The mounted bard of Alahan has to be one of the Rackham's best releases for 2005, I'd been a little disappointed with some of this year's sculpts but this was a great return to form. The quality of the sculpting is ofcourse impeccable but I was particularly taken with the contrast between the huge mount and the delicate bard.

The horse was originally painted as a dappled grey with purple armour but after a sealant mishap I was forced to strip and re-paint. The vast majority of painted horses I've seen lately have been greys so I decided to go with a different colouration 2nd time around, this time it's painted similarly (I hope) to a buckskin. Purple armour wouldn't have gone that well with the buckskin colouration so I went with a greenish blue instead, Vallejo's dark blue grey to be exact - definitely one of the nicer colours I've worked with. When painting the bard I concentrated on keeping the transitions as smooth as possible because I've felt that that's where my work has suffered in the past. I think the extra effort is particularly noticeable with the black areas.

BTW she does actually have eyes, they're just very small...