Secret Sophie

Hey guys! Sorry for delayed post. It was late and I hit "Save" instead of "Save + Publish". So embarrassed! Evidently the holidays have scrambled my brain.

Can you believe the holidays are almost here?! I'm still shocked Thanksgiving has come and gone and Christmas is only three weeks away. Even though retailers are convinced that we need a full-on holiday assault after Halloween, it's hard to get into the holiday season when it's 80 degrees outside. While I'm forced to acknowledge the upcoming holiday season when the ice-cream truck is driving down the neighborhood street blaring "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", I'm slowly easing into the holiday spirit. I find the holidays to be a stressful time-- lots of balancing different family expectations, mitigating inevitable hurt feelings (but knowing it's impossible to keep everyone happy), not to mention the financial strain it puts on everyone to travel with kids, pets, etc.

It's difficult look forward to the holidays this year.  This one's going to be especially difficult since it's the first time we'll be without a key family member. My Other Half said "I'm just going to try to muddle through the holidays without breaking down in front of everyone. There will be lots of crying." Ouch.

We'll get through it, I know we will. We have to. We're lucky to have people in our lives who play tug-o-war over us during the holidays because someone told them we're fun to have around :) We're grateful to still have that. When I feel overwhelmed by everything, I try to focus on the true spirit of the season, kindness and giving to others. I'm not able to make wide, sweeping gestures of good will, so I try to find lots of little ways to give, even if it's just brightening someone's day. So I joined my very first Secret Sophie to kick off the giving season! 

“What is Secret Sophie, you ask? Well, it’s a lot like Secret Santa, with a more attractive (albeit more dangerous) delivery person! (For those not in the know, Sophie the Succubus is Reaper’s mascot.) This is the time of year for Reaper forumites to give a little holiday cheer to each other. ”
— fanguad (forum member)

Drawn by Izzy "Talin" Collier - Concept Art for Reaper 2003 Sophie

Both ub3r_n3rd and fanguad spent a lot of time arranging this event through the kindness of their own hearts. I just got word who my secret partner is and I can't divulge too much, on the off-chance that my "Secret Sophie" reads my blog. Long story short, we filled out a questionnaire and had the option of choosing a "gift-only" or "painted miniature + gift" and answered a list of questions that will help give our mystery partner clues about what we like/dislike. For example, some people say they prefer historical/fantasy miniatures, others prefer not to receive nude/gory miniatures. They pair you up with people who want what you can paint. (For example, I didn't sign up to paint gruesome monsters since it's not my strong suit). 

The person I'm going to be painting for asked for a type of miniature I haven't painted before (but within my abilities) and I'm going to have to get creative to come up with a good solution! I'm looking forward to stretch my skills to meet their wishes. While the deadline to exchange miniatures is January 15, 2016, I want to paint and ship my miniature gift before Christmas. Ideally, I'll ship it the second week of December before the post offices get super-busy. I want to ensure my Secret Sophie gets my miniature in the best possible condition-- I hope they like it! I'll be sure to post some work-in-progress photos soon.

Other than that, I signed up for Amazon Prime (I know I'm well-behind the times) and realized they had Legend of Korra. In one evening I watched the entire Season 1 and started Season 2. I should probably turn it off since it's 1:15am in the morning and I should probably get some sleep. I guess. If I have to :)

Paintsgiving

I started this weekend organizing my paints, cleaning the house in anticipation of guests, and trying to sneak in a little painting time before navigating the Thanksgiving holiday. I realized I've now accumulated enough paint to fill three of my paint racks and then some! I love these paint racks-- they're one of My Favorite Miniature Things that I wrote about last December. I can easily see the paint colors and they can also sit flat so I can store them in drawers. I'm still considering acquiring some upright paint racks that you can place on your desk, but for now, these are working for me!

Other than that, I'm happy that my sister was able to travel and spend Thanksgiving with us-- we played some card games, cooked, hung out with the our "furry kids" and watched Casino Royale.

I did my best to get some painting in the day before, despite some feline setbacks. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you want your paint desk? Well too bad, it's occupied."

I managed to paint most of Carla's face, despite the severe 30-degree drop in temperature that day. The weather really messed with my paint consistency! The colder it became, the thicker my paint seemed to become. That's new to me!

Other than that, I've been gearing up to start a new batch of minis that I'm really excited about. I'm putting togethersomething for a Secret Santa painted miniature exchange before the holidays-- it's a bit of a secret now but I'll share more about it in my next post!

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving here in the states and for those traveling abroad. I'd also like to take the time to give thanks for my blessings and appreciate those who support me in this hobby, whether it's kind words of encouragement or sharing their knowledge and experience. We all have things to be thankful for, and sometimes the biggest joys in life come in the tiniest packages -- literally :)

Review: Mountain of Metal Miniatures

Last month, I was contacted by Joanne, co-owner of Mountain of Metal, who asked if I'd be interested in reviewing a few miniatures her company has recently released. Mountain of Metal is based in Nottingham, United Kingdom and was founded in September 2014. They specialize in painting and terrain commissions, and have very recently branched out into online retail. This November, they launched their new online store and released three 28mm fantasy miniatures available for purchase through their website. These three miniatures were sent to me for my honest review. I look forward to walking you through my experience from beginning to end!

New releases from Mountain of Metal (click image for a link to their website)

Upon receiving my miniatures, I opened the box to find three miniatures wrapped in bubble wrap and shredded paper. I appreciate the care they took to ship these, though the shredded paper made quite a mess as I pulled the bubble-wrapped miniatures out of the box. Whoops! After a quick cleanup, I unboxed three smaller black boxes to find Nenqua, Havan, and Volac. The miniature boxes they come in are the perfect size, though the cotton-like padding they come with snags more readily than traditional foam inserts. I made doubly-sure I removed any loose strands stuck on sharp edges of the miniature during the cleaning process.

I didn't find any jarring mould lines or chunky flash I had to contend with-- in fact, it only took about 15-20 minutes to clean, sand, and scrub each miniature before assembling. Two of the three miniatures require some assembly-- Volac's arm/staff and Nenqua's leg and dagger. Assembly and gap-filling has to be my least favorite part of this hobby, so I'm glad for miniatures that require minor prep work. Upon inspection, the miniatures are of a nice quality and only Nenqua showed signs of metal discoloration with a few rust-colored spots. Luckily, this kind of oxidation isn't an issue in modern white metal miniatures (unless you're talking about "lead rot" in miniatures from the 1980s & 90s). In this case, it's easily covered up when you prime and paint the miniature.

In doing some further research, I found that these miniatures were sculpted by Gael Goumon, a well-respected sculptor in the industry who has created miniatures for many companies including Dark Sword, Wyrd, Reaper, Andrea, and CoolMiniOrNot. While I enjoy painting female miniatures, I wanted to choose what I felt was the most appealing sculpt. Surprisingly, Nenqua is probably my least favorite miniature of the three. The angle in which her leg would need to fit together seemed a little awkward to me, like she's not quite standing balanced. Her stance just isn't as lively as the other two, though she'd make a great rogue or wily thief character with her dagger held out of sight behind her back. Havan "The Half-Seen" really stood out to me. However, just to be sure I was giving Volac a fair shot, I cleaned and assembled him for full consideration. It took little time to glue his arm/staff and the angle set easily. Volac's dynamic pose is appealing for any magic-wielding player character, and I find it convenient that his base is sculpted in. In the end, Havan was still my favorite-- I was sold by the sculpt's dual weapons, segmented armor, and powerful stance.

While painting wasn't part of the requested review, I was excited about the propect of painting Havan. In my opinion, you can best review a miniature after you've cleaned, assembled, and painted them. I can't tell you how many times I run into odd sculpting issues only after I've begun painting. "What is that supposed to be-- a pocket? A patch? A buckle?" or finding out that shapes and angles don't quite line up. It's hard to make out details in unprimed pewter, since the shifting reflective surfaces play with our eyes and make it hard to see the details.

This miniature has lots of great metal detail sculpted in-- buckles, thin armor edging, and studs that were fun to paint and practice the gold NMM (Non Metallic Metal) technique. Each time I thought I'd painted the last buckle or stud, I'd find a new one under the arm or on his boots. His eyes are a bit difficult to reach under his hood and hair and would be a challenge for a beginner painter. As it was, I wasn't able to paint much more than black pupils-- nothing fancy, but it worked out just fine since the focus of this miniature isn't his face.

Havan's original concept is more of a shadowy character, slipping in and out under cover of darkness. I struggled with the idea of painting him in a darker color scheme, and eventually settled on a brighter forest green and brown leather armor scheme. Perhaps he's a middle-aged Robin Hood-like character who has graduated from the bow and has taken up weapons that match his increased strength and experience. I worked to carefully outline the segmented leather armor in gold Non Metallic Metal-- it's not plate armor, but it allows the wearer increased movement and mobility (and it just looks cool). Perhaps it's reinforced leather armor with metal trim for a tough woodsman adventurer. Heck, maybe he's a volunteer lumberjack on the weekends to stay in top physical shape (hence the axe). As I made progress oh Havan, I posted a few works-in-progress throughout the week on Twitter.

Now, without further ado, here's my version of Havan. Let's check him out!

What do you think? Who would you be most excited to paint of these three? For more information about these Mountain of Metal miniatures, visit their website at www.mountainofmetal.co.uk or visit their Facebook page.