Report from Kezley

kezley writes:

This Step-by-Step Work in Progress is for a contest hosted by The Miniatures Page. I was lucky enough to pass the first 4 rounds of voting, competing with 80 or so fellow painters. Thank you for all of you who voted for me :-) And most of all, thank you to Bill at TMP for coordinating this contest.

OK, the first figure we have to paint is a Celtos Female Druid. When I saw the figure up close, I had a vision of her being not just an ordinary druid, but I wanted her to look more like a tribal druid with animal skin clothing and minimal to no armor. This Workbench report will show you step-by-step from assembly, painting and basing the miniature.

OK, Let's start with...

Putting the Mini Together

The original:

This picture shows you the original sculpt of the Female Druid, plus all the tools that I used for converting her. The rule says that I cannot do weapon (part) swap, but I can modify the position, etc. So I decided to reposition her right arm and add a little detail to the staff.

The conversion:

To reposition the right arm, I made two cuts: the elbow (about half way), and the part where the end of the hilt of the sickle touches the hair (cut through all the way – the hilt was then re-sculpted). Then with Kleenex and plyers, I repositioned the arm to point forward. Now, instead of just looking like she's scaring some crows from the farm, she looks like she's about ready to slash someone :)

The sculpting:

With Kneadatite (white), I sculpted the parts that need to be fixed: the hair, fill the gap for the arm, circular detail to cover the joint on the staff, and the end part of the weapon hilt. Now after all the putty is cured, she'll be ready to be painted.