The Jewel of July – Personal Round-Up & July 2018 Painting Round-Up

How our plans go astray when the gaming gods intervene! The Jewel of July was supposed to motivate me on a personal level to finish a bunch of small heroes and villains from various games, some large monsters and also get some of those Space Marine Heroes for my armies done.

While I somewhat achieved the first of those objectives, my group’s beginning to meet again regularly after a couple of months’ hiatus – and the focus in our gaming sessions primarily being Star Wars Imperial Assault switched my previous painting of IA models from being somewhere to get some easy wins, mixed in with my other models (as with Shadows of Brimstone) into much more of a proper gaming focus for the month and into August.

It’s not been a terrible month by any means, though it kind of morphed into a bit of a neglected model month of sorts (as so many tend to do) as I finally completed things like a sextuplet of Zombicide models representing both the living and (un)dead states of three Survivors that were started at least 2 years ago when we used to play Zombicide frequently.

Similarly, I got a bunch of LotR models finished that I’d done very little on in the past – in fact, all seven of those models had been started to a lesser or greater extent in the past, though most had little done to them before July motivated me to get them done and out of the way. The big nasty spider had been assembled, sprayed and initially drybrushed a dark grey in the distant past, though I went over the top of that with the browns and also created the base. The Big Brimstone Guardian of Targa was started in June, as was the Royal Guard Champion, alongside his brethren. The rest of the Imperial Assault stuff was actually painted start-to-finish during July, as was the Valkyrie. So 23 models completed for the Jewel of July, including 1 for Temple of Morikan

Since the only difference between my challenge models and my overall models this month was a few pieces of terrain, I’m combining both posts into the one, here.

Aside from the Jewel of July models, the 10 ruined columns from Mythic Battles: Panthenon, the 2 bridges from Massive Darkness and the 4 doors from Star Saga provide me with a bunch of improved elements when I get to the appropriate boardgames, as well as an additional 16 pieces of scatter terrain for various wargames as needed.

16 pieces of scatter also works nicely towards my monthly goal of a minimum of one model of some sort for each day of that month – these smaller, but more frequent and constantly reset monthly goals are working a lot better for me overall than the broader “365 for a year.” My total for this month being the 23 for Jewel plus 16 non-challenge scatter terrain brings me to 39 models for this month.

From Jan to June, I completed 343 models, so with the addition of July’s 39, I’m up to 382. More on that later, though!

Heresy Miniatures Valkyrie – Heidi Sigrsdotter (Jewel of July ’18, The Temple of Morikun Painting Competition)

Heresy Miniatures Valkyrie - Heidi Sigrsdotter

This statuesque lass represents two things – firstly, my own participation for Morikun’s Competition celebrating the 1,000,000th visit to The Temple of Morikun blog. As well as (obviously) another Jewel of July for my own painting challenge. Now I’m not usually one for painting competitions these days. I have actually won a couple in the (distant) past, but the quality of competition these days is through the roof – and I’m rather pragmatic about painting competitions. If I don’t think I have a chance of winning, I don’t bother entering. I’m also realistic. I ain’t winning no Golden Demon or Crystal Brush. And so I don’t enter competitions. And I’m perfectly okay with all of that.

Heresy Miniatures Valkyrie - Heidi Sigrsdotter

Morikun’s one is a little different, in that there are roughly one billion prizes, so rather than feeling like it’s unpossible, it is actually quite possible to win some small thing. And with that, it feels more relaxed, more like a painting challenge – and as any reader of this blog knows, I’m definitely up for a painting challenge. There are other very cool challenges and competitions out there right now, with some bloody amazing work towards them, but I don’t feel that I have the time for complex kitbashes and conversions right now or anytime soon, so my participation in those is limited to just enjoying the posts and photos that they’re composed of.

Heresy Miniatures Valkyrie - Heidi Sigrsdotter

A bit annoying that the highlights and shading on the red of the cape haven’t turned out fully in the photos, but such is life. Anyway, the theme of Morikun’s competition is that of Ms. Morikun, represented by a feminine figure. I can get behind that, though I’d personally be dedicating my own model more towards Marouda, but like is like. Anyway, the best figures I could find for my oan aesthetic were some of my unpainted metal Adepta Sororitas, or a Shieldmaiden/Valkyrie. I went through my stash of Norsewomen, and decided to go big, picking out this model, Valkyrie – Heidi Sigrsdotter from Heresy Miniatures that I picked up with my last order to Andy.

Heresy Miniatures Valkyrie - Heidi Sigrsdotter

The colour scheme was something that developed pretty much organically, with no planning – I just went entirely by “feel” on this one. My only real concern was to ensure that the colours were in keeping with my actual viking models. The very “Thor” colour scheme was simply how it all turned out, which I noticed about 3/4 of the way through the model. Given the nature of the model, this was fine by me.

Heresy Miniatures Valkyrie - Heidi Sigrsdotter

One small painted change from the intent of the original sculpt I (sort of) made, was the upper chest. I genuinely thought that the breastplate continued up to under the model’s neck, where the cloak’s neck chain is. It wasn’t until partway through painting when I realised that it was meant to be a kind of comic book superheroine cleavage. So naturally I left it in the metallic colours I’d painted it in to represent armour. She doesn’t need a spear under the collarbone!

Heresy Miniatures Valkyrie - Heidi Sigrsdotter

So here we are – my submission to the Temple of Morikun and also another Jewel of July. July ends in a few hours, but the next couple of posts will be the remaining figures I finished over the final weekend in July, plus anything I manage to complete tonight before midnight.