Hooded Rider #3

I painted this miniature a few years ago and swapped it for a plastic version later.  With the new reduction in cost I decided to get another metal model and try to paint it using darker shades this time round. I also wanted to make sure the base fits better to my swamp-themed Zoraida list.

While I like the plastic version of Bad Juju better, in this case it pales in comparison with the metal one. It has a more dynamic pose but it does not have the same menacing look.

Bad Juju

Having painted the plastic version before, I wanted to try something different with this guy, so I started with bright basecoat. I struggled with the previous one as I found it hard to make the green color of moss pop more with bright shades. Here I was darkening it down with glazes and washes of green, yellow, and brown. I think it worked pretty well as I got a nice overall look of varying shades all over its body. This version of Juju has a lot of small bits (twigs, skulls, stones, and even a bottle) protruding from its body, so I used some of the swampy-colored water effect in random patches to bring it all together.

Metal version is significantly smaller than the plastic one but what it lacks in size, it more than makes up in detail. The entire body is well textured and its face has much more expression too. I wanted to add some extra height so I built a small gangplank with balsa wood. Some extra skulls were then partly submerged in water to add more atmosphere. Plastic version is significantly larger and has really good details too.

#5/2018 Sharp Objects

 

A young reporter is sent to her hometown to investigate a series of brutal murders committed on children. The very beginning of the novel sets dark, gritty tone to the story. Rediscovering he place where she grew up is a difficult process for the protagonist as she is forced to tackle narrow minds of local people and her own childhood traumas. Her relations with family are also deeply distressing.

Flynn excels at presenting a rough and simple setting, keeping it cohesive and credible at the same time. I also have a feeling that each novel I read by her is more disturbing than the previous one...

Back to metal

Wyrd switched to plastic for their models back in 2012. Prior to that all their miniatures had been cast in metal (pewter, to be more precise). It was a major change for all the hobbyists. Wyrd metal minis had some issues with proportions and they usually required a lot of work prior to painting. Mold lines tended to be thick, some elements needed to be pinned. These problems no longer exist as plastic models have elements that fit together very well (although there may be an overwhelming number of them to a single model) and lines left after casting are very thin and easy to remove. However, it's hard to deny the fact that the details of metals were sharper and they did have more character to them.

These two minis have been lying around my workspace for several weeks and I finally decided to start working on them. My decision was partly motivated by the fact that they had their cost in game reduced and thus have become more useful. I do own the plastic versions but I want to paint the metal ones to see how they compare to them.

Hooded Rider was a lot of pain to assemble. Each of the snakes forming the mount's mane needed to be cleaned from the mold line and bent into shape separately. It was tricky as metal elements won't bend back and forth too many times and after a few twists they can easily snap.
As you can see in the picture, there were some major areas that needed to be filled with Green Stuff prior to painting. I started with regular GS and when it was dry, I used liquid GS to smooth the edges of the areas that had been filled in. After that I used Typhus Corrosion (a special technical paint) that added some extra grainy texture to otherwise flat areas.
And that's it for now, I will take side by side pictures of metal and plastic versions once they're ready (they should be before the end of the month).