Fembruary 2020

Time continues to speed by with its usual unseemly haste and, even though I’m pretty sure Christmas was just last week, we’re striding into February already, which means it’s also time for Fembruary. By now the annual Fembruary challenge will be well established in a lot of hobbyists calendars but that’s no reason not to give it another mention, to remind anyone who might have been planning to take part and to alert anyone who’s not come across it in previous years.

To quote the man behind the challenge, Alex of Leadballoony, Fembruary works like this;

“…the deal is ‘Paint at least one Female miniature’ – it’s that simple! I’m not bothered what genre, game, manufacturer, painting style or material you go with. It can be a squad, a single mini, a diorama, or whatever takes your fancy… I’m just looking for awesome portrayals of the feminine in miniature form, as part of an ongoing conversation about how women are presented within our hobby.”

Originally I was just going to post something brief aimed at directing people towards the challenge and encouraging anyone who read it to take part, however I actually ended up writing quite a long post all about the representation of women in miniatures. In the end however I pushed it onto the back burner for now and went back to my original plan. At some stage however I’ll tidy it up and post it – after all it was both erudite and witty, and contained a number of well-structured and intelligent arguments without ever becoming rambling or preachy. You should try to imagine it – it was really something! In the meantime here’s a few of my favourite female models that I’ve painted in recent years.

Speaking of female miniatures, a recent release that stuck a particular chord with me is Fecula Flyblown of the Wurmspat, the Nurgle worshippers who’ve oozed their way into the latest expansion for Warhammer Underworlds. Allow me to pretentiously quote myself when I reviewed the Maggotkin of Nurgle in January of 2018.

“Disease affects all living things so here was a chance to show what happens when Nurgle’s ailments are contracted by someone other than a well-built male barbarian. We could have seen a sickly elf, twisted with bitterness as his immortality became a curse. We could have had a disease ravaged dwarf in a rust-caked suit of armour, great vats of toxin on his hunched back whilst intestinal pipes, throbbing with peristaltic action, spew jets of filth ahead of him? We could even have had a woman. Of course Nurgle isn’t all that interested in high heels and boob-armour but this is an age of equal opportunities and girls can worship an unglamorous god of disease and putrefaction just as well as boys.”

And what do you know, two years on here she is. What a joy to discover sometimes they do listen to me after all! And thank goodness they didn’t give her a chainmail bikini…

I’ve got a few ideas in mind for things to paint this year, although time is going to be very pressing this month so I suspect I may not manage very much. At the very least I’d like to tackle some more of my unpainted Warcry collection, and I know there’s a lady amongst the ranks of the Iron Legionaries, as well as the awesome Beastspeaker amongst the Untamed Beasts so if I manage nothing else I’ll at least take a shot at painting those two. Maybe, if I’m very lucky and clever with my time management I might even find the time to tackle Nayam Shai Murad from Blackstone Fortress, and Severina Raine (the lead character in my favourite Black Library novel of 2019).

In the meantime I implore you to take a look through the unpainted pile of shame and join in the challenge, as well as spreading the word on your social medias or down the local gaming club. The days in which female miniatures were thin on the ground are thankfully receding (although there’s still plenty more ground to make up – GW, if you’re reading this, female Orlocks stat!) so you should have plenty to choose from. Anyone who treated themselves to a new Sisters of Battle army last month for example now has no excuse to let them gather dust…

The Ladykillers – Part 9

Well, that didn’t go as planned! We all have commitments outside the hobby and sometimes they leap up and grab our attention and everything else, space wars and awesome miniatures especially, get flung to the winds. I tend to avoid talking about “real life” as much as possible on here, especially when it comes to my parent’s health. Ultimately they’re very private people, and this is intended as a hobby blog rather than a look at my daily life (who’d want to read that?!), so I’ve done my best to steer around it unless it has a big impact on the content I’m producing. Suffice to say that back in 2017 they were the victims of a serious road accident (a polite way of saying a careless arsehole drove his car into them) which has left both of them seriously disabled. Last week my father’s health took a turn for the worse and so I dropped everything and jumped onto a plane, leaving half-painted miniatures scattered in my wake. The good news is he’s now on the mend again, a huge relief for my mum and I, and I can take a moment to appraise my painting and kick the engines of this blog back into some semblance of life.

I had several things planned for the end of Feb which have fallen by the wayside but I’ll aim to pick up where I left off and get them done soon. The Khorne Slaughterpriest is tantalisingly close to being finished (don’t tell him though – the word “tantalising” must sound disgustingly Slaaneshi to his ears!) so I’ll get him wrapped up first. I also had various models planned for Fembruary, especially the addition of more Escher gangers, all of which will get their moment soon.

Most striking of all this marks the first time since January 2017 that I haven’t managed to add something to my Skaven army. Perhaps I should be cursing the fates that my 25 month streak has come to an end but honestly I’m pretty damn pleased that I managed a 25 month streak in the first place. All being well, normal ratty-service will resume this month.

The one thing I did manage to get finished before I went hurtling out the door was my long promised Escher champion armed with a chem-thrower.

When I first started working on my Escher gang I found myself thinking a lot about the chem thrower. Here we have an iconic Escher weapon combining their love of cruel and remorseless destruction with a showy and flamboyant style. Fill a narrow corridor full of your enemies with flesh-eating gas and no one will forget that the house is not to be trifled with. Moreover it struck me that anyone who actually wielded such a weapon would need to be a particularly cold and vicious example of her kind, distant and ruthless amid the camaraderie of the wider sisterhood. Thus Isadora was born.

I didn’t want to go too crazy with bright colours, to emphasise her otherness and grim nature, but she’s still an Escher so a few spots of that are a little more garish helped to tie her in with the rest of the gang.

With her joining their ranks the Escher gang is now starting to show the strength of numbers and versatility they’d previously lacked, although there are a few more models I’d still like to add – most notably gang leader Gallows Grace.

Of course, all of these Eschers also count towards Fembruary, a community challenge event aimed at encouraging hobbyists to diversify the range of heroes and villains in our collections beyond the predominance of our collective comfort zone amid the massed ranks of muscular men. Originally, in a classic case of my ambitions outweighing the practicalities, I intended to get a lot more ladies painted here – everyone from Elucia Vhane and Sanistasia Minst to the Infernal Enrapturess and Kria the Huntress were originally pencilled into the list. Alas there are still only so many hours in the day and, despite my devotion to the genestealer cults, I only have one pair of hands, so my ambitious list was cut down somewhat by reality. Nonetheless I’m pleased to have finished this little lot, especially under the circumstances.

What’s more I’ve been continuing to follow the great motivator and hobby institution that is Azazel’s monthly challenges. February was a combination of terrain (somewhere I could use with getting more done but alas, on this occasion, did not) and neglected models (those miniatures which were purchased some time ago – more than six months is generally regarded as the minimum ballpark – but which have stubbornly remained unpainted). Again I had all kinds of plans here, incorporating both the aforementioned Skaven and Slaughterpriest, alongside the Sloppity Bilepiper who has been dancing unashamedly in nothing but a basecoat for over a year and the Tiger of Dirz from Confrontation, which has been kicking around for over a decade and which I plan to use as a Khimerix for the Eschers. None of those actually made it of course but at least these four Eschers definitely count.

Having been away from home and work for a week I’ve got all kinds of things to catch up on, and once again miniatures are forced to take a backseat whilst I catch up with everything else. Nonetheless I have, as ever, got lots of things planned, so their time will come – just as soon as I get the rest of my life under control!

Infested! – Part 6

In spite of my ongoing real-life business eating in my hobby time like a tyranid hive fleet with a particularly tasty planet I’ve still managed to get both my Fembruary models finished before the end of the month (cue a little self-congratulatory back-patting). Alongside the witch I showed previously I also wanted to finish off this assassin, who also serves as part of my contribution to the Nestorian Infestation. Rather than repeat myself too much those who want to know what Fembruary is should look here, those who’re interested in the Nestorian Infestation can read all about the infested population here, and those who want to know why when the brief calls for genestealer infested civilians my first contribution is neither a genestealer nor a civilian can see me justifying myself here.

Now Fembruary has started me thinking about few female miniatures I have in my collection, although given that so few of my models are even human (Space Marines non-withstanding) I feel I have at least a sliver of an excuse. Hopefully soon I’ll have some Escher gangers painted up to show you and, although they wouldn’t be seen dead without their combat heels and form-fitting outfits, will at least serve to reduce the proportion of my troops with only one X chromosome. In the meantime here’s a group shot of my favourite females from my collection.

Who needs Grey Knights? Three Imperial ladies taking on the worst filth Nurgle can throw at them.

Of course this just leaves time to offer congratulations once more to Alex of Leadballoony for making Fembruary a “thing”, and to all the miniature’s designers willing to create female subjects beyond the impractical world of chainmail bikinis.

 

Black Magic Woman

I planned this model to be my second contribution to Fembruary, alongside the genestealer hunting Imperial agent I showed previously, although truth be told she could equally fit in with Azazel’s call to make February “finish a neglected model month” as she’s been sitting untouched and unloved for almost a year. The wait is over however and, with both community challenges chaining me to my painting desk she’s finished at long last.

My aim for Fembruary was to paint powerful, non-sexualised women and I like to think that nothing ticks that box quite so well as a thousand year old, possibly possessed witch.

Of course, continuing the theme of cross-over projects and community challenges that seems to surround this model, she was originally envisioned as part of HeresyOfUs’ Chapel project. However as the rest of my Ordo Mors warband continues to languish in unpainted purgatory here she is with a squad of Imperial guardsmen for company. How the poor guardsmen feel about this we can only guess.