Following on from those dreadful greenskins, we have a pair of heroic dwarves. This time, another duo from the Stonehaven Miniatures Dwarf Kickstarter. These are the Dwarf Fighter (Female) and Dwarf Paladin (Male) – though let’s face it – either of the pair could fill either role.
As I’ve noted before, these aren’t the very best dwarf sculpts on the market, though they do fill in a nice alternative source of non-standard and RPG-ish dwarves with a solid old-school charm to them, along with enough character to endear them.
I’ve painted the pair of them with a touch of blue in their armour and similar enough blue cloth so that they can fit in with the Dwarves I’ve been painting for the KoW army. They also make a decent enough pair for any other RPG or adventure game. I kind of get a father-daughter vibe from the pair of them. The headstrong young dwarf woman and her grumpy old man father. Both quite adept in caving in the heads of greenskins. 😉
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Great character on these – like you say, not the best sculpts in the world, but they more than make up for it with charm. Love that blue knightly look 🙂
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Cheers Alex. These do have a lot of charm to them – which seems to be a running thread with the Stonehaven models.
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Female dwarf miniatures are not easy to come by, so really nice to see some more sculpts. I also like the idea that they are a daughter and father team. Lots of narrative potential. The paint job is, as always, superb. Which colours did you use for the red hair? I struggle with this and would like to convert an Ygritt from the Northstar Barbarians.
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They are fairly rare – especially so for ones that don’t look like buxom Valkyries – and it’s one reason I do like the Stonehaven sculpts. The father-daughter bit of narrative background literally came into my head when I put them together to photograph, as I’d finished the male dwarf some time earlier, bit it had a nice fit to it.
Her hair? Um.. I don’t remember exactly. To crib from answering a similar question asked by Ann a little while ago:
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My recipe? Heh. It changes slightly every time, and deliberately so since I want to get that bit of variation in each batch. As I’ve alluded to, I don’t even write down what I’ve used, I just go for it from the below paints:
Common colours are:
Reaper Triad for more “natural” red hair:
Auburn Shadow (Reaper 9241)
Carrot Top Red (Reaper 9242)
Highlight Orange (Reaper 9243)
GW options for crazy orange-red (pick 2-3 to taste)
Evil Sunz Scarlet
Wild Rider Orange
Troll Slayer Orange
Fire Dragon Bright
Another nice mid tone:
Pumpkin Orange (Reaper 9670)
Paint highlight/highlight mixes:
Filthy Brown (VGC 037)
Scofulous Brown (VGC 038)
Plague Brown (VGC 039)
Great highlights for “a more yellow” finish.
Sun Yellow (Reaper 9008) –
Averland Sunset
Paint shade: (use very thinned)
Burnt Cadmium Red (VMC 814)
Wash Shading:
Soft Tone (Army Painter)
Strong Tone (Army Painter)
Basically, I grab a handful of the orange tones based on almost random “feel” then take it entirely by “feel.”
The method varies from painting mid-tone, and successive drybrushes to highlight along with shading with thinned darker tones and/or the AP washes to thinned paint washes over white undercoat, and then drybrushed with hightlights (and the same shading as above). Sometimes I mix the AP inks to get a mid-tone between the two.
For a subdued/more natural ginger hair, I’d recommend getting the Reaper triad – which is excellent, both AP inks, Burnt Cadmium Red and a nice ochre to mix in for the final highlight (Plague Brown)
For crazy-slayer orange to red, I’d say get the same, but swap out the Reaper paints for your choice of 2-3 from Evil Sunz Scarlet, Wild Rider Orange, Troll Slayer Orange, Fire Dragon Bright, depending on how red or orange you want it.
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Beyond that, I do remember going with brighter rather than natural oranges because I was going for hair product over natural ginger hair, and also specifically blending some of the highlight “strands” of her hair into Reaper’s Sun Yellow, which is a pale, almost pastel yellow – similar to foil highlights. I also shaded her undercut more than I usually do, which would have been with probably a 50-50 of AP Soft and Strong tone, while I went over the rest with the same, only quite thinned.
A converted Ygritt sounds promising. Bad Squiddo has some shieldmaiden models that might be of interest to you as well. I really need to do an order with them myself..
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Thank you for the detailed description of possible colour combinations. I think I may go for subdued ginger. Sun Yellow may be the ticket in this case.
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Love these and especially the detail on the work. Quite impressive. If they are father and daughter, somebody’s mot getting asked to the prom! (Who wants to deal with Dad?). Really enjoyed the pics and the write up.
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Thanks Mark. Of if so, they’re being very bloody careful or they’ll be smarting from two sides! Not sure which of the two looks like they’d be more painful to deal with the wrong side of….
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