Fembruary challenge part 3 – Poppy, Switch and Christine

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Fembruary Challenge

≈ 29 Comments

Tags

Greetings Earthlings, and welcome back for another post – this one covers my final stretch for the finish line on Fembruary! I managed to get three ladies finished since my last post, and given the Siouxsie and the Banshees inspiration, I went back over the band’s discography & picked a name from tracks on each of their eleven studio albums. First up we have Poppy:

 

Next is Switch:

 

Finally, we have Christine:

 

Logically, this leaves eight names to be assigned, (and I will certainly continue to add to this gang & use these names further down the road), but the Fembruary tranche of Banshees are done:

 

It has been a great little project thus far, and I am so chuffed with the wider take-up on Fembruary – it has been a good talking point I think, and a healthy way to challenge how we all think about the representation of women in our male dominated hobby. Thank you to everyone who got involved, and (if no one objects), I’m going to go back over the various blog posts that I have seen on the subject and pull down pics of your contributions for a ‘Fembruary round-up’ post. I’m aiming for the 8th of March (International Woman’s Day) to do that – that seems an auspicious day to collate and share the excellent kick-ass female miniatures you folks have put together. I’ll also be continuing with The Banshees during March for Women’s History Month, (so plenty more to look forward to on this subject). But… before that, I have one evening to do something for Azazel’s ‘finish a neglected model in February’ challenge… ;-)

Fembruary challenge part 2 – Vasquez

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in AoS Undead, Fembruary Challenge

≈ 29 Comments

Tags

,

Greetings all, I’m very happy to be able to show off my second mini for ‘February’, but before I do that, I have a little terrain distraction to share with you… I picked up the ‘Legions of Nagash’ book for AoS last weekend – it is a great book, and gives the forces of death much more nuance and flexibility. There are a number of changes to how the armies of Nagash operate, but one of the major differences is how summoning works. Very briefly, you now get to set up four graveyards from which your summonable units can spawn – obviously, the Gardens of Morr kit is the go-to choice for the discerning modeler, so I got mine down from the loft of holding, and got the four main bits built & painted:

It is worth mentioning that the new ruling calls for a nominated ‘point’ on the battle field, so using a fairly big piece of scenery would be cheaty… the first two pieces have an obvious single point, but the second pair don’t, so I painted a gold ornament on one end of these two. I’m pretty pleased with how they came out, and they really are lovely kits that don’t take long at all – especially if you leave out the fence!

Here’s a nice atmospheric shot of Gorgo Romero raising a zombie horde, (with thanks to my wife for vaping hard to add the special effects ;-) )

 

Moving on to ‘Fembruary’, I just want to say how delighted I am with the support for this – I have been admiring and commenting on the many excellent contributions that have been popping up among my fellow bloggers and beyond – good on you all for getting involved, representing, and spreading the word. I’ll have to curate a round-up of images and do an end-of-month recap – a task I look forward to immensely.

Anyway, time to introduce my second effort – I have named her after the awesome Vasquez, (played by Jenette Goldstein), of Aliens fame. I know the mini doesn’t look particularly like the movie character, but hey, she’s never been mistaken for a man either, and the gun seals the deal for me :-)

 

And here she is with Siouxsie:

 

I had great fun painting Vas – she’s a cracking mini, and it was great to mix it up a bit with the skin tone. I think the purple/yellow/red flashes work nicely with the more utilitarian bits of uniform, but the star of the show has to be the pink dreads… They just look so damn cool! I have three more of these Ghosts of Gia in various stages of being painted – I optimistically thought I might get 10 done, but no way that is happening, so I’m going to crack on with getting five of them painted before the month is out. I also have a long-neglected character to paint as part of Azazel’s latest challenge, so plenty to keep the brush busy over the next ten days! Until next time folks :-)

Fembruary challenge – Siouxsie

08 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in Fembruary Challenge, Side projects

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

,

Happy Thursday folks, and I’m delighted to share my first competed mini for Fembruary with you all. As a reminder, I’m laying down the following gauntlet:

“Dear reader, no doubt you have heard of Orctober, Deadcember, Slaanuary, and all the various themed months of the year… I would like to propose that we add Fembruary to the list – a time of year for us to collectively challenge the male domination of our collections, and commit to painting some female miniatures for a change…”   I’m delighted with the uptake so far – thank you to all who are mucking in, spreading the word and getting involved! Time for me to step up as well, eh? :-)

So… my February contribution is going to be trying to paint Annie Norman’s (of Bad Squiddo Games/Dice Bag lady fame) ‘Ghosts of Gia 1’ collection, plus ‘Olivia Nutron Bomb’ from BOYL last year. These 10 minis sum up everything that I want Fembruary to represent – the celebration of grown-up, non-sexualised representations of women within our nerdy little hobby universes. No silly battle heals or unnecessary/unfeasible cleavage here – what Annie succinctly describes as “Believable Female Miniatures” in her mission statement. It has been a slow start, what with basing and undercoating, but I have started with ‘Angel’ from the Ghosts of Gia range:

 

You can probably guess that I’m running with an early punk/goth/glam rock vibe for this project, (plus whatever other tropes make sense to bring in) – hence ‘Angel’ becomes ‘Siouxsie’, leader of an outcast Escheresque gang called ‘The Banshees’. She was fun to paint – quite a simple sculpt in many ways, with a few odd bits here and there, but fun nonetheless. I’ve added in plenty of little details to add that Oldhammer flavour, and gone for a wide palette on the mini… slight downside to that is that my youngest Son saw this mini and asked me why she had a tree on her head… now I can’t un-see the tree!! I don’t think Siouxsie would have ever seen a tree though, so I suspect the irony would be lost on her :-)

One thing to note – the spray undercoat was shockingly rough, which is not uncommon this time of year in the UK – winter and all that. However, I actually don’t mind that effect if the model supports a rough and ready approach – it would suck on shiny Ultramarines, but is fine on a Scavvie if you know what I mean. In the case of Siouxsie, I think it works nicely.

Anyhow, that’s all for now dudes, but plenty more to follow as the month progresses!