I haven’t had many fantasy figures in the painting queue of late, but I recently finished a one-ff, a Reaper miniature of a centaur which will go to reinforce my army of the Elven Woodland Realm. This army has a large number of female figures (including a dryad) so this figure is highly suitable.
I will be doing some F2F Dragon Rampant gaming this weekend, so may get the itch to paint a few more of the centaurs in my lead pile and perhaps build this into a small unit.
I used Citadel contrast Green for her bodice, and tried a few attempts to develop the shading on the horse part, perhaps only partially successfully.
<I’ve been going on here about my pulp project for a few years with precious little to show for it, so here goes. Narrative fluff to start with slightly elaborated from @MarshalLuigi ’s tweets. Small actions and character reactions to be determined using Call of Cthulhu 7th ed rules, larger actions probably by TFL’s Chain of Command.>
Near Camrose, Alberta, February, 1937.
Frenchy Lamoreux walked his trapline in the high foothills near Indian River every few days, weather permitting. He often crossed paths with Old Grainger, out walking his line. Frenchy looked forward to his chats with the Scot. They’d share a tot of rum or whiskey from their flasks, and compare notes on what they were catching and who was paying best for the fur. Lately Grainger was becoming convinced that another trapper, Ratko Gligic, was stealing from his traps. “If I catch yon rascal in the act, I’ll kill him stone deed, I will!"
In the late afternoon, near one of Grainger’s untouched traps, Frenchy found the blood. He was certain that it wasn’t the result of someone field dressing a kill. It was more like something, or someone, had been simply torn apart. Nearby, in some trampled snow, he found Grainger’s briar pipe, still full of half burnt gold flake.
As he surveyed the dismal scene, he felt his hair rise under his toque. Frenchy knew with a terrible certainty that he was being watched. He also knew that nothing he had ever seen on earth had made the bloody tracks heading off into the woods, and nothing on earth could make him follow them.
<Notes: A good exercise in seeing how much winter scenery I’ve assembled thus far, and some fun with a backdrop. It may be a while before the next scene in ready. Frenchy is a Bob Murch Pulp Figures casting, and the thing in the trees is by Reaper. Say vigilant, chaps!>
Here are some more 28mm fantasy miniatures by UK Heresy Miniatures for my collection, useful either as personality figures for LOTR gaming or in my growing Dragon Rampant armies. These figures fit the matriarchal nature of the elven force I’ve been working on.
I recommend Heresy for their fine customer service and for the quality of their sculpts. These figures all have a willowy grace that I like, even if the brushwork sometimes has to find at facial features rather than simply draw attention to the sculptor’s work.
Elf Queem / mage / Galadriel stunt double. When she’s not scrying the future in that palantir, she’s bowling ninepin strikes with it.
Druidess/wizardling/hippy chick, and perhaps my favourite one of this lot.
Not sure what spell she is casting, exactly, but it looks rude.
Finally, not really an elf, but when I placed a recent order for some Reaper figures, I added this Reaper Bones lady barbarian, as I figured that Kevin the Barbarian needed a girlfriend. Here they are, as if they’ve stepped out of a 1970s fantasy calendar by Vallejo. With her armour monokini she is a little embarrassing, and I trust that if my Bishop is reading this, he understands.
Thank you for looking and blessings to your brushes!
Here are five 28mm figures painted for my ongoing Weird War Two project. I posted them a few weeks ago on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge site, and am only just posting them here. The first four L to R are from Pulp Figures, sculpted by Canada’s two-fisted Bob Murch. The one on the right is by Reaper.
Major Paul “Puncher” McPhail, Chief of Staff of Project Alice, a top-secret British counter-intelligence and dark ops organization tasked with monitoring and thwarting Nazi investigations into the occult
Murch absolutely nailed British mess kit. This is almost exactly what hangs in my closet, and which strangely gets tighter every year. This was the first bald figure I’ve ever painted.
The Major’s niece, Fiona Harmer, sometime of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, an ace researcher and crack shot.
I tried to add some colour and texture to the hair to offset the drab clothing.
Sandy McGonigle was Major McPhail’s batman, and now his gamekeeper and bodyguard. Don’t send me emails about the tartan, I just made it up. I spent way too much time working on this figure, but enjoyed every minute of it.
Mimi LaRocque of the Resistance, a ginger with an attitude. I love her outfit, which seems almost military, but I decided on a civilian colour scheme, to suggest a student, perhaps. Who can resist a girl with a gun in a hat and tie?
Reaper’s Naughty French Maid. Code name Bijou, she will do inside work collecting intelligence from senior German leaders, especially those with a fondness for the flying helmet, the limp piece of celery, and the feather duster. The sculpt is by Wener Klocke, and I certainly did not do it justice, though I am happy with the hand painted tile floor.
I’m kinda hoping my Bishop doesn’t follow this blog …..
My two werewolves have been keeping bad company this weekend. The lady in the middle is also a Reaper Miniature, a lady vampire that reminds me of the Hammer Studios movies that troubled my pubescent dreams. She joins the ranks of the baddies in my Weird War project.
When she’s not preening in the graveyard, she’s doing important work within the shadowy wing of the SS dominated by SS Gruppenfuhrer Strasser. As anyone knows who’s seen Coppola’s Dracula (1992), it’s pretty much obligatory for powerful vampires to have a retinue of wayward young women. Her duties will include interrogating captured Allied airmen, spying on the Gruppenfuhrer’s human rivals, and nighttime strolls along the Unter der Linden
I’m not entirely happy with her fangs. She rather looks like she has two white straws stuck under her upper lip, but they do look noticeable from a distance. On the plus side, I’m fairly happy with the flesh tones.
It’s rather an odd sort of funeral monument that the sculptor has chosen. It rather looks like a Celtic cross with the top bit removed, but I suppose that gives her a place to park her ample charms.
In a dark recess of the stranger part of mind, my Weird War Two project slowly takes shape, and occasionally intrudes onto my painting table. Here are two more figures for that project, both Reaper Miniatures figures. About two years ago, I introduced part of the backstory here. In my strange version of WW2, a sinister SS sub-unit under the command of Herr Doktor Stahl discovered that the virus for lycanthropy could be identified and administered to specially selected volunteers. These volunteers were chosen as prime Aryan specimens in excellent health, willing to give their all for the Fuhrer. Unfortunately, those who survived the initial physical shock of transformation often went mad and were difficult to control. Over time, it was discovered that women handlers were more successful than their male colleagues, who were frequently dismembered and devoured. So it was that Sturmbannfuhrer Ingrid Schmertz was chosen to lead a crack group of female soldiers, recruited from leading Nazi families as the military part of the team. The Werewolf Project is regarded with suspicion and jealousy by the secretive and powerful Vampyres who have nested in other parts of the SS leadership, since as is well known, vampires and werewolves are ancient enemies.
My goodness, that’s enough nonsense for one day. Here are some minis, for crying out loud.
Thanks, I work out, I try to keep in shape, do a lot of CrossFit.
Look at my furry butt! Look at it!
I was delighted to find that Reaper also makes a female werewolf. Presumably one of Sturmbannfuhrer Ingrid’s troops volunteered for the program - or is that Ingrid herself, on a moonlit night?
Ingrid with her friends. I need to keep an eye out for a few more decent werewolf figures in 28mm.
Because Ingrid has the rank of major, she needs some troops to command and keep her pets safe from Allied special forces raids, or from her male SS rivals and their vampiric masters, perhaps? These are Bob Murch Pulp Figures, and I’m looking forward to painting them in due course. That’s all from the Weird War front for now. Stay vigilant, chaps!
Not a lot of painting got done today, even though it was a good day to stay indoors - an unseasonably cold and wet day here in SW Ontario - felt more like October than August. I spent more time in the kitchen than at the painting desk. I like baking, and I’ve found a great recipe for Italian focaccia bread — this is focaccia genovese, with a mix of basil, rosemary, parsley, freshly grated parmagiano reggiano and olive oil sprinkled on it as soon as it comes out of the oven. Yummy!'
There was a little work at the painting desk today. These three 28mm Reaper figures (two werewolves and a lady vampire) are pretty much done and just need final basing - they’re for an off again, on again Weird War Two project I’m working on.. Behind them is the next job, a unit of 28mm Redoubt Union infantry that I started over a year ago and then lost interest. I’m really trying to get all my old projects done before I start something new.
I’m off to Ottawa on a research trip so it will be sometime next week before I’m ready to show off these three baddies here.
Not much painting today, but I did get a few moments after returning from anniversary celebrations with Madame Padre to make a start on these 6mm Baccus French Napoleonic light infantry. They’ll be the skirmish elements for some bases of line infantry that got done earlier this week.
In the back left are three Reaper baddies for a Weird War Two project, and in the back right are some Front Rank Russian SYW figures that are getting reworked prior to getting new banners.
She spoke German, not Italian. But there she was, way at the back of the painting queue, and somehow she caught my eye.
Perhaps you, good reader, are careful to enforce discipline in your painting queues. Figures are painted by project, or by time waiting in the lead mountain, or some such rule. I try to have guiding principles such as these, but I confess I am a victim to my own self-diagnosed painting ADHD. The problem is confounded by a shapely leg and a saucily poised beer stein.
She is the Reaper Miniatures Oktoberfest Fraulein, purchased for my Weird War Two project, which is still a vague mass of ideas and scenes from old films that only exist in my head. I sort of envisioned her as an Allied agent or resistance fighter, infiltrating German beer halls to worm secrets out of lager-addled Nazis, perhaps something along the lines of the late Ingrid Pitt's character Heidi from Where Eagles Dare.
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I can't resist, more Ingrid here:
Where was I? Oh, right. While I was painting some samurai figures for Curt's Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, she caught my eye from a box of unpainted figures tucked on a shelf by the painting bench. A finger beckoned, a promise of some good Munich beer, and a sly wink, and I was putty in her hands. Besides, as I mentioned here earlier, since she knew that I had no geisha girl figures on hand, she promised to be a calming influence on the samurai, and she was, mostly, though, like cats to their owners, they kept bringing her body parts.
Here's the final result.
Yes, I know, shocking for a middle-aged clergyman to be painting figures such as these. I'm shocked myself. And to think she was painted during Lent.
The samurai angle got me thinking about a character background for this charming lady. Let me know if you think this works.
From Project Alice Personel Files, Top Secret
Operative: Ingrid Pittcairn
Code Name: KATANA
Biography: Daughter of British missionary teacher (The Rev. Lancelot Andrews Pittcairn) and Austrian missionary nurse (Irene Pittcairn, nee Gammel) who met while working in Japan in the 1920s. British citizen, fluent in English, German, Japanese and Chinese. Largely raised on the northern island of Hokkaido, where her family befriended a Buddhist monk with training in the anciet samurai arts. Rv. Pittcairn, an eccentric and liberal-minded father, indulged his daughter when she asked the monk to teach in the martial arts. Upon her father's death in 1935, Ingrid and her mother settled with relatives in Vienna, but fled to England following the Anschluss. Ingrid enrolled in languages at Oxford University, but left her studies following a dispute over her being forbidden to participate in varsity fencing. She was recruited by Intelligence as a linguistic analyst, working in the Asia section, but a meeting with Padre Tristram Mercer, a friend of her father's, led to ber being taken on by Project Alice. Ms. Pittcairn has no special supernatural aptitude or abilities, but her knowledge of Buddhist meditation practices, her keen mind, linguistic abilities and athleticism, it is believed, will make her well-suited for the kind of work to be expected of Project Alice operatives.
Sound plausible? Remotely plausible? Bad fiction plausible? Quentin Tarantino plausible?
Now, if only someone were to sculpt a Bavarian beer garden girl wielding a samurai sword, I could die a happy man.
