"On The Winterly Village Green…”

“…You will find the beloved towering construct of wheat and branch that stands sentinel over the village.”

This 28mm scale resin model of The Strawman is produced by “Crooked Dice Game Design Studio” and can be bought as SKU: MINI 460. The kit comes in three parts, and is somewhat reminiscent of the grotesque giant straw effigy which features prominently at the end of Robin Hardy’s 1973 British horror film “The Wicker Man”.

Having assembled the 85mm tall monstrosity, it was primed using a couple of coats of “Vallejo” Dark Yellow and enthusiastically drenched in a mixture of “Citadel” Agrax Earthshade and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade. The figure was then heavily dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Dark Yellow, and later given a lighter application of Buff to help bring out the miniature’s marvellous details.

"CoolMiniOrNot” WIPs - The Incredible Hulk and Invincible Iron Man

The Strawman was arguably already table-top ready at this stage, but I decided to break up the palette a little bit more by haphazardly apply splotches of “Citadel” Reikland Fleshshade and Biel-Tan Green to certain areas of the model. This hopefully suggests that the large creature’s hay is decomposing at different rates. In addition, the entire figure was once again treated to a delicate dry-brush of (more) “Vallejo” Buff.

I was actually planning on calling this miniature “done” at this stage. However, I then saw the ‘official paint-job’ and realised that vast tufts of straw were actually tied to large wooden sticks. As a result I very patiently ‘picked out’ as many of these areas as I could reach with my brush-tip with “Vallejo” Heavy Sienna, and subsequently shaded them with "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade.

"Alternative Armies" WIPs - A test piece to try out "Citadel" Sons Of Horus Green

With the second of my five planned submissions for this month’s Monster May(hem) challenge finished, I have spent some time progressing the hard plastic Hulk miniature from my Marvel United boardgame by "CoolMiniOrNot”, and applied a little "Scalecolor" Ruby Alchemy to one of Iron Man’s legs so as to test whether I want to use the metallic paint for the Golden Avenger’s armour. The pigmentation isn’t unfortunately all that strong though, so after two layers, the underlying colour is disappointingly still showing through in some areas.

Alongside this experiment, I’ve slapped some “Citadel” Sons Of Horus Green onto a 15mm scale Grey Adder APC Battle Taxi Lifter by “Alternative Armies”. I’m planning on quite heavily getting into The Horus Heresy when “Games Workshop” release their new Age Of Darkness starter set, and wanted to see how this particular layer paint looks when used with “Citadel” Nuln Oil before I decide to  ‘collect and field’ a Sons of Horus legion…