“As Farrah’s I can see, they’re a Safe Bett!” (Advent Challenge)

So a new year is upon us and as you can see above I’m going to be doing my “Advent Challenge” again, and also the “pun’s” are not getting any better (in fact this has to be one of my worst to date! 🙄). Now the figures in the challenge are a little different this year, as rather than get another calendar from “Mighty Lancer Games” this time I gave my wife a list of figures I’d like and let her buy some of them and give me one each day up to the 24^th ,fortunately I had completely forgotten what I put on the list by December, so they were nearly all a surprise, there were also a couple of “unknown’s” that she had added off her own bat (You can’t trust anyone these days!!). Now not all the figures this year are from “Reaper Miniatures”, but I promise you (Mark) there will be no cheating and only figures given to me during December as part of my calendar will be painted for this challenge.

But anyway who have I got as my first pairing of 2023? Well as I’m sure a lot of you are aware by now I do have a bit of a soft spot for a nice female figure (in both senses of the word! 😉), and though I will be doing a couple of ladies for “Fem’bruary” I didn’t think this pairs attire was quite suitable to represent “the empowerment of the female form”, (also I just really wanted to paint them up ASAP), so for my first submissions of 2023 I give you…

4. Betty, Space Heroine 50150 (Reaper Miniatures)
5. Farrah, Sci/Fi Heroine 50238 (Reaper Miniatures)

As you can see this year I have both the official names, and product codes (yay me!). Both of these miniatures are metal and came with (spit spit!) “slotta” style bases, that were immediately thrown out, and were then based up on two pence pieces, I did consider basing “Betty’s” devoted (and frankly, who wouldn’t be!) alien pet on a separate base but in the end decided to “build up” a little “ramp” at the front of her base with cat litter and filler and mount him there. Anyway once they were mounted up they were all given a coat of white primer and I could begin painting them…

I’ll start with Farrah and I began by painting all the bits that were going to end up black…black, then her weapons and googles were dry-brushed with chainmail, the other areas would predominantly be black leather so these bits I highlighted with dark grey. Now her jumpsuit I wanted to paint differently to the obvious “black” or “Red”, so after a bit of thought (and some aspirin, as I’m not used to it! 🤯) I was inspired by the “Carla” figure I sculpted last year and went with lime green. Now this needed a slightly darker ”under coat”, so I first mixed a little of the lime green together with a bit of deep bronze green and painted all of her costume with this first before highlighting it with just the matt lime. The details and stripes on her jumpsuit along with the edges of her kneepads were then added in dark grey with mid grey highlights. I tackled her flesh next, European flesh was applied first then after her eyes were added in white and black I highlighted with a mix of more European flesh lightened with some pale flesh, lastly here I added her lips with a little pink burgundy. That just left her hair, and I’m a bit of a sucker for a redhead, so out came the chestnut and after this went on I highlighted with orange, I then remembered to add the front grip on her assault rifle with a little chocolate brown, with leather brown forming the highlights here.

Betty next, and does your memory ever let you down? (I think it must be an age thing 👴🏼) but when I was considering what colours to use on “Betty” I went through all the usual suspects, like pinks and purples then what I thought was inspiration struck… what about “Judy Jetson” from the old “Jetson’s” cartoon, it would be different to go with white hair and an orange costume, as I hadn’t seen one painted that way on the net*. However though convinced of my cognitive prowess a quick “google’ing” of Judy revealed her “cozzie” was in fact PINK!!, however I had now got it set in my mind that she was going to have orange clothing, so that’s where I went. Okay, so I started by applying said orange to her various items of clothing, then highlighting these areas with more orange lightened with a smidge of white, her boots, hair and clothing trim came next, the old “holy trinity” of coffee cream and white forming the layers here, with the exception of her hair on which I decided to forgo the white. The other areas of trim along with her “ray gun” I did in bronze highlighted with some shinning gold. Her flesh came next, and there was a bit more on show than I now believe was intended by the sculptor, as I think the central panel of her top should actually be material rather than precariously restrained flesh! However this is how Matt had done his version and if you promise to not tell my wife, that’s how I prefer it 😉), anyway these bits were painted in the same manner and colours as “Farrah” above. Also in the same manner as Farrah and indeed “Fido” below were the tiny lights visible on their guns and goggles, with vert green with dayglow green highlights being used here.

And so we’ll finish with “fido” (that’s what I’m calling him anyway), so I started him with a coat of royal purple, then ran a thick line across the top of his head and down his back in Eurasian flesh, these were now my undercoats. Next I put a blob of royal purple, lilac, coffee and more of the Eurasian flesh on a “pringles” lid then set about mixing and blending these across the figure. Next I added some dots of deep turquoise and cyan about his fore head. I added his eyes in cream, then when the pupils went in with black I also re-painted his mouth with this adding a little dark red at the top and bottom here for his gums. Then I dry-brushed in his teeth with coffee, tidying up the gaps with a little black afterwards, this then let me see where I needed to highlight the teeth with cream, and one with the bronze/shinning gold . Lastly his gun was painted black, highlighted with chainmail and the stock (not visible in the photo) was painted chocolate brown highlighted with leather brown.

All three were them coated in Quickshade light tone, and once dry Farrah had her base finished in my usual manner. However I decided that Betty should have a more “alien” look to her basing so after the chocolate brown went on I followed this with highlights of terracotta, then I stuck on some “red” sand and finally dry-brushed the lot with some coffee. A spray coat of matt varnish was then put over all three and they were done. This has been a great way to start this year’s challenge (and this year to be honest), two really lovely figures that have been a pleasure to paint, two more “ladies” form my entry for next month too, but I’ll have to wait till I get to them, next up something for Dave’s “Paint the stuff you’ve already got challenge”.

So till then Cheers Roger.

*(this included the excellent one “Matt” had painted last year as the leader of his “Muppets” crew of adventurers!)

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