“Raquel and Rex”

We’re a funny lot wargamers when you think about it really, I mean we’re world builders, some of us on a grand scale, with thousands of figures, huge tables filled with bespoke scenery and complicated rules governing battles, campaigns, and socio economic structures, and some of us on a much (much) smaller scale, perhaps just one or two figures (like this week’s post!). But either way we have our own “world” as it were, buried deep in our subconscious, we know what things should be like in “our” world even if they are not necessarily what they are like in the “real” world. I suppose in a way we are like small scale movie directors and this is our way of expressing our vision of what our worlds should be like. Now you are probably thinking “what the hell is he on about!” and “Why doesn’t he just get on with painting his figures?”. Well I’m coming to that, this week I thought I’d take a bit of a break from my “Wasteland” project and paint something different, and I chose this exquisite little cave girl and her pet T-rex. Both figures are from “Tin Man Miniatures” and I picked them up along with a few others, a couple of year back when they were having a sale (mainly just so I could get this cave-girl tbh). Now neither of these figures is particularly historically correct it has to be said, and some of us would not accept this, but I can assure you in “my” personal world cave-girls really do look like this! and this is where all this is leading (finally) we all have our own “take” on this hobby of ours, our own “worlds” and yet, we all do the same basic thing, but in vastly personal ways, how many other hobbies are like that? Anyway meanderings over and onto the figures…

Both figures were firstly based up in my usual way and then given a coat of matt black, “Loana” (in case you didn’t know Loana was Raquel Welsh’s character in “One million years BC”), was then started with me working on her “bikini”, this was done by laying down a base coat of leather brown, then highlighting this with khaki. Then the upper edges of her top and the “flap” on the pants were painted chocolate brown mixed with butternut, and these were highlighted with bleached bone, and then highlighted again with coffee. This was then “dirtied up” a little with some more butternut. After this I added her copious amounts of flesh, this was started with a mix of dark flesh mixed with some European flesh. Once this was dry I added her eyes and then highlighted this with just European flesh, however this wasn’t really different enough to show up well so I highlighted yet again with more of the same this time with a little pale flesh added, much better. Her spear came next chocolate brown with a dry-brushing of butternut on the shaft, coffee and cream on the strapping at the top and pale grey with a pale grey and white mix dry-brushing taking care of the flint blade. Coffee and cream were also used on the teeth hanging from her necklace. That just left her hair, a base of citrus orange was laid down first then subsequent highlight layers of sand and lemon yellow were painted over this, I considered giving her “dark roots” growing through to complete the hollywood treatment, but good taste won that debate (luckily).

“Rex” her cold bloodied companion was painted using a similar technique to the bigger “dino’s” I painted a couple of years ago (see link at the bottom of this post), in as much as I used a “wet in wet” approach, that is to say that the three base colours J.N.Green (no I don’t know what J.N. stands for), olive green (tamiya) and khaki were applied in three horizontal stripes along his body and legs in that order top to bottom, then while all three were still wet they were blended together (I also had a small dollop of each colour and a drop of water on a pallet so I could add more of any colour when and where I thought it was needed, or could thin down the paint if it wasn’t blending well. This technique seems to work well on this type of figure but you do need to work reasonably quickly and not over work the joints between colours. Once this was dry (next day), I highlighted the khaki with some sand paint, then highlighted the top “green” half with some deep bronze green, that I also “wet worked” with a little olive (the miniature paints version this time, and completely different to the olive above), then because I wasn’t happy with the stripes I’d added across his back I then lightly dry-brushed more olive over these so they were “semi-hidden”. I them painted his mouth in dark red, before adding his claws and teeth in coffee highlighted with cream (I love his face he looks such an evil little beastie!), then I added his eyes in white with a black dot and he too was done.

Once they were all good and dry, all three were given the obligatory coat of “Quickshade”, and after the bases were painted up in my usual fashion, they had a final coat of matt varnish. Well that’s it, the end of my little diversion, I’m rather glad I took time out to paint these two figures up as I’ve wanted to do so for some time, but was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to do then justice, I think they came out OK in the end. Back to the “”Wasteland” next though and another film reference…

Till then, cheers Roger.

https://rantingsfromunderthewargamestable.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/dinosauriousness/