From TeemuL: Bifröst civilians (25 points)

I'm not sure what I can finish this week, since I'm away the whole weekend on a basic scout wilderness training (loosely translated) and if I manage to finish minis and take photos, I write the text beforehand and photos later and if I don't, then I can happilly just leave the finished entry as ready and this one as draft. Almost like free fire period, but too soon. And while I remember, thank you Sander for minioning our Saturday crew, I'd hoped to see more of your output, but sometimes life is what it is. Last minute edit, I have managed to finish these, but I still haven't packed for the weekend... The choices we make.

Some years ago I bought this set from Warbases, a bunch of simple civilian minis originally for my son, who disliked the overly detailed GW minis I offered him to paint, but then his interest shifted and these sat for some time. AHPC is good opportunity to paint some fine metal minis and give a nod to a long time sponsor of the challenge. Bifröst is original miniature range by Warbases, created based on the needs of the owners, if I understood correctly. Similar to Perry Miniatures, I guess, nice to have an own company to make miniatures if you miniatures. :) While the range is quite wide, this set is quite general and usable on many games, worlds, battlefields, eras and so. Very nice from gamer point of view, a bit problematic from a squirrel point of view (see later).

I based these on small Renedra bases, which come in some of the Perry boxes. I like these smaller bases, they don't take too much space, but are large enough to keep miniatures standing. And as these are civilians, it is nice that they don't take too much table space. I have in the past used 25mm bases, so these are much smaller and "a new idea" to me. There's some sand to hide the metal base, brown wash and highlight and some tufts. I have not painted the eyes, at the moment I believe that with my skills the minis look better without the eyes, at least on models this style.

Characterful but rather simple minis, there are several layers of clothes on some, but still quite easy. I painted the guy with a sack as a jester even though he is missing the bells, but otherwise he looks like one. On the website he is described something as a "shady character", but naturally I painted first, read second. I gave him (and others) quite dull, muted colours, they are civilians - not brightly coloured soldiers or nobles. Jester is clearly not part of the royal entourage - at least yet, may be when he gets couple of coins and can buy brighter clothes.

The farmer should have a shovel, but my version came like this. And again, I checked the website after painting, so didn't realize that. Now he is just holding a stick, which I guess is good enough to poke the ground. The plague doctor wears all black and silver mask, the holy and pure material most likely protecting him from the disease.

Two ladies have a bit more colour, but not much. One is selling frest meat (still with fur or feathers) and another one is just looking important. These are mainly painted with just a basecoat and a generous wash - I only used brown, green, blue and purple washes using them on many different colour. The black robe being exception, black cloak is highlighted with couple of shades of grey. I bought some new grey paints recently and they seem to be too light when used straight from the pot. I need to do some mixing or buy a darker grey. It's a pity that paint pots get empty or dried.

I'm not sure if these count as a squirrel, since I have already painted "28mm General Fantasy" squirrel and these are not that much different. But Squirrelmaster General has been quite generous, so I'll try and be happy with his rulings. Scoring wise this is easy 25 points for 5 minis, no skulls, but couple of females for Sarah.

 

 

 Teemu, this is a brilliant set of NPC civilians to be used with any and all RPG like games and as table dressing. Your painting really enhances these venerable sculpts so thanks heap for sharing these with us.

 

Cheers Sander