My Little Scythe #4 – Wolves

This pair I expected to be fairly easy to do, since at first glance, most of the figure is armour.

A closer look suggested they weren’t going to be quite so straight-forward. What they wear makes no sense (or is impossible) but it is a kids game, so whatever! Each wears a visor, but no helmet – it looks like it bolts straight into their head. They have elbow guards with no straps. The shoulder guards could join to the armour at the neck. The head plume would make sense if it was actually hair (or on a helmet), but it’s meant to be coloured and has a metal (?) ring that sticks on top of their heads.

 

The armour bits were pretty easy to paint, with a couple of careful bits of fur in between parts of it. Their pants were the hardest bit, with narrow gaps and awkward angles for a paint brush between shirt and boots, especially underneath. The painting guide had the armour in a dull grey, and a slightly orange-tinged yellow. I thought actual metallics would be much better and I think the silver and bronze came out well.

 

Only two bears to go… although they look rather more like mice to me.

My Little Scythe #3 – Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

“Tiger Seekers are not only master bakers, but excellent marksmen in the kingdom’s official sport of pie throwing.”

Two more figures painted for the board game “My Little Scythe”, and the last four (bears and wolves) are ready to start.

The paint guide showed greys and white for their clothes, which I started with, but quickly gave up as boring and decided on a much more colourful palette. I think this has worked out much better. (Aside: Also, my wife doesn’t like me painting these figures with white, she thinks it looks like I didn’t paint that part.)

The paint guide shows a few horizontal lines on the side of their faces and arms. Looking at the figures, particularly the “mane of hair”, I would suggest they should be lions. I looked at some tiger photos, and went with lots of thinner markings on arms and their back. I considered painted their faces too, but it would be a bit too much detail. I did paint whiskers, sat back and then cleaned them off again. Their noses were originally pink, like a real tiger, but it didn’t stand out against the yellow and ornage, so a bit of ink to darken that. The white around the mouth is also based on real tigers.

The only thing I’ve decided (after spray varnish of course) is that the stripes should have been a bit darker. Reflection in the images makes the lines seem a bit lighter than they actually are, but I’m not completely satisfied, particularly with the guy on the right.

 

Coming out of Lockdown

With lock-down rules relaxing here, my wife and I were able to visit a friend’s home for an evening of catching up in person yesterday. We also managed a fairly long five-player game of Ticket to Ride. While I’ve heard a lot about the game, we had never played it before. We had a lot of fun learning strategy, building train lines and upsetting other players plans. It was nice being out and while I didn’t win, I had a lot of fun. My wife came second and received a certificate and a bracelet as a price from the 8 year old who came last. (Who might have done better if she’d paid more attention to the game, instead of than talking to everyone, making prizes and looking at her iPad. She’d wanted to play Alhahambra, but her father thought that we’d learn TtR faster.)

Painting has been mostly Space marines over the last two weeks. I have two squads almost done, with the main exception being their special weapons. I have now added the last 6 figures from ‘My Little Scythe’ to the tray, so that’s something more interesting to do interspersed between working on the Ultramarines.

The Space marines haven’t been as much fun to paint as the Chaos Marines were. Overall, I feel these are slightly simpler sculpts. The detail is “softer” – armor plates not so individually defined, detail like the chest eagle mostly hidden behind the bolters, etc. My freehand isn’t up to painting chapter symbols on shoulder pads either, which is a pity. These figures will go without. (It could happen if I turned up some decals on the ‘net at a really low price.) In any case they do stand out a lot more compared to the single colour plastic that they started as.

I hope you are all coping well with life and Covid-19 where you are. Best wishes!