From TeemuL: Won every battle, lost the war [The Inconstant] (49 points)

I have passed 6 circles in Abyss and now I'm ready to enter the Paradise. I guess we are supposed to start from the first circle, so here's my offer for the Inconstant. I present Robb Stark, the King in the North, the Young Wolf from The Song of Ice and Fire saga. He rebelled against the king, won every battle, but lost the war. He betrothed to a woman, married another woman and got killed (with pretty much every one else in his company). Kind of tried his best, but fell a bit short.

I had several Lannister characters in my Abyss entries, now couple of Starks in Paradise. These are from the Stark Heroes 3 box, which is now completely painted. I'm not planning to play any games with these, so I could have used more effort to paint them "shelf standard", but the models are a combination of being quite large and lack in details, so the paint job is "artistic" I'd say. Basically a basecoat, wash and strong highlights, from a certain point of view they have somekind of athmosphere on them. I hope. :)

The Inconstant himself

Robb is accompanied here by two of the Stark bannermen, Maege Mormont and Brynden Tully on horse. I used rather limited palette on all of these to tie them together, browns, blacks, and greys. Similar colours I used the other models. They are not an uniformed army, they are all characters, but they are all from the harsh north and wear practical clothes.

Maege

Brynden

There is one difference between these and the earlier ones, these new guys have self-made tufts on their bases! Yes. I have been using ready made tufts for couple of years, they look good and I'd like to use them more, but they are rather expensive. Especially, when it looks better when there are more of them. At some point I heard that you can made them by yourself and then I got inspired by minionee (is that a word, I hope you understand?) DaveD and asked him about the DIY tufts. Couple of emails later I placed an order on WWScenics and ordered a started kit. It arrived earlier this week and I started experimenting with it. So far so good, not all tufts are perfect, but the percentage is quite good. And this will get cheap in the long run, I can create different sizes, colours, shapes, heights etc, so I'm quite interested in this. Plus I don't need to create just tufts, I can create dioramas and/or glue static grass directly on the bases, too.

Stark Heroes 3, previously painted and tufted on the right

These fellows are in 40mm scale and one is mounted, so the point total should be 2*7+15=29 and then 20 bonus points for the Inconstant location. Until next time!

Welcome to the Paradise

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Hi Teemu

Welcome to Paradise!

Great interpretation of Inconstant, Robb Stark definitely fits the bill! Nice paint job on the Stark Heros, they do look practical and dressed appropriately (no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing choices)

Super work on your home made tufts! 

49 points to your scoreboard

- Sarah

From TeemuL: The Mountain that Riders [Violence] (42 points)

Now that I have passed to the Circle of Violence I present you The Mountain that Rides. If you know, no explanation is necessary. If you don't know, then there is not enough space to explain. :)

Gregor Clegane also known as The Mountain that Rides comes from G.R.R. Martin's stalled fantasy epic The Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted to the screen couple of years ago by HBO. These miniatures come from the books, not series, and therefore don't look like that actors. Westeros Wiki describes him as "The violent Gregor is a sadistic murderer and rapists", so I believe my claim for bonus points is valid.

Accompanying Gregor is Addam Marbrand, character I don't remember from the series and it has been years since I read the books, so I don't know how violent he is. Probably a lot, considering where he comes from... They both come from Cool Mini Or Not box Lannister Heroes 3, just like the three characters I presented earlier. Quite boring to paint, lots of armour and red cloaks. The size, material and amount of detail makes them resemble more toys than wargame miniatures. May be some freehand somewhere? Addam's shield for example, but since I don't know he is, I left it plain. Gregor's shield had sculpted details.

The armour of Robert Strong got some nice earlier comments, so naturally I decided to paint these guys differently and had lots of troubles. The red plastic still comes through here and there despite several layers of different metallic paints and thin washes. Quite ok, but not good enough for close inspections.

Based on the previous points claimed on similar minis I ask 7 points for 40mm Addam and 20 points for 54mm mounted Gregor. And 20 bonus points for Violence. Total of 47 points.

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Ooh, A Riot of Red Violence! 

The Mountain, Gregor Clegane is definitely destined for this Circle of Hell as could be GRR Martin himself (his "stalled" series has left many a fan with very strong feelings)

Well done on working through the problems of the plastic minis and the results are super.

Sorry, but a 40mm mounted figure is 15 points not 20, so 42 total points to your scoreboard. :)

- Sarah

Ready From TeemuL: Lannister Heroes (44 points) [Limbo]

Bit of slow start this time, I was supposed to have plenty of time during the weekend and Christmas week, but I caught a flu and focusing on minis was out of question. Happily these The Song of Ice and Fire minis have been on my desk since October and needed very little work to complete them. Anyway, they qualify for Limbo and now they are done.

These three are from Lannister Heroes 3 set, which I got from a sale. I don't have the game, but they were cheap and I decided to give them a chance. They are one piece plastic minis and rather large. Robert Strong on the left is 60mm to the feathers and the other two are almost 40mm. So they won't mix with my other minis (mostly 28mm), but may be they find some use. I have other half of the box still to do.

The paint job is not extraordinary, I'm not happy with the faces for example and highlights are bit rough, but they are ok if you look from far enough. Robert and Kevan were quite dull, full armour and red cloak, Qyburn was more interesting. There are heavy washes and heavy highlights, as I mentioned earlier. Some sand and tufts on the base.

Robert Strong

Kevan Lannister

Qyburn

After taking the initial shots, I realized I missed the blacks from they eyes, so back to the painting table. Here the horrible close ups, but the eyes are decent - it kinda helps that the models are quite large!

Regarding the scoring these qualify for Limbo (20 points) and I ask for 7 points for Kevan and Qyburn (40mm minis) and 10 for Robert Strong (54mm). Total should be 49 points, if Curt agrees.

What's next? I have been rather busy and my painting motivation has been low and I haven't prepared any females (or deamons), so I guess I need to paint something for Lust. Outside the themes, expect to see some fantasy or another, may be historical or scifi.

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Welcome back to the Challenge Teemu! I'm sorry to hear that you've not been feeling well but it seems you've managed to move from one Limbo to another that is a bit more fun. I virtually know nothing about the The Song of Ice and Fire miniature game though it seems they've produced a lot of product for it.  That aside, you've done very nice work on these Lannisters. I like the armour, your highligting and especially your efforts on their faces. Kudos to you for the eyes - I almost never do as it seems to be a practice of diminishing return on time invested. 

Your scales are right but your math is off, so 44 points it is - well done!

- Curt