“She’s Got Leg’s” (Fem’bruary)

Last two entries for Fem’bruary this time, and though there might be a little more flesh on show this time, I think I can honestly say I have to ladies who are more than capable of putting the “men folk” right where they want them! Now both of these figures are Reaper “Bones” models (but no they didn’t come out of the Advent Calendar, Mark, no cheating going on here!), so I give you…

Townsfolk: Strumpet & Yephima, Female Cloud Giant, the “Strumpet” (terrible word that), I would have bought in metal if I could have, but the only way to do that was to buy her in a pack of three figures that also included a blacksmith and a beggar, and cost £14.55 as opposed to £3.64 on her own in “Bones” so…well, yes. I fell in love with Yephima on first sight of her on Reapers site, you can’t buy her in metal (and she would probably been an horrendous price if you could) but £6.36 for a figure 75mm tall is very reasonable in my books. Though a little small for a “giant” she is more “troll” sized (but you don’t get many trolls that look like this!), and the devilish part of my brain is tempted to use her as such, just to see people’s faces when I plonk this lovely lady on the table as an “Ice Troll!” 👹. Anyway after a good scrubbing with so washing up liquid and an old toothbrush (I refuse to make any jokes about Strumpets and Scrubbers!) they were based up on a two pence piece and a 40mm washer respectively, before going out for a coat of white primer (wait did you say WHITE primer?). Yes, I thought as both figures were going to be predominantly very pale in colouring I’d start white rather than fighting back from a black basecoat. But on with the painting proper.

What town is complete without it’s local “strumpet” (this is rhetorical by the way, I don’t need answers in the comments thank you) and mine was begun by painting in her blouse and the “frilly” innards to her skirt in coffee and cream, then her waist “cincher”, was added in chocolate brown that was highlighted with leather brown, her shoe (only one is visible), was added in the same way. If she is a bit of a “game girl” she must be a rather popular one as she has some nice looking jewellery at her wrists, neck and waist! So these were added next in Bronze highlighted with bright gold, I then added some metallic blue, as sapphire like stones. Then after I’d added a little black to the recess betwixt her leg and dress, and the underneath of her skirt in black I painted her skirt itself in dark red which was highlighted with some pink burgundy. Flesh came next, my old favourite European flesh, formed the base here and after her eye was added more of the same was used mixed with some pale flesh was used for the highlights. More pink burgundy was used on her lips, and I decided that her leather “cincher” was still a little dark, so I mixed a small amount of coffee in some of the leather brown and highlighted this again, I think it looks better now. That just left her hair, now I knew I wanted a very dark brown here, so a little black was added to some chocolate brown, and once this base coat was dry highlights of more chocolate brown were added here.

I have to admit I was slightly intimidated by “Yephima” especially after looking at the superb paintjob on the one featured on Reapers site! Though I wanted to have her as an “Ice Giant” rather than the “Cloud” variety I knew I was going to end up painting her in similar colours, and wasn’t going to end up comparing favourably to that version 😒, I even considered going for a complete change of tone, and giving her a much warmer more “normal human” fleshtone, but in the end decided to just “go for it”, but I’m getting ahead of myself. So I started by painting all the area’s that her armour covered in black, before heavily dry-brushing them in bronze and then again in bright gold. Now for her flesh (and there is a lot of it!), now much as I liked the colours used on the “official” Reaper version I decided that it was a bit too “Smurfette” for me, so to get the type of tone I was after I mixed up a little light turquoise with a lot of Pale flesh (Vallejo), I didn’t mix it to much as I wanted different tones on the pallet (Pingles lid, I’m not that posh!), next I started to apply this doing some areas more flesh coloured and others more turquoise, blending them into each other as I went as I thought my usual technique of highlighting would be too stark on areas as large as this. When it came to her face I went “fleshier” on her upper cheeks, nose and chin, darker on her lower cheeks, upper eyes, and under her chin. Her eyes I painted in black first then added the white and then her lips were added in German field grey, that I ran a little more of the light turquoise into these to try and get a bit of a highlight. Her armour I felt was a bit too plain, so I picked out her breastplate and a couple of other area’s with blue steel and highlighted these then in chainmail (like my Gnome last time). I added her “club?” type thing next (really, I’m still not sure exactly what this is supposed to be), a lot of the ones shown on line have this with a stone effect, so not one to argue I went the same way, so after painting it black, I then added splodges of chocolate brown and Eurasian flesh, this was then heavily dry-brushed with dark grey and then again with mid grey, finally I highlighted this with a little white. Her skirts came next, now I went back and forth over what colours to use here, everything from purple through to blue and cream were considered, but in the end deep turquoise, and chainmail were mixed to give a metallic finish, and painted at the tops of the lengths of material, and cyan running down to more light turquoise that was then covered with some samurai green silk/metallic at the bottom was used. Though looking at her now you can’t really see the gradient in the colours now the Quickshade has been added (oh well). That just left her hair which was always going to be cream with white highlights, and more of the metallic blue was used on the hair combs and “club thing”, I added little highlights to these with more chainmail. An awful lot of touching up ensued till I got her to the point I was reasonably happy with her.

Quickshade next and my “strumpet” I just gave a coat of “light tone” but when it came to Yephima I thought I’d try something a little different (maverick that I am!), so her fleshy bits and her hair I gave a coat of light tone but then her armour, club and “skirts” I gave a coat of strong tone, whether this was completely successful I’m undecided about, I could and perhaps should have just gone with the light tone, but hey if you don’t try, you don’t know 🙄. The basing however I did in my usual tried and tested manner, except that due to the extra space available on Yephima’s base I added a tiny patch of rubberized moss.

So that brings my Fem’bruary to a close, I have to say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed painting all six of my “Reaper” ladies, as well as seeing the wonderful figures others have painted too, I think it’s been a pretty successful month even without Alex’s steady hand on the tiller, hopefully he’ll be back on board for next year.

But for now, and till next time, stay safe and cheers Roger.