I recently painted this gorgeous Copplestone Castings female adventurer from Mark Copplestone’s Back of Beyond Range  for the Lead Adventure Forum Back of Beyond Painting Club. She is entry Number 9.

I am fairly pleased with the painting…. though if you look closely she is unfortunately a bit cross-eyed!

The base is an MDF disk with a magnetic sheet on the bottom. It is from Olympian Games. I rather like it and if it weren’t for slottas/tabs on most of my miniatures I would be tempted to use them for everything. More experiments to follow…. next time though I will order the thinner bases, at least for historical figures anyway…

Back of Beyond is a fascinating setting for wargaming. It is a period I would love to devote some time to (right after I finish the Classic 40K, Classic Warhammer Fantasy, WWII, Napoleonic, and Ancient Romans…..!). I knew nothing at all of this period until a few years ago when I saw the miniatures on Mr. Copplestone’s website. I understand Mr. Copplestone himself was inspired to start the range after reading Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s dreams of an Empire in Asia by Peter Hopkirk. I have recently been reading about the downfall of the Romanovs (The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore and Towards the Flame by  Dominic Lieven) and one of the questions that intrigued me the most was, What happened next to the White Russians? Combined with the fact that Mr. Copplestone is one the absolute best in the game of miniature design, perhaps expect to see more Central Asian content on this blog in due course.

Colours used were as follows:

Flesh: GW Dwarf Flesh washed with thinned GW Flesh Wash to shade, highlighted with GW Elf Flesh with white added for highlights all the way up to pure white. The lips were painted with GW Emperor’s Children (Tentacle Pink).

Hair: Painted GW Sunburst Yellow then covered with red ink. Highlighted with GW Blazing Orange then GW Sunburst Yellow.

Shirt (and cloth on the helmet, forget the word for it now…): From white zenithal undercoat the creases were shaded with GW Asurmen Blue (ink) then the shirt was highlighted with pure GW Skull White. I then tried to make it look sheer by painting thinned GW Elf Flesh on the breasts and on her shoulder blades (let me know if you think it came out…).

Trousers: Foundry Buff Leather triad with Skull White for the final highlight.

Leather belt, pouches, &c.: Coat d’Arms Barbarian Leather shaded by Coat d’Arms Chestnut Ink and highlighted by adding white.

Boots and Pith Helmet: GW Bestial Brown. The boots then highlighted with Coat d’Arms Barbarian Leather up to pure white in such a way as to mimic shininess. The helmet was then painted in Barbarian Leather with highlights up to white leaving Bestial Brown just in the crevices.