Blade Maiden Leader
by Tyson Tu
The main thing that I wanted to do with this fig was to learn how to do decent skin tones, specifically the pale skin tone for a red-head (that was the first decision). It looked like an amazing fig, and I particularly liked the expression and pose on the figure (the sword arm has a bit of give regarding the angle of the blade, but too much and the upper arm doesn't match up with the lower arm).
Since I wanted to portray a pale figure from the northlands (who would go barechested in the land of snow and ice, anyway?), I first started with GW Dwarf flesh, a mix of red, brown, and a dab of gold for the hair, Space Wolves gray for the fur cape, and a black coat for exposed metal. After waiting about 6 months (gotta let that first coat age a bit :P) I washed the entire mini with a brown ink (mixed with matte varnish to lighten it up a bit), and did a first drybrush coat on the cape with the same gray I based it with. The backside of the cape was painted tan, and washed with Chestnut ink. Metal was picked out with Chainmail and Brass, and the hair was drybrushed with its base color.
I mixed up a pale skin color with Dwarf flesh, pink, and white and added varying amounts of Chestnut ink for different shades. This was my first try at blending, and I'm not sure if I even ended up with different shades on the mini, but she still looked pretty good, so I'll probably just leave her alone. The eyes were painted with a green stripe for each socket (cleaned up with Dwarf flesh above and below) and the white were added with a dot to either side of the green. I'm not sure if she's actually wearing an earring, but it looked like it, so I painted it gold. The cape received one more drybrush with white, and the metal was drybrushed with silver or gold (over the chainmail and brass, respectively).
I decided on a snowy base, so I put down a liberal coating of white glue, and added a small pebble and some modelling grass (not static grass but the stuff they sell in bundles). After the glue dried, I added another layer to give it a bit more thickness, then painted the whole thing white, drybrushing the white up onto her boots and the scenery.
Tyson Tu
Previous Miniature
Visions in Color #4 Index
Next Miniature