Scribbs’ Incidental Diversions

Four infantry to join my longbows, very characterful sculpts again. Since longbows were very much one of defining elements of the English army during the Hundred Years War, I decided to paint these chaps shields with a cross of St. George to link them together.

I’ve long admired the 100 Years War range of figures by Claymore Castings (sculpted by Matt Bickley I think?), and I treated myself to a couple of packs as a little painting project at a wargames show last year (appropriately enough it was the Claymore show in Edinburgh).

The quality of the figures didn’t disappoint, and whilst I’m not tempted to start a new historical period, there’s a strong chance I might be picking up a few more at a later stage.

There’s some infantry to join these archers currently on the painting table.

Half a dozen fantasy adventurers from Otherworld Miniatures. I think Otherworld’s figures are tremendously characterful, really hitting the classic representation of fantasy from the early D&D days.

Not my best painting, but I had a lot of fun with them.

A couple of random individual miniatures. First a robot trooper from Gydran Studios, and then an Orc by Fist in the Eye, who was a very late effort for Orctober.

Second half of the mercenaries all painted up and ready to join the previous lot.

These are the first half of a set of resin mercenary figures sculpted by Meridian Miniatures and based on artwork by Black Crab Art.

I’ve had these for almost a year now, mainly as I was a bit intimidated about painting them. I sometimes worry about doing  justice to good quality figures, which can lead to them getting sidelined, completely negating the point in buying them in the first place. Normally as soon as I start putting colour down, everything gets easier and I lose myself in the painting process.

This lot (and the wildcat in the last post) are some of these awkward models that I have struggled with, but I’ve challenged myself to try and work through a few before the end of the year.

I recently returned to my handful of unpainted Wiglaf Miniatures, splitting them into a two rough groups and picking a trio of different colours to act as a unifying scheme for each.

As mentioned before, these are very nice 18mm sculpts, very easy to paint, just the right amount of detail without becoming cluttered.

I had a bit of fun with the very oversized flags. The designs are based on illustrations from the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript dating from ca.800 AD. That’s about 150-200 years after the era these models depict, but made in a Columban monastery in either Scotland or Ireland. The Columban monks spread from Iona around to the North of England, so I figured that the images were appropriate if not necessarily contemporary.

I got these figures finished just as a book of photo backdrops arrived in the post. Made by Jon Hodgson, these backdrops are fantastic, well worth checking out. Books are available to buy via Bad Squiddo games.