Painting – Owls

For most of this year I’ve been looking out for an owl miniature to represent “Summer”, the owl companion of my wife’s hunter (a druid-ranger hybrid) in my Pathfinder campaign. Last month I noticed an “owl basing kit” on one of the website of one of my usual gaming suppliers. I got four owls from this, two of which are perfect for gaming. The remaining two owls are even smaller than the ones I’ve painted, so may never use them.

My wife wanted a bright coloured owl and I like to copy real life with my animal miniatures, so I used a picture of a great horned owl as my main reference.

The larger owl has the feather tufts of the horned owl, and while the small owl doesn’t have them I’ve used the same paint scheme.

White undercoat and brown ink to start, then a light yellow ochre over most of the body. More browns followed, each darker – burnt sienna, “expresso”, and burnt umber with some spots of black. White around the eyes, orange, then black pupils. The mottled effect on the feathers is better than I’d expected to get. Since I took photo’s I’ve also gone back and spotted a few dots of white down the neck/breast feathers.

The larger owl is on a 25mm base. The actual figure from the kit is just the owl on the book – the rest I built to support it. I regret not getting the column flat on top, but I noticed that after everything was glued and I didn’t want to risk damaging anything pulling them apart. Thankfully its not so obvious just looking at the figure. For the flying owl, I’ve taken a stand from a Warhammer Quest giant bat. As it happens the giant bat has been a ‘stand in’ for the owl for quite some time. It’s really nice to have a proper figure for Summer on the board – this owl has a reputation in the game as much as any player character, which started in an early session where the owl took down a fleeing goblin all by itself.

The ‘owl basing kit’ came from HQ Resin.  I’d never heard of them before, but they have some very interesting pieces “for modelers and wargamers, who create stunning dioramas and wargaming tables. Ideal for use with 28mm-32mm scale models.” They have a varied range of product that includes some figures (mostly townsfolk and a great looking 32cm high earth titan), but is mostly “terrain”. [I have no affiliation with the company. I’m just very happy with my owls!]