Zo zis is a Zoat

Keeping on my Space Riders set, next goodie is going to be the Zoat. No big mistery, a huge centaur-like reptilian beast, another relatively easy mini to paint.

At least I hoped that when I was assembling it

 The ephemeral fluff on Zoats wasn't that much complete, though most definitely interesting. Just wandering reptilian members of a enslaved race, servants to the Tyranids and able to conduct some kind of diplomacy with other races in order to determine how they could be better assimilated to the hive mind. Without the Tyranid mind control they are supposed to be skilled psychics and capable of individual thought.

It's a pity that the Tyranids background evolved towards other direction, this was quite an interesting approach. I guess that modern gamers could use just the same way of thought but replacing Tyranids with Tau, that would make sense, I think.

Anyway! Reptilian centauroid. Well... All the Zoats I've ever seen were painted either in painfully bright green either in dragon-like red. I thought I could try a different palette...

But dull colours are not Oldschool!

I went on earthy colours again, just as I did with the Ambull. This time I was thinking more of rhinoceros or crocodiles, that kind of stuff. My first intention was painting the chest and fleshy parts much brighter, in greys scaling up to almost white. But I changed my mind as I realized I wanted the breather, armour and weapon to be cream/white.

Right, white weapons are classy for diplomacy

 Little else to say. Energy was meant to be blue and the rest was just a matter of shades and highlights.

Shades and highlights which, of course, cannot be appreciated in my shitty pics

Yup, a centaur-crocodile-hippopotamus with a plasma arm. Problem?

A pic for scale...

A Zoat and an Ambull walk into a bar and...

 So this is the second round of the project. Now let's see what I grab for the next step!