It came from beneath the sea!

March 29, 2017 Lee Trayler - Warcradle Studios

Rani Nimue is our first plastic miniature, which is great, but even better she's an awesome miniature to boot! I was given one of the first copies to play with and I'm already ahead of everyone else in the Warcradle studio as I've painted her...base. I've painted her base. As a legendary figure Nimue comes with a suitably impressive base. It's a mini diorama. Our range of legendary heroes is replete with additional parts that create a scenic base for the miniature but Nimue's is the most ambitious by far. She stands poised for battle on the deck of her submersible the Nautilus, a wave crashing upon the hull as the mechanical tentacle of a mechanical RJ powered squid monster (how enlightened!) creeps around her to rear up ready to strike. All that packed onto a 40mm base. I decided to tackle the base separately as there is a lot of detail to the piece and I didn't want to be encumbered by Nimue herself. Although it looks intimidating there are only really two different elements on the base, the deck and tentacle being one and the wave being the other. The tentacle and deck were the easiest components to paint. The deck I painted plain citadel Leadbelcher and then left. The lines of the deck are distorted as they are actually underwater. Rather than go to the trouble of washing and highlighting this part I would finish it as part of the wave. The mooring bollard and tentacle were both painted bronze and given a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade. I then created a thinned down wash of Citadel Incubi Darkness and ran that around all the upraised detail and into the recessed areas as well to look like being underwater had caused a build-up of verdigris. I then dry brushed the original bronze over it and a lighter bronze mix again to add a bit of definition. The final detail was to paint the interior of the suction cups along the bottom of the tentacle as if they were glowing with RJ1027. The wave was the trickiest part. A full wave is depicted on the base which needed different techniques. To begin with I gave the entire a coat of Citadel Imrik Blue. This is a very light blue but that doesn’t matter as it is just a base for the washes that will give the true colour. Being a vessel at sea, the Atlantic Ocean to be precise, probably during a storm, the waters weren't going to be a clear blue but rather a deep green. To that end I watered down Citadel Temple Guard Blue and Citadel Kabalite Green and applied them as alternating washes, waiting till one had dried and then applying the next until I had achieved a deep multi-hued colour. Although I hadn't applied the base blue to the deck I did make sure that I covered this silver portion with the washes. This meant that I built up the colours on top of the metal and differentiated that part of the base from the wave parts. Once this was done I took a piece of sponge that had come from one of the many model blister packs that lie strewn across my hobby room's surfaces and dabbed a light grey over the wave lip, the part textured like foam. Once this had dried I did the same again but with pure white. The last thing to do was to apply a layer of gloss varnish to the water sections to give them that glistening wet sheen. There you have it. Although the wave may seem intimidating it didn't really take much to get it looking decent. The longest part of the process was waiting for the washes to dry! Now this part is complete I can make a start on Nimue herself. There is a lot of detail on this miniature so it will take some careful work but whatever your skill level, and I'm no professional, Nimue is a miniature that will look great finished and part of your posse.

Lee