MicroNations

An outlet for my obsessive hobbies

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Orikan the Diviner "The future cannot always be left to the vagaries of fate. At times, it must be built."

Finished up this little time bastard in a single week of painting for an event at my local GW. Got a cool coin for my troubles and everything. In addition to taking part in mindless consumerism, I have been meaning to grab an Orikan to stick in my warrior blob. Hopefully that big defensive buff survives into 11th edition. As for the mini itself, I love how grouchy they made this floating cat man. He's a good mixture of colour, shapes and lighting. My power to blend green gradients only continues to grow. If they don't give us a plastic Trazyn with the 11th Edition codex I swear to god.

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Chaplain Gabriel Reyes, in Terminator Armour Sometimes the word of the Emperor needs to be taken into extreme conditions, so Reyes gets to suit up in the venerable plate and wade into the thick of it alongside the terminator division of the Crimson Fist Ultima Company.

This was picked up on a whim while grabbing some paints. I'm hoping to get more involved in 11th edition when it goes live, and it looks as though melee is gonna be the big hotness, which means some updating to my primarily shooting armies. Painting this guy was enjoyable, it let me try out that new black recipe I've been using for Deathwatch. Scribbling all those scrolls was a pain, but it does look delightful.

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The Rainbow Guard "It was just the sort of notion that would appeal to Renly Baratheon; a splendid new order of knighthood, with gorgeous new raiment to proclaim." - Maester Cressen Figured I should post the full chromatic lineup. Been looking forward to having the complete spectrum in display and they're just as flamboyant as I hoped. It's a point of contention, but I personally love that the ever-questionably oriented King Renly Baratheon had a kingsguard that looked like a pride parade. More power to you. After painting entire armies of drab metallics and earth tones, the more garish colour the better.

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Ser Parmen Crane, The Purple.

The tail end of the Rainbow Guard with an utterly lacking amount of material to work with. Dude's got nothing to work with and possibly no lines of dialogue whatsoever. Doesn't even have the decency to have a poignant or narratively thematic death.

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Cersei Lannister, Queen "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."

The queen lioness herself, Cersei Lannister. I was revisiting Feast for Crows as I painted up the babe of Casterly Rock and deeply enjoying the Cersei chapters as she sinks deeper and deeper into paranoia and delusion while at the height of her power. The prophecy that drives so many of her intentions through life was definitely a latter addition to her story by GRRMs part, but does a wonderful job of feeding that serpent of insecurity that's always been in her gut. I know that Cersei is frequently depicted in gowns of green and black throughout the books (Probably in perpetual mourning garb for all her dearly departed family), but I couldn't resist wrapping her in Lannister scarlet for this mini. She looks vivid, and seductive and dangerous in all that red.

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Brienne of Tarth, Brienne the Blue, Maid of Tarth, Brienne the Beauty

"I ask the honor of a place among your Rainbow Guard. I would be one of your seven, and pledge my life to yours, to go where you go, ride at your side, and keep you safe from all hurt and harm."

Was looking forward to this one. Brienne remains the single most painted figure with the most iterations in my collection, so I think I've gotten good at rendering those defiant features. Really loved painting her resplendent sapphire armor, but sad that I'm coming up on the last of the Rainbow Guard. Pretty much all of the Brienne minis come with that swept back, Gwendolyn Christie haircut from the show, which makes me yearn for the shaggier mess of brittle, straw coloured hair she is described having in the books. Pretty much all the Rainbow Guard have their personal heraldry somewhere on their mini and I wanted to continue the trend with Brienne, so I freehanded the sigil of Tarth on her tabard. Quite proud of how it turned out.

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Lannister Halberdiers

"No man sheds Lannister blood with impunity" - Tywin Lannister

Finished off this hedgehog a while ago and have gotten around to actually posting it. Of all the mini refreshes in the new Lannister core box, these were the ones I was most hesitant about. The sculpts themselves are undeniably better and more detailed, but I have difficulty with the poses. For a unit that is supposed to represent a wall of forward facing polearms eager to skewer a foolhardy attacker, so few of them are actually pointing their halberd *forward*. Irritating. Still, I'm a fan of the crouching mini. Very neat pose as he braces for the charge.

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Ser Guyard Morrigen, The Green.

"By rights it should be one of the seven who strikes the first blow."

We're getting into the real dregs of the rainbow guard now. Guyard is a character who manages to consistently get snubbed in his hunger for glory, passed up for leading Renly's vanguard, serving as Stannis's champion in single combat and finally cut down in battle by Renly's Ghost, the avatar of the consequences for his fluid loyalties. Painting-wise, this is the first of the Rainbow guard that saw me switch from gold to a silver base for the contrast paint, which I'll continue for all of the cooler colors. It was interesting finding the right tone of midnight sea-green for his coat of arms.

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Ser Emmon Cuy, The Yellow

"Wicked woman! Away from him, you vile creature!"

Ol' Emmon the Yeller, who is similarly put down like a dog at the hands of a grieving boy. Emmon doesn't get up to much in the books, beyond being seemingly the only member of the Rainbow Guard to spec into dual-wielding. He seems to be one of many ways GRRM likes to poke holes in the value of chivalry and loyalty, having been the only one to viciously attack Brienne at the site of Renly's murder without reprisal, and then immediately be slaughtered by Loras as soon as he arrived. The last we hear of him is Loras expressing doubt at Brienne's guilt, and the slow shame of realizing he may have killed two of his sworn brothers without cause.

Ser Emmon's armour is described as being covered in yellow flowers in the book, and I suppose they didn't bother to model that for his mini. I tried to freehand a pattern onto his breastplate and pauldrons with minimal effect. I think my use of Citadel contrast helped mute the metallic gold just enough to aim for more of a yellow tone overall.

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A full unit of Terminators, the skull stompin' walking refrigerators in person. I was seduced by the chonkiness of these guys, but I found myself hankering for more detail. It's no secret that I borrow a lot of iconography from the Ultramarines, but you gotta cut me some slack, the Crimson Fists have an incredibly drab scheme if you're trying to stick to the official guide. I invite a little complexity. Only gave my sergeant the chainfist as I understand it's a very useful but circumstantial tool. While I was initially saddened I could only bring a single heavy weapon, the portable missile bunker was too good to pass up. Dude looks absolutely crushed by all that shit on him.

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You ever see something innocuous, minding its own business on the clearance shelf at Michael’s and before you know it, it takes over your life for a few weeks?

So it was with this desktop greenhouse.

I took it home and after taking an appropriate time to “season” my idea in my mind (read: a month or two) I set to make my vision of a mini botanical garden a reality.

I started by removing the heavy glass panels and building a raised floor above the latch. I wanted to use the base as a foundation on the building.

I wrapped the foundation in plastic stone textured flooring (meant for Christmas villages) and built a pond at one end of the same. I then gave it a more realistic paint job and designed a rough layout for my plants and displays.

I also knew I wanted to make the ironwork significantly more intricate, but I wasn’t sure how just yet…

Up next - PLANTS! I went wild making all kinds of plants. Some were specific species and some were more conceptual.

I made several trees with polymer clay and moss, cacti out of beads and flocking, cattails out of raffia, hot glue and coffee grounds, and giant monstera leaves out of paper and wire.

This part should have taken me a long time, but it really came together fast. I loved finding ways to replicate natural shapes and patterns using bits of this and that.

I did make adjustments to my plans as I went like eliminating benches in favor of a simpler overall design.

Then I needed to fill my pond with water. For this I used resin. Lily pads were added to the top layer, and I wired in simple LED fairy lights. The batteries are kept in the box under the foundation.

In a weekend frenzy I added more plants, metal (paper) steps, new (plexi)glass windows, a roof, wrought-iron vines (paper again), doors that open, and a hose reel disguising the latch. Suddenly, a project I thought would take months was finished…

I love my desktop botanical garden. Right now it sits on a simple lazy Susan in my office. But I’d love to get it a proper display box to protect from dust.

Thank you for coming on this little journey with me. This piece packs a lot of joy into a tiny space. I always love building miniatures, and I’ll be doing more in the future I’m sure.

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Grey Wind: Robb's Wolf

"Any man Grey Wind mislikes is a man I do not want close to you. These wolves are more than wolves, Robb. You must know that." - Catelyn Stark

The big snapper himself. The wolf conditioned to war, the avatar of House Stark itself and Robb Stark's spiritual guardian. Slaughtered in captivity alongside his charge. The Stark direwolves are a part of their respective siblings, extensions of their memories and their subconscious made manifest. It was the first sign of Robb's doom when he began to distance himself from his lupine partner.

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Robb Stark: Lord of Winterfell, The King in the North, The Young Wolf

"Roose Bolton will have the rearguard, while I command the center. Greatjon, you shall lead the van against Moat Cailin. Your attack must be so fierce that the ironborn have no leisure to wonder if anyone is creeping down on them from the north."

The King in the North himself. The doomed boy king, military prodigy and political screw-up. I never thought that Robb Stark ever made any crucially fatal errors in the war of the five kings. There were mistakes, errors in judgement and just plain bad luck that bedeviled him from all angles. It was ultimately the plotting of enemies like Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton and Balon Greyjoy that crushed him. Was his fall inevitable? Maybe, there were paths untread that he could have walked, but he was trying right until the end, and has left a legacy that still has room to play out in what remains of his family. It always breaks my heart when his other siblings think about him, because none of them ever met Robb the King. They just remember the older brother who would play in the yard, cheer them on and play pranks.

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Lord Bryce Caron, The Orange.

"An easy victory, to be sure. And what glory, to win Storm's End with a single stroke!"

Moving through the rainbow gives us Lord Caron. He's an interesting outlier, being the only member of the Rainbow Guard who is the head of his own house as opposed to a knight eager for glory. House Caron is even described as a very noteworthy house in the reach, making it all the stranger that he would be so hungry for notoriety. The only clue we get is the note that his parents and siblings all died of an illness a few years ago, which may have laid the seeds of a desperate fatalism inside of him. His desire to fight and even die on the field of battle led him to eventually switch to Stannis's side and be killed at the Blackwater, which may lead to the extinction of his house.

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Ser Robar Royce, The Red.

"A second son must find glory where he can. A man grows weary of tourneys."

I've been looking forward to the Rainbow Guard for a long time. Finally getting to paint up these loudly-dressed chumps is going to be a lot of fun, and a chance to go wild with colours. The vivid rainbow cloak is everything I hoped it would be. Ser Robar personifies the self-impressed delusion of Renly's bid for the throne nicely. All he could see was the glory he could attain. Granted, he's the sole member of the Rainbow Guard who actually believed in Brienne's innocence and helped her escape, and got murdered by Loras for his efforts. More of the spectrum to come.

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Greatjon Umber, Lord of Last Hearth.

"There sits the only king I mean to bend my knee to, m'lords. The King in the North!"

Polished off this great big boy alongside his berserkers. His sword remains sheathed, and I suppose this mini was posed for right before Grey Wind nabbed a few fingers for a treat. While I did sell the original Greatjon mini along with the starter set, I'm glad I still have the special edition version of his mini where his blade is up and he's ready to rock. I kinda like the posing for this one. I know he's supposed to be sounding a horn to rally his troops, but his position and demeanor really looks like he's knocking one back right before battle.

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The Umber Berserkers

"We'll shove our swords up Tywin Lannister's Bunghole soon enough, begging your pardons, then it's on the the Red Keep to free Ned." - Greatjon Umber

Half the pictures I took of these guys got corrupted in some way, but the good stuff more or less remains. I quite like vivid crimson of the Umbers. Alongside the grey-white of the Starks and the black of the Karstarks it really makes the Northmen look more like an eclectic group of unique factions allied together through loyalty, in juxtaposition to more homogenous southron factions like the Baratheons or Lannisters. I remember when I painted the original unit, I made the executive decision to forgo highlights, the thought being that this would make the unit look grittier and unkept. Instead it just made them look dull and flat, so these boys got gussied up with the full treatment. Just one more unit before the Stark box is complete!