From GregB - Onmyoji for "Hametsu" (5 points)

Carrying a tune en route to a confrontation with evil in feudal Japan...

If you peruse the archives of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and scan Curt's entries you will see a lot of cool stuff - among it a fair bit of medieval Japanese terrain and an amazing assortment of Japanese medieval fantasy heroes and demons. He uses these to play the excellent game "Hametsu" - a really cool, cooperative game featuring bands of heroes working to slay the evil Oni who threaten the survivors living in a post-apocalyptic feudal Japan. 

This past year Curt has extended this game to a group of us - Byron, Jamie, Nick and I have been pursuing a Hametsu campaign, with Curt hosting the table via Zoom while our heroes pursue their respective "Path of Legend" and confront fantastical evil demons. I've been playing an Onmyoji, a spellcaster skilled in the manipulation of energy, and the campaign has been a blast! An electric blast, specifically...Onmyoji can manipulate electricity, and my character has really leaned into this ability, cooking a fair number of demons!

Assortment of supplies to keep things ticking along.

Curt has a beautiful and complete collection of figures for the game, and his Onmyoji figure has done sterling work. But I have enjoyed the games so much I thought it would be super fun to paint my own figure. So I asked Curt to 3D print an Onmyoji figure for me, and he kindly obliged, and sent it my way. I thought "Awesome, THIS guy is going to be my first figure for the Painting Challenge this year!".

Don't let that strange helmet fool you - this guy is coming to bring the pain...

Um...so...painting a single 28mm figure should be a pretty straightforward exercise. But in a kind of weird "art-imitating-the-campaign" sort of this, this poor figure has experienced a level of abuse somewhat reminiscent of what happened to my Onmyoji in one of our recent "Hametsu" games, which saw the poor spellcaster take a tumble down a mountain.

For F*CK SAKES! I HATE IT WHEN I DROP MINIATURES!

This real life figure was knocked over on the painting table - THREE times! Somewhere the evil Oni are celebrating! The figure has a couple of delicate points, particularly the ankles, and the figure duly snapped at the ankles. The hilts of his katana blades snapped as well, and so did the bell on his wind instrument. I was able to reconnect - mostly - the sword hilts, and to get the poor fellow standing on his own feet again...but the bell of the wind instrument disappeared into the carpet, never to be seen again, I expect. 

Another step in the Path of Legend...evil will be slain and banished!

I almost gave up...but I didn't want to let the spirit of the sinister Oni win, so I buckled down and finished painting him. And so he becomes my third submission, instead of my first, and his instrument has been, well, let's say "customized". Now I just need to find a way to get this thing safely off to Curt...needless to say, given what this miniature has already been through, I'm a little nervous trusting that process...

Points-wise, it is only worth five points - but I'm glad to have him completed, and hope he can soon be raining arc lighting on the demons infesting the feudal Japanese setting of "Hametsu". 

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Hahaa! I absolutely love your Onmyoji, Greg! His mishaps on his journey to completion actually make the figure so much more interesting. 

Sorry to hear about his broken ankles and missing prayer bells, but perhaps these just help reflect his tumble down that mountainside a few games back. Maybe this is why his basket/helmet now has metal banding instead of bamboo. :) Also, I like that his long flute has been modified to a Japanese version of a Kazoo (maybe Kazu in the Hametsu world). He now truly portrays a grizzled veteran hunter - the bane of Oni (and music lovers) everywhere.  Fabulous. 

As a small consolation, I'm going to award another point for your perseverance and sticking it through. I look forward to him joining the ranks of his other comrades for our future games.

- Curt