From SamuliS: Paying the Curtgeld (20 points)

In the last week of the challenge I decided to take it a bit easier. I have some half finished stuff, but as I'll already go over my target of 1000 points with this entry there was really no point to rush. So it's time for my last entry to the challenge and what a better way to end that paying the entry price! With our generous host being from a land that is possibly even more of a winter wonderland than Finland I decided to go with a slightly more wintery theme.

My original plan was to create Sven Dufva from The Tales of Ensign Stål. With no suitable miniatures available to use as a Finnish soldier in the 1808 war and conversions requiring a lot of work I decided to go with something easier. Then we came to one of my favorite book (and TV) series in the last few years and with Dark Sword Miniatures having an excellent Game of Thrones line the choice of setting was easy. With that decided the choice of character to paint up became much more challenging. Tyrion would have been too obvious. I did think very long about painting up Littlefinger as he is one of my favorite characters, but as Curt is from Canada I decided to paint up something more wintery.

So in the end my choice for character was Samwell Tarly of the Night's Watch. He's fat, mostly useless as a fighter and a self professed coward. So not exactly your typical hero. However he is well educated, smart and when the need arises can conjure up great bravery from within as is shown with his slaying of a White Walker. So I'd say he fits the Anti-hero character definition quite well.

He was actually quite difficult to paint up as nearly everything is black and differentiating equipment was quite hard. I'm still not very comfortable with painting black as finding the balance between enough contrast and not looking like grey seems to be quite different. Maybe a tad bit closer to the looking like grey this time, but then again the equipment of the Night's Watch isn't exactly brand new and probably won't be pure black. His dagger is supposed to be dragonglass and I tried to do that with a black blade that has grey blue edging and details. On the base I went for a more Winter is coming look with a frosty looking base and only a thin snow coverage on a few spots.

So with that I'd like to thank Curt for hosting this wonderful event yet again! A huge push from you once again. And thanks to the lovely Sarah for allowing all this to happen :) The challenge is really a great way to get some painting motivation and have things move forward fast. Thanks to the generous sponsors as well for providing prizes to this! And finally thanks to all the other participants! There have been some extremely inspiring entries from you and it has been great to follow your progress.


From Curt:

Thank you so much Samuli (and congratulations on hitting your target)! Samwell is one of my favourite characters from Martin's series (I also have deep affection for his pessimistic compatriot 'Dolorous Edd'). I think you've done a brilliant job on the blacks on this figure. As you say, doing black contrasts can be quite tricky, but you've pulled it off in style. I also love the red interior detail of Samwell's cloak - a very nice counterpoint. 

But more importantly thank you for joining us again this year Samuli. I always value your participation and support. I wish you the best this spring and summer I hope we can do it again this coming autumn. Best regards.