Mithril Miniatures – Fimbrethil, Entwife (Jewel of July ’18, The Temple of Morikun Painting Competition)

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Mithril Miniatures - Fimbrethil, Entwife

Fimbrethil had been missing since Sauron’s forces destroyed the gardens of the Entwives during the Second Age. At the time of the War of the Ring, Treebeard had not seen his beloved Fimbrethil for over three millennia.

I have a thing for Ents (hence my Avatar) and was drawn to this miniature because it is a female Ent and I think she looks quite cool and rather pretty.
I started the base coat back in 2010 and have since then worked on the flesh/wood tone on and off. I wanted to go for a light wood colour, her hair and flowers contrast nicely against the light wood. I am really happy with how the skin tone turned out the highlights especially on the face. I remember Azazel recommending that I read a painting guide/tutorial in a very old white dwarf on how to highlight/paint a face.

Mithril Miniatures - Fimbrethil, Entwife

I wanted to go for a red/yellow/orange autumn leaf colour for the hair, and lavender type colouring for the flowers and stems. The fine details made me nervous to paint and gave me an actual headache especially the flowers in her hair, I use a magnifying desk lamp to see/enlarge the detail. I was too scared of loading the brush so ended up using/putting too little paint on the brush, oh well better to be over cautious than be ham handed.

Mithril Miniatures - Fimbrethil, Entwife

The big motivator/push to get this miniature finally done was when Azazel mentioned a ‘competition’ and ‘prizes’ at The Temple of Morikun and I jumped on board. Although I did think of working on her for the ‘Fembrurary’ challenge earlier this year.

Mithril Miniatures - Fimbrethil, Entwife

Before this last week the model was just the skin. I have completed the rest over the last week or so.

Paint List:

Hair: Base Colour: is Citadel Troll Slayer Orange, highlight: Reaper Miniatures Golden Yellow. Wash: Citadel Baal Red

Bunch of Flowers: Base: The Army Painter Warpaints Alien purple.  Highlighting: Zombicide Toxic Boils. Wash: Purple Tone Ink Wash (Quickshade) The Army Painter.

Flowers in Hair: Base: Ultramarine Blue Game Colour. Highlight: Glacier Blue Game Colour.

The Skin Tone was done with browns and greys it was such a long time ago I can’t recall the exact paints. I remember it took me ages to do, the highlighting and shading. I think it put me off getting the rest of the model done. I think I need to take a lesson from Azazel’s book, it’s better to get a model to good enough and finished instead of trying to be a perfectionist and not get anything finished.

For the base, clay cat litter rocks for the stones and real twigs for the twigs/log. I picked out some light moss and some white and yellow flowers.

Mithril Miniatures - Fimbrethil, Entwife

This model is now out of production but can still be purchased from Mithril Miniatures. They have 38 still available when I last checked. Azazel told me that he bought this miniature back in the 80’s (before we had met) to use in Bloodbowl.

I am very happy that Azazel let me paint her, I think she looks beautiful. What do you think? She’s a bit heavy on the flower power, but I think she can get away with it.

Hopefully the next project wont take me 10 years to finish! I think admiring this one in the display cabinet should be motivation enough to get another model done. Maybe you guys can help me pick out my next project?

Zombicide Survivor: Red Cap Ben (Jewel of July ’18)

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Zombicide Survivor: Red Cap Ben

Well, how do I followup yesterday’s post? With Zombicide, I guess. I finished this pair yesterday – Red Cap Ben in both his living and Zombvivor forms. Ben comes from the Zombicide Karl Kopinski Special Guest Box that also included Angry Mary, who got painted almost three years ago  …probably not far off when I started on Ben. It’s been awhile…

I wanted to try something a bit different for Ben’s pants. Going for both some splatter as well as bloodstaining. I think it turned out quite well, though the light colour of his trousers helped immeasurably. (If it were August, I could have counted that!)

Ben is… just some guy. We spent a bit of time when we first opened up that box speculating about if he was supposed to “be” somebody, or a reference to something, but nope. He appears to just be some guy who looks slightly backwoodsy and slightly homeless – but appears to be pretty well set for zombie survivalist expeditions. I might have gone for a machete rather than a hatchet (or better yet, both!) but I see the practicality of having an axe in a survivalist setting. Firewood doesn’t chop itself, after all.

Zombicide Survivor: Red Cap Ben

I need some new brush-on varnish, as his jacket and backpack have turned out a bit more shiny in the photos than IRL. I’ll probably need to bring him back in and do that as a touch-up. You know how this stuff really stands out in the photographs when the figure is blown up so much! You can kind of make out the blood trail and the smearing of blood on his base, though until I get a tripod for my phone (sadly, my new camera’s phone is now better than my Canon camera at miniatures photography!) – so I’m taking photos with the phone on the table (mostly) rather than elevated.

Zombicide Survivor: Red Cap Ben

Finally, I thought a comparison shot was in order, using a Space Marine – which is a handy guide for most people (yeah, not everyone!) to give a sense of scale and size for many of these boardgame figures I’ve been working on over the last month. Height-wise they’re much the same (taller even, once the bases are taken into account) but much more realistically proportioned, and what we call “truescale”. Which means annoyingly tiny heads when it comes to eyes and all those other small details. Oh, and I’ve heat-reset the Zombivor’s warped/bent shotgun several times. It just keeps going back…

If you’re planning on submitting a model for the Jewel of July Community Challenge, get them in ASAP – you’ve still got a couple of days to get the model done, and then a couple more to get them photographed and posted. Please ensure your model’s post(s) are linked to the comments in there so I can find them. Trust me, even if I’ve read and commented on your models, I’ll still bloody well forget when I’m sitting here assembling the post. Happened in the June Round-Up, it’s happened before then and it’ll happen again.

The next two days (June 30 and 31) should be Marouda’s and my own entries for the Painting Challenge/Contest of The 1,000,000 Visits to the Temple over at The Temple of Morikun. The deadline to which is the 31st of July.

Following that I have three more (so far) of my own July models to share, as I had a nice productive spurt yesterday morning after a couple of days off, and we’ll see if I can finish anything additional in the final two days. Then my own July Round-Up & my Jewel of July Round-Up, then the Jewel of July Community Round-Up.