I look at Sovereign Tristan Durant as the Sith Lord version of his original youthful and fresh-faced Initiate self. With this evolution, he becomes yet another faceless weapon in Menoth’s army.

Here you can see his Sovereign status realized with the addition of full-blown warcaster armor and menacing facemask, courtesy of concept artist Andrea Uderzo. Once again, Andrea has realized our vision for a character with stunning clarity.

Tristan becomes even more menacing with a color pass by Mike Vaillancourt, which brings out Tristan’s fiery demeanor. There is no way anyone is mistaking this warcaster for one of the good guys.

Whatever… Just because he is cooking up some bane knights in this illustration by the talented Néstor Ossandón doesn’t make Tristan a good guy. After all, Cryx are the heroes of my internal narrative. (NOTE: THIS IS THE SECOND NEW WARCASTER IN A ROW TO BE PUTTING THE BEATDOWN ON CRYX; I NEED TO TELL MIKE V. TO CUT THE CRAP!)

With all the work we put into these characters, it’s always great to get to utilize them as much as we can. In the upcoming Forces of WARMACHINE: Protectorate of Menoth Command book, Tristan takes the spotlight in one of our faction background illustrations. We took this opportunity to show the face of the man you already know from his previous version but put him into his warcaster armor this time.

Above you can see three sketches from Néstor. We wanted to showcase Tristan leading his troops, but instead of a commanding presence, we wanted to show his reverence to Menoth in the face of battle as he leads his troops in prayer to The Creator. We liked the first one the best, as it really seemed to humanize our now-faceless character.

In the end, Néstor nailed all the feels with this moody image, which is one of my favorite of late.

Meanwhile, behind the façade of this innocent-looking sculpting studio, Ron Kruzie has the miniature underway with the super-talented Javier García Ureña (who did an amazing job on the limited-edition bookends for the new editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES—Love you, Javier). Here you see a few of Kruzie’s notes before the sculpt is posed out.

The final sculpt showcases Tristan’s leadership in a different light than his story art does and places the character firmly in his tabletop role.

Shortly after completion of the digital sculpt, the kick-ass Privateer production team delivers a paint master to studio painter Dallas Kemp, whose skill and attention to detail bring the final miniature to life. As you can see, it takes a village to bring one of these characters to life. And if you want to burn a village down, make sure to pick up Sovereign Tristan Durant at GenCon and the Privateer Press Online Store next week, from August 4th through 7th.