird's ability to carry huge things like elephants :)

The Roc Warrior

So, this is a huge and lovely bird with a rider on top of it. It was a magnificently detailed mini therefore it was lovely to paint.

Never a good sight if you are an Uthuk (forces of Chaos) player..

For the wings and feathers, once again I used the familiar technique of dry-brushing white over the brown base coat. Then I painted the tips black. The rest were lightly dry-brushed to bring the feathered texture of the bird come out.

Majestic wings..

Finally I decided to do a matte varnish rather than my designated satin (neither matte nor glossy) varnish and it looked much better then the semi shiny look.. 

Did I say majestic??