From SimonG: The Tale of the Valkyrie and the Twenty Zealots (147 points)

With the Green Zone now finished with I need another lift in Lady Sarah's limousine to take me to my desired destination in the new Red Zone. The chauffeur this time around is a menacing Valkyrie.

This is once again a Descent - Legends of the Dark 40mm plastic miniature, excellently sculpted and well assembled with all of the area accessible for painting (which isn't always the case, I've had to cut plastic figures apart in the past and reassemble them). Strictly this is Brynn, a human hero and player character from the game, but to me -- especially as she has just slaughtered a really cute looking baby dragon -- she seems much more sinister, perhaps more of Muire the deeply conflicted last Valkyrie in Elizabeth Bears "Edda of Burdens" trilogy (highly recommended btw if you like your Norse mythology spun through a wringer).

Highlights for me on this one were working on the hair, I find blonde very tricky. Plus the eyes -- I think the left eye is a real success, the right one less so, for some reason I just couldn't register where the brush was as I painted this one (not surprising given it is a) deeply set and b) partly obscured by hair). Anyway overall a good exercise in metallic tones and I tried to pay some attention to an overhead light source hitting the tops of exposed armour. There's also a very small amount of gore, no disguising she's a menacing figure.

Flowing Locks!

Left Eye Good, Right Eye hmmm

The Bloody Evidence (not sure what a severed Dragon joint looks like!)

Anyway the destination for our trip and our next Studio offering is the continuing "Swords and Sandals" epic retelling the fall of the Second Temple in the Jewish Revolt of CE 66-74.  This time around I'm offering up 20 Jewish warriors with a mixture of locally sourced and other materiel liberated from the Romans.

The figures are based on Victrix 28mm Numidians with some swapped in Roman legionary arms (incidentally the Numidians are much more muscular than the Roman's so the mix can look a little odd if viewed under a microscope). The heads are Anvil Industry "Long Hair" - as these are 28mm heroic scale they do look odd when first assembled but once painted up it works out OK. 

The final touches are cloaks (cut down resin camouflage cloaks from Anvil Industry again, awkward bit is removing, or trying to remove, the hoods) and the tzitzit are added with lengths of button thread.

Once they had hoods!

Next up I learn to knot the tzitzit

And of course I couldn't leave without the obligatory toe shot! 

 

Got to keep a good manicure

There are two pairs of sandals and five swords among the 20 so it should qualify for the "Swords and Sandals" bonus giving me 120 points for the Zealots and 27 for the Valkyrie (20 points for the Limo ride and 7 for a 40mm figure) for an addition towards my target of 147 this time around.

Next stop fantasy with a couple more Descent heroes but as I'm away for my wife's birthday it will be a couple of weeks -- until then keep the brushes busy and the film rolling!

"...to my desired destination in the new Red Zone" - I suspect you meant the Blue Zone, not the Red! Nevertheless, that Valkyrie is most definitely worthy of the Limo ride, and you've done a great job on the ancient Hebrews.

Tamsin