While I had originally planned to make posts of these minis piecemeal, I figured that it would simply lead to most of them never getting displayed. As a result, this post features a pretty mixed selection of miniatures, but I’m sure that just makes it more entertaining!
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Up first is a pair of pirates, consisting of a barber surgeon from Black Cat Bases and Esmerelda, a pirate lady from Black Scorpion. While stylistically very different, both were enjoyable to paint and make for nice additions to my pirate crews. I’m especially happy with the surgeon, who I think looks a bit like an annoyed Billy Connolly. As with some other Black Scorpion female minis, I painted the legs to suggest very tight pants instead of the cool pirate lady wearing a loincloth and boots. For some reason I never have to do this with male miniatures, who knew!
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Onto the monkeys! A fair few miniature manufacturers make monkey miniatures as part of their pirate lines, and I’m happy to collect them. The monkey wearing a bicorne is another Black Scorpion sculpt that I picked up at Salute last year. The monkey sitting on a barrel is another 3d print from Depths of Savage Atoll. As one of my early test prints, the quality isn’t perfect and I already considered throwing the mini way. I didn’t have the heart to do it though, and after a bit of paint I think it turned out fine. Both of these were simple sculpts and easy to paint, and I’m really pleased with the end results. As for how I’ll use them, no idea whatsoever.
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Rounding out this post are two very characterful pirates. The first one is a custom Hero Forge piece I printed, who I’m calling Smith of Bristol. Now, to anyone not familiar with the Dubliners song of the same name, it tells the story of a daring pirate who goes around a-plunderin’ and a-robbin’, before finally being killed by a Spanish bullet. The twist of the song follows this, with the lines “he was only ninety-seven/but his soul had gone to heaven”, which I’ve always found hilarious. So, long story short, here’s a sprightly old pirate! If you want to listen to the song, I’ve embedded it below.
The second miniature is another one with some story behind him. He’s Tijl Uilenspiegel, an exclusive miniature from the Crisis wargaming show in Antwerp. Originally Tijl, known in English as Till Owlglass, is a 16th (or possibly 15th or even earlier) century trickster figure. As Wikipedia informs us:
Many of Till’s pranks are scatological in nature, and involve tricking people into touching, smelling, or even eating Till’s excrement. Scatological stories abound, beginning with Till’s early childhood (in which he rides behind his father and exposes his rear-end to the townspeople) and persisting until his death bed (where he tricks a priest into soiling his hands with feces).
An excellent character, in other words! While I don’t think my pirate version of him is quite this feces-focused, the sculpt is great. Paul Hicks has sculpted a wonderful expression on the mini, and I tried to reflect this when painting the eyes. I think he does look a bit…trickstery.
While all of these would technically qualify for Ann’s “Paint the crap you already own!” challenge, Tijl Uilenspiegel is the one mini I had in mind when I decided to participate in the challenge. He’s a sad case of “Oooh I really want that, what a cool mini, better let him sit in a box for a year or two” so I’m happy that he’s finished!
With all this painted stuff, I’m at 12/100 for my painting goal of 100 pieces this year. With a third of the year gone – not great, not terrible. Still, with a bunch of easy to paint terrain pieces and the like in the near future, I’m still optimistic!
Dawn of the Lead 