From the painting desk #45 – Special characters
November 10, 2016This post showcases two of my lately painted miniatures that you may have already glimpsed in the Halloween game report.
Up first is a voodoo queen from Black Cat Bases. Like most Black Cat Bases minis, the model is fairly tall and hefty. I definitely prefer this cartoony style to more realistic proportions, and love this sculpt despite its weird right hand. I’m normally not a huge fan of minis with super cleavage, but in this case it didn’t bother me – a certain amout of sexuality is a key part of the whole Hollywood voodoo queen character. In our Halloween game she was dubbed Madam Labadie, so the name sort of stuck.
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I painted the character with a very dark skin tone and made her dress yellow for some contrast. I went all out on the feathers on her staff, figuring she had plenty of colourful parrots at her disposal. The painting on the little cat is loosely based on my girlfriend’s cat, shown with yours truly in this super happy picture. This was a really fun piece to paint altogether, and I finished it fairly quickly – although the Halloween game as a deadline helped! I based the voodoo queen in the same style as my pirates, so no flowers on her base.
The second miniature is an officer type from Galloping Major, who I dubbed captain Pemberton Smythe. Another lovely miniature to paint, the officer is a clean, chunky sculpt. As my project is decidedly Hollywood over historical, I went with the same strategy as with my redcoats, drawing inspiration from historical imagery to make something that fits my idea of a British officer. I think the end result turned out quite effective.
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I only noticed while photographing that the models might both be in need of an extra blast of matt varnish. They’re not as shiny in hand as they appear in the photos, luckily!
If I’m not completely wrong, these two bring my number of miniatures painted this year up to twelve, and there are some more that I haven’t shown yet! Comments welcome as usual.
Dawn of the Lead 
Very cool mate – great skin tone on the voodoo queen, and Smythe looks very dapper 🙂
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Cheers Alex! Happy with both 🙂 Certainly motivates me to paint more of both Black Cat Bases and Galloping Major stuff.
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Those are tasty. There is lots of bright colour in your pirate town and its the better for it I think.
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Cheers! After painting a lot of zombies and near-future scifi in the last few years, this has been a great chance to break out all the bright colours. Helps with the Finnish winter darkness too!
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Very nice indeed!
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Both miniatures turned out beautifully. The contrast between skin tone and dress of Madame Labadie is quite striking and evocative! The officer looks suitably arrogant and your paintjob further emphasises this expression.
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Thanks for the kind words! Both BCB and GM miniatures paint up really well, as they’re clean sculpts with plenty of character. Definitely some of my favourite stuff to paint!
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[…] sweet minis, and will find double use as pirates too. My voodoo queen will likely be tied in with them […]
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