Saturday 9 May 2015

Lady McDeath

Lady McDeath - love the shoes!
There is something incredibly thrilling about winning truly rare miniatures online. Watching the clock, fearing the snipers and hoping against hope that your highest bid will be enough. Most of the time, its isn't enough and you find that other collectors have far deeper pockets than your own. But sometimes, the Citadel Gods smile upon you and success in an online auction sails your way.

Of course, until that model is safely in your hands its still potentially a stormy sea. Take Sandra Prangle for example, I have technically 'won' her in three online auctions, only to miss out on actually ever receiving her. Nothing dubious has happened to me directly mind, and I was always refunded... But the reasons put forwards for cancelling the transaction often left me feeling more than a little suspicious.

There were no difficulties with Lady McDeath mind you. She came as part of a joblot, and the other models from that lot will not doubt help claw back some of the cash it cost to capture her, for she is an expensive lady. But the chase was over shadowed by the catch, thankfully. 

When she arrived through my letter box, I eagerly tore away the brown paper and had my first good look at her. Up to that point, I didn't realise that she was holding a skull in her hand - and this has been an ongoing issue with some of the rare models I have acquired. The photographic material online is really rather lacking and you have to actually get hold of the figures before you get a true picture of what they look like. 

She was in beautiful condition. Unpainted, with a little flash here and there. And after about twenty minutes lovingly cleaning her up with a file, I based and undercoated her. As before, I used the token illustration from the McDeath boxset as a starting point on colour scheme, and also referred to the John Blanche booklet artwork on which she appears. 

I painted her exclusively with Foundry paints and loved every second. Despite the detail, she was a very simple paint up - with only the fine detail on the jewellery proving to be a challenge. 

Right, I better get her dog out of the Pet Rescue Centre now - for he needs considerably more work to get on the table than she, poor bugger!

Orlygg

My painted McDeath collection... so far...

5 comments:

  1. Another nice paintjob. Must have been a little scary to put paint to such an expensive miniature but you have done it proud. I particularly like the face. I've just been painting up some old citadel AD&D female thieves and having a mare painting the faces (particularly the eyes) so if you have any tips please share!

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  2. Such a wonderful collection. You're rectifying the lack of decent reference material with these gorgeous paint jobs. Really lovely!

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  3. Nice job on Lady McDeath (and all the other as well)!. Really nice group shot - the collector in me starts itching :)

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  4. This project is fantastic! Can't wait to see it all done and ready for action!

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  5. magnificent work on her, she looks amazing, it's always a plesant surprise to see figures that are 30 odd years old turn out to such beautiful miniature works of art, yes there are clunkers out there, but she's not one of them!

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