A Kudo-Filled Promenade

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to take the legendary colour theory workshop of Alfonso Giraldes (aka Banshee). He talked a lot about colour theory and use of colour in miniature painting. We worked on applying the principles to a bust in class, but we didn’t have nearly so much time to paint as I would have liked. When I returned home, I wanted to try to practice a little more, and to try to apply the principles to the type and scale of miniatures I most frequently paint. I had this figure conveniently prepped and primed, so I picked her up, and gave it a go. I think I’ll write a second post in a few days with more about the process behind painting the miniature, for now I’ll just focus on the end result.

After I painted the majority of the main figure, she sat around for a few weeks while I got busy with another project. Then it was about time to get ready for my yearly trip to CMON Expo, and thought she would be a perfect figure to take to enter in the painting contest there. I had an idea for the base that I didn’t end up having time to do, and now I’m vexed that I can’t even remember it! Anyway, I finished painting the figure and entered her in the contest. As usual for me, I hadn’t really thought about a good title for the entry before starting to fill out the entry form. I think she’s based on art where she’s meant to be a shaman. But I ended up painting her in less rustic colours and clothing, so I decided she was more of a fashionable minor noble type out on a leisurely walk, and titled the figure Promenade.I was pleased and honoured when she was awarded first place in the contest! Here is a picture of me looking super dorky holding the very cool Crystal Brush Qualifier trophy.

This figure is pretty much the only thing I’ve painted that wasn’t for a commission this year, so of course she also came along with me to ReaperCon to enter into the MSP Open. For me that contest is kind of the end of the miniature painting ‘season’. Some contests, like CMON Expo, require that only new pieces can be entered. The MSP Open allows you to enter works that have been in other contests, they just can’t have been entered in the MSP Open previously. I also entered ReaperCon Sophie I showed in the previous post, but this more experimental figure was my primary entry. It is the figure that the judges chose to assess, and was awarded a gold medal.

Dark Sword Miniatures is the manufacturer of this figure. The owner of Dark Sword, Jim Ludwig, is also a very generous supporter of the miniature hobby. Every year he supplies miniatures to go into the ReaperCon swag bags, and he sponsors special awards at ReaperCon. This year he went even further by having gorgeous trophies created to award IN ADDITION to the already generous cash and product prize awards. I think he also created additional categories for awards. So there were lots of fantastic Dark Sword entries, and lots of lucky winners of super cool prizes. Since there were so many fine Dark Sword entries, I was surprised when Jim announced that I had won first place in Single Miniature. And another super snazzy trophy! I am a little sad that Michael Proctor beat me out to win the best overall Dark Sword piece since his award was Funko Pop Deadpool Bob Ross! Very jealous!

But enough babble, here are pictures of the figure itself. If you saw the pictures I posted on Facebook after CMON Expo, these are slightly different. Based on feedback from Banshee and a few thoughts of my own, I did a few touchups before bringing her to ReaperCon. Though there are lots of other things I could have addressed, and that is some of what I’ll be talking about in the next post. After the pictures I’ll post links to where you can buy your own copy of this miniature and other information mentioned in this post, including lots of links for where to see cool looking miniatures.