LIII. The Faerie Sniper

Over at Wamp forum, a painting competition sponsored by Studio McVey has been announced a couple of weeks ago. Having actually bought one of their miniatures recently, I decided to enter the competition. Even if I hadn't already had the miniature, I would have used this chance to get one: the McVey store offers a 20% discount for anyone buying a mini for the contest. To get the discount just enter the code SMWAMP while buying at studiomcvey.com.

The miniature I painted was the lovely Ar-Fiach, from their limited edition resin range. It's a beautiful sculpt, and the resin miniature is tiny and delicate. I wanted it to be usable for my games- and to fit into the Gardens setting it needed some conversion. A TV aerial it holds on to and the too modern-looking chimney had to go. It's a pity in a way, because those bits really make it much more interesting. It is not often that you see a faerie depicted in an urban setting. Ah well... I might get another one some day.

The hand holding the aerial was replaced by one of the Hobbit Goblin hands. Something a tad smaller would have been perfect, but this was the best I had. The clawed hand reminds me a bit of bird talons, which is cool because Ar-Fiach sports a number of birdlike features to begin with: look at her legs from knees down, for example, and her hair is actually all feathers. I posed the hand as if she were saying to the observer: "Shhh. Don't scare away my prey." Quickly after the moment captured someone or something is going to get shot.

I also needed a replacement for the chimney. The most obvious option was to just build a more fantasy-looking chimney. However, I wanted her to stand much closer to the ground. It would have been cool if I could have put her on a small tree or a log. But the sculpt requires a very specific shape to stand on. After an afternoon of attempting to build some sort of small structure to fill the role, I ended up with this "hitching post + announcement board" thingy.

The base, completely built. This is a 40mm base, by the way.

 The structure was built around a cork. The individial stones were cut from some leftover plaster and clay wall parts from another project, and then glued around the cork with PVA glue. I meant to make the entire structure in stone, but I gave up half way up because the process of making the stone bricks was really annoying me. So I just went with balsa wood planks from there on. However, I put a big, flat square stone on the top in the end. The board with the paper nailed to it comes from the Citadel Wood kit. 

The metal rings on the sides look really nice and are fairly simple to make. You can get the little rings in hobby shops that sell jewellry-making materials. Then you simply cut a little square of plasticard and drill two holes in it. Attach the ring to it with a twice bent piece of paperclip or pin, and then glue the whole thing wherever you need it. This is also great for door knockers.

The painting on the base done.

 After adding some small stones and sand to to finish it off, I undercoated it grey and proceeded to the painting stage. Pale stone parts contrast the dark wood. I used pigments applied as a wash with water to add some colour to the grey dirt. The rusty effect on the metal rings was acheved by painting them first with a light reddish brown, followed by a bit darker brown pigment. It would have been better if I had a proper rust-coloured pigment; but alas, I don't.

The finished base.

The final step was adding some foliage. Grass tufts, a couple of those tiny dry "leaves" I put on everything, and some moss patches on the stone bits. I actually darkened the grass a bit with a brown wash, and then lightly drybrushed the tips for contrast.  

Oh, and the text on the message board was added in the meanwhile. It's just wavy lines, nothing intelligible.

Ready for painting.

After that I started work on the miniature itself. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of the painting process... The colour scheme was, as usual, pretty dark. I think that suits a faerie well, after all they are terrifying, morbid creatures. Those pretty blue and black striped feathers in her "hair" were inspired by jay feathers I usually wear on my hat. I think their vibrancy livens up the whole grim picture quite nicely.

Pretty little feathers...

I haven't yet got a background story for this character, but a new faction is vaguely forming in my mind already. We'll see later what comes of it. : ) 

And as for the results of the McVey competition: the deadline is a whole month away, and after that who knows how long before the results come in. I'll have to be patient. I'm really looking forward to seeing the other entries.