Gnome for the Holidays

While deleting draft posts from the page, I discovered this post that I'd started in January and never got to finishing.

I had got this far:

Christmas Day I painted gnomes, and a halfling with a crazy '70s mustache. First little bastards painted since the end of August.

And now I can't remember a damned thing about what steps I took to paint them. Here goes with the addled recollections.

This is a great miniature. One of those "ohhhh, I need this... I really need this..." purchases. It's from the Citadel Fantasy Adventurer line, FA34-2 Gnome Warrior Thief. This particular miniature was released in Spring of 1982, a variant/resculpt of the previous Gnome released the year previous.

It's a Michael Perry sculpt and it is tiny; just over a half inch to the eyeballs. You wouldn't think it given how much wonderful detail is on this. The smile is what gets me every time. I vaguely recall having a lot of fun painting this. Looking at this photo (and I really need to dig the miniature out to confirm this) I'm quite pleased with how the eye(s) turned out.

More of the fantastic details that help make this a dungeon adventurer.

This one I need to dig out so I can properly identify the manufacturer.

The palette on this one was kept really simple. I painted it in green and white with the intention of contributing it to the Oldhammer warband project. I don't know why I didn't to be honest. It's not a bad paint job for me and it works.  I'm particularly happy with the way the wood on the shield turned out. I think it was a base coat of oak that I then dragged a 'clumsy' oak/white mix through to create the idea of grain. Clumsy in that the white and the oak don't quite mix evenly and the brush tip has both colours on it creating a streakiness when drawn down the shield. It's something I'll need to try again as I really like the effect.

Also: most excellent facial hair which is hardly ever seen on a halfling miniature.

***

I have actually painted in the last week. One of John Boyce's Colony 87 miniatures. I'll aim to finish that and do some work on some eldar or dark elves. I'm still fixating on the idea of doing chore-ish squads and units punctuated by some of the odds and sods I have from various kickstarters/indiegogo campaigns and ebay impulse buys.

Let's see what the week brings.

Till then.