READY! From SamuliS: Curtgeld, Emperor Curtius Cuddlius (65 Points)

It's time for me to step up and pay the price for the last three months of painting! Lo and behold Emperor Curtius Cuddlius crossing the Fuzzycon flanked by his bodyguard and standard bearer Maximus Furrius and trumpeter Fluffius.

As I am an engineer with a product development and project management background I figured I should do what we do best, copy and improve :) With pressure coming from the top there's never time to come up with something original and rarely any room for real R&D so you default to copying others and trying to improve. So what a better subject for imitation than our own Snowlords first entry, Caesar!  What remains to be decided, is whether the real risk taker here is Emperor Curtius Cuddlius and his defiance against the Bearian Empire or me with my blatant copying ;)

I hadn't really settled on what I would do for my Curtgeld entry this year, when I stumbled upon the Teddy Bear Roman line sculpted by Mike Broadbent and manufactured by Eureka. Seeing them I knew this was the choice, and as I needed more Saxons anyway I went straight ahead and ordered these three amazing minis.

Continuing my project of copying improvement I went for the same kind of base set up and built the trio preparing to cross the Fuzzycon. I've never done any water on bases before. I googled a few different approaches, from PVA to proper water effects materials. However in the end I went for the easy PVA way with some wavy shapes done on the near dry PVA followed by a few blue shades. On top of that I went with another PVA layer with some blue ink added to add a bit more depth to the whole thing. The miniatures themselves were painted with rather simple clear colours to make them look a bit more like teddy bears and their equipment.

With these done it's back to the brushes! Two more entries to finish up. Should just have enough time to do them both and go over the 1000 point goal I've set for myself.

Have a great sprint to the finish line everyone!

Oh wow, this is brilliant Samuli - I just love it. Sarah and I were discussing this entry and marveling over both it and the bewildering number of miniature companies that are out there doing all these wild and wonderful figures. It really is amazing. But not as amazing as this diorama. This is so, so cool. I just love how you've mimicked (and improved upon!) my original entry. It's fantastic. I think my favourite element of this wonderful work is the hobby horse that Curtius is riding. I can't help but smile every time I see it.

Just for fun, I'm attaching my original entry so folks can appreciate the work Samuli has done here.

Thank you very much, Samuli for this wonderful vignette.