Hobby | A Damsel of Distress in Working with Metal Miniatures

Bretonnia continues to be a sleeper hit on this blog. Last year, the second mini to get a spotlight was the King of Bretonnia himself, a name that I eternally find difficult to spell, King Louen Leoncoeur. It's all of those pesky French-y vowels. This year, the faction goes up on the podium to the coveted first mini spotlight of the year. While not strictly speaking a Bretonnian (or human, for that matter) model, I did some slight converting to make a Damsel on Foot for the army. 

This model was originally a Spellsinger, a unit from the old Warhammer Fantasy faction of the Wood Elves. I honestly don't remember where I got this model from, but I really like it. It is cast in metal though, which, while much, much better than Finecast, is still difficult to work with. Case in point, after the model was dropped, the right hand snapped off and has since been lost to the darkness, never to be seen again. The left hand also snapped off, but was found and has been glued on and snapped off and glued on ad nauseam. 

To be fair to the model, part of that is just my overall inexperience with metal miniatures. I didn't show up in this hobby space until 2015. I am an Age of Sigmar baby raised off of the remains of cheap Warhammer Fantasy armies I bought on Ebay after the End Times. So I am a bit spoiled in that I've only ever really had to work with highly detailed, plastic models. I have a few other metal models, like an old Lord Kroak, that also had issues with breaking. Those models were easier to solve that problem with copious amounts of glue. On a model like this one though, with the tiny arm, could not use that particular solution. Enter the pin vise. 

I received this pin vise for Christmas, and why I have been living without this tool for so long is beyond me. I mean come on. 30 seconds, and I had a hole drilled on both the arm and hand that could fit a paperclip, and boom, no more arm breaking. A technique called, you guessed it, pinning. This has been common knowledge, and I've used it before, but with much bigger drill bits to pin a big plastic model to its base. Now I can do this with all of the models, and should make some conversions much easier.

Speaking of which, back to the conversion. First of all, I had to decided what army this model would belong to. I actually have an Elf army, technically two, but I thought that the aesthetics didn't quite match. My Bretonnian army needed a Damsel, and I figured why the hell not. So off it went, to join Arequine. 

This model needed a new hand, and to keep some design continuity in the army, I opted to use a Fireforge minis Man-at-arms hand with spear. The top of the spear was clipped off and replaced with the top of a torch which came from my repository of Dungeons & Lasers greebles. For some strength and extra details, I used Green Stuff to make the banner wrapping around the staff as well as the little knob at the bottom. For a final, small detail, I used by hobby knife to just removed the tip of her ears and round them out a touch. This didn't completely work, but hey, maybe she's a half-elf and that's where the source of her magic comes from. 

After all of that was said and done, I slapped some paint on the mode, and then more metal miniature shenanigans. Turns out, even with primer, it is very easy to rub paint off of a metal model. A lesson I learned a long time ago but have clearly forgotten. So after some more paint and two layers of Testors Clear Coat, and some extra layers of paint on Matt Varnish on the parts of the model that get the most handling, and I think it should be good to go, unless I drop it. 

And on another note, I've got a square of the Hobby Bingo card done. I converted this model into a different character, and I think it accurately portrays a Bretonnian Damsel. So I'm off to a good start for the year.

-The Space Dinosaur