From TeemuL: Parade in Paradise [The Ambitious] [The Lovers] [The Just Rulers] (100 points)

So I have been stuck in Paradise for some time now after clearing the First Circle: The Inconstant. Since that I have been painting everything else, searched for female miniatures and browsed dictionaries to figure out what all those fancy words mean and how I can twist them to fit my minis.

I was planning to use my Ambition entry for Wise, but lacking the females and time I had to make some changes. But I guess Gandalf is considered wise, but also ambitious: "A figure that is as keen as mustard, an overachiever".

I'll kill the Balrog, resurrect myself, replace the head of my order, be a kingmaker, ride couple of days and nights, make vaque promises and keep them and so on.

Does that sound an overachiever? It does to me. And this mini is Gandalf the White version by Games Workshop, a nice metal model, which I tried to paint white. Yes, lots of whites and shades of white, but I think it is ok.

Assuming my reasoning is valid I can move to the third circle and present The Lovers. Yes, Lannisters in paradise... Not the most usual love story, brother and sister loving each other and their common son. Jaime and Cersei Lannister with Tommen. There were some lust, some other strong feelings, too, but definitely some love. And at least Jaime and Cersei both loved Tommen, so that is my backup plan for Lovers.

These are from CMON box Lannister Heroes 3 and are plastic as the previous ones. Not that many details, but that makes them fast to paint. I'm happy with Jaime, but I guess Cersei would have liked more royal outfit, I don't know. I gave Jaime the white cloak of King's guard, I believe he was part of that even after losing his hand.

I'm not familiar with the game A Song of Ice and Fire where these belong, but these look quite strange heroes for a wargame. Queen (regent?) in a dress with his young son and a knight on his knees with a bandaged hand. Not may be the types you expect to see in the first line, but Seven Kingdoms is an interesting place.

Next stop is The Just Rulers. I'll present King Aragorn before he was wise and just king. Yes, I was planning to use Gandalf as Wise, but my female transportation options were scarce. Aragorn was very clever even before he was crowned king. Here he is from the "Two Towers era", where he was told "When last I looked, Théoden, not Aragorn, was king of Rohan." and kept his mouth wisely shut and later became king of Gondor.

He reigned long and died peacefully, made clever pacts and bowed to hobbits. In general considered as a good guy, I think I could have used him as the Ambitious one, too... But yes, he was just ruler, lived a long life and learnt a lot from elfs and men and even something from dwarfs and hobbits and ents. I think I could have used him as the Wise one, too? Tells something about the works of Tolkien, that his characters are definitely not one dimensional.

I've been talking about the female minis here and there and you might realize, that one must use a female or angel mini to jump over circles and I have just come from 3rd to 6th circle and I can't use Cersei for transport so I need to present something else.

Let me present you Bertha the Bear, the famous female bear!

This is a metal bear from Warbases, I ordered her at the same time I ordered the bases for Napoleonics. I know there has been some strong rulings in the past regarding female bears, but I believe they are all sorted out now?

But if I'm mistaken and Bertha is not counted, I have another classic from Challenge Wednesdays, Dorothy Dromedar!

She is from Warbases, too. She has quite a strong mould line on her back, looks good from one angle, but terrible from other. Both Bertha and Dorothy are mainly painted using Contrast paints with some details added and especially the underbellies and legs drybrushed.

Sarah the Shootist is the last and third female of this post and she makes it sure that I can pass.

She is a plastic from Great Escape Games Gunfighters II box and painted mostly with traditional acrylics. Green and brown sounded like practical colours, violet scarf gives a hinf of her feminity. Little bit dusted clothes to match my other Old West minis.

With these I have gone through 4 circles in Paradise and can either pick The Warriors of Faith or The Contemplatives next. I need to browse through the dictionary again...

I'd say this is 8 (6 humans and 2 animals of different sizes) 28mm minis in total for 40 points and then three locations for total of 100 points! I have more to come before the Challenge ends!

Wow Teemu, you've pulled out all the stops with this entry! I really like your interpretation of The Ambitious, The Lovers, and The Just Ruler - each one a terrific example of those themes. Bertha the Bear made me laugh aloud (and I'm sure Ray will do the same) and Sarah the Shootist looks truly formidable, ready to draw her long-barrelled Colt if the need arrises. Brilliant work, sir!

- Curt

From TeemuL: Won every battle, lost the war [The Inconstant] (49 points)

I have passed 6 circles in Abyss and now I'm ready to enter the Paradise. I guess we are supposed to start from the first circle, so here's my offer for the Inconstant. I present Robb Stark, the King in the North, the Young Wolf from The Song of Ice and Fire saga. He rebelled against the king, won every battle, but lost the war. He betrothed to a woman, married another woman and got killed (with pretty much every one else in his company). Kind of tried his best, but fell a bit short.

I had several Lannister characters in my Abyss entries, now couple of Starks in Paradise. These are from the Stark Heroes 3 box, which is now completely painted. I'm not planning to play any games with these, so I could have used more effort to paint them "shelf standard", but the models are a combination of being quite large and lack in details, so the paint job is "artistic" I'd say. Basically a basecoat, wash and strong highlights, from a certain point of view they have somekind of athmosphere on them. I hope. :)

The Inconstant himself

Robb is accompanied here by two of the Stark bannermen, Maege Mormont and Brynden Tully on horse. I used rather limited palette on all of these to tie them together, browns, blacks, and greys. Similar colours I used the other models. They are not an uniformed army, they are all characters, but they are all from the harsh north and wear practical clothes.

Maege

Brynden

There is one difference between these and the earlier ones, these new guys have self-made tufts on their bases! Yes. I have been using ready made tufts for couple of years, they look good and I'd like to use them more, but they are rather expensive. Especially, when it looks better when there are more of them. At some point I heard that you can made them by yourself and then I got inspired by minionee (is that a word, I hope you understand?) DaveD and asked him about the DIY tufts. Couple of emails later I placed an order on WWScenics and ordered a started kit. It arrived earlier this week and I started experimenting with it. So far so good, not all tufts are perfect, but the percentage is quite good. And this will get cheap in the long run, I can create different sizes, colours, shapes, heights etc, so I'm quite interested in this. Plus I don't need to create just tufts, I can create dioramas and/or glue static grass directly on the bases, too.

Stark Heroes 3, previously painted and tufted on the right

These fellows are in 40mm scale and one is mounted, so the point total should be 2*7+15=29 and then 20 bonus points for the Inconstant location. Until next time!

Welcome to the Paradise

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Hi Teemu

Welcome to Paradise!

Great interpretation of Inconstant, Robb Stark definitely fits the bill! Nice paint job on the Stark Heros, they do look practical and dressed appropriately (no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing choices)

Super work on your home made tufts! 

49 points to your scoreboard

- Sarah

From TeemuL: The Mountain that Riders [Violence] (42 points)

Now that I have passed to the Circle of Violence I present you The Mountain that Rides. If you know, no explanation is necessary. If you don't know, then there is not enough space to explain. :)

Gregor Clegane also known as The Mountain that Rides comes from G.R.R. Martin's stalled fantasy epic The Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted to the screen couple of years ago by HBO. These miniatures come from the books, not series, and therefore don't look like that actors. Westeros Wiki describes him as "The violent Gregor is a sadistic murderer and rapists", so I believe my claim for bonus points is valid.

Accompanying Gregor is Addam Marbrand, character I don't remember from the series and it has been years since I read the books, so I don't know how violent he is. Probably a lot, considering where he comes from... They both come from Cool Mini Or Not box Lannister Heroes 3, just like the three characters I presented earlier. Quite boring to paint, lots of armour and red cloaks. The size, material and amount of detail makes them resemble more toys than wargame miniatures. May be some freehand somewhere? Addam's shield for example, but since I don't know he is, I left it plain. Gregor's shield had sculpted details.

The armour of Robert Strong got some nice earlier comments, so naturally I decided to paint these guys differently and had lots of troubles. The red plastic still comes through here and there despite several layers of different metallic paints and thin washes. Quite ok, but not good enough for close inspections.

Based on the previous points claimed on similar minis I ask 7 points for 40mm Addam and 20 points for 54mm mounted Gregor. And 20 bonus points for Violence. Total of 47 points.

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Ooh, A Riot of Red Violence! 

The Mountain, Gregor Clegane is definitely destined for this Circle of Hell as could be GRR Martin himself (his "stalled" series has left many a fan with very strong feelings)

Well done on working through the problems of the plastic minis and the results are super.

Sorry, but a 40mm mounted figure is 15 points not 20, so 42 total points to your scoreboard. :)

- Sarah

Ready From TeemuL: Lannister Heroes (44 points) [Limbo]

Bit of slow start this time, I was supposed to have plenty of time during the weekend and Christmas week, but I caught a flu and focusing on minis was out of question. Happily these The Song of Ice and Fire minis have been on my desk since October and needed very little work to complete them. Anyway, they qualify for Limbo and now they are done.

These three are from Lannister Heroes 3 set, which I got from a sale. I don't have the game, but they were cheap and I decided to give them a chance. They are one piece plastic minis and rather large. Robert Strong on the left is 60mm to the feathers and the other two are almost 40mm. So they won't mix with my other minis (mostly 28mm), but may be they find some use. I have other half of the box still to do.

The paint job is not extraordinary, I'm not happy with the faces for example and highlights are bit rough, but they are ok if you look from far enough. Robert and Kevan were quite dull, full armour and red cloak, Qyburn was more interesting. There are heavy washes and heavy highlights, as I mentioned earlier. Some sand and tufts on the base.

Robert Strong

Kevan Lannister

Qyburn

After taking the initial shots, I realized I missed the blacks from they eyes, so back to the painting table. Here the horrible close ups, but the eyes are decent - it kinda helps that the models are quite large!

Regarding the scoring these qualify for Limbo (20 points) and I ask for 7 points for Kevan and Qyburn (40mm minis) and 10 for Robert Strong (54mm). Total should be 49 points, if Curt agrees.

What's next? I have been rather busy and my painting motivation has been low and I haven't prepared any females (or deamons), so I guess I need to paint something for Lust. Outside the themes, expect to see some fantasy or another, may be historical or scifi.

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Welcome back to the Challenge Teemu! I'm sorry to hear that you've not been feeling well but it seems you've managed to move from one Limbo to another that is a bit more fun. I virtually know nothing about the The Song of Ice and Fire miniature game though it seems they've produced a lot of product for it.  That aside, you've done very nice work on these Lannisters. I like the armour, your highligting and especially your efforts on their faces. Kudos to you for the eyes - I almost never do as it seems to be a practice of diminishing return on time invested. 

Your scales are right but your math is off, so 44 points it is - well done!

- Curt

From SimonM: Iceman by "CoolMiniOrNot" (5 points)

Thought I’d best get an entry in straight from the start, so I thought something reasonably straightforward would be a good place to begin…

This 32mm scale translucent plastic model of Iceman was produced by “CoolMiniOrNot” as part of their "Marvel Zombies" stand-alone game using the "Zombicide" rule-set. One of numerous "Kickstarter" exclusive figures, this particular incarnation of Bobby Drake's frosty alter-ego was created by Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips for the May 2007 issue of "Marvel Zombies: Dead Days" by "Marvel Comics".

Presumed to be residing at the Xavier Institute on Earth-2149 when the zombie plague first struck, the mutant superhero was initially undercoated using a mixture of "Vallejo" Surface Primer White and the Spanish company's Model Colour White. He was then drowned in "Citadel" Drakenhof Nightshade, before being slowly 'built back up' using multiple patient dry-brushes of White Star by Duncan Rhodes' "Two Thin Coats". Finally, the X-Man's eye sockets were given a dab of "Citadel" Abaddon Black and spotted with (more) "Two Thin Coats" White Star.

One x 32mm scale foot figure = 5 Points

Total = 5 Points

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Simon! I thought for sure we'd have a masterclass in your signature black, but here you keep us on our toes to give us the delightful 'Iceman' in cool whites and blues - well done! I came across 'Drakenhof Nightshade' last year and it's a fabulously useful wash which you put to fine use here. Over the next three months I look forward to being educated by you regarding all manner of superheroes and their dastardly villains. :)

- Curt