Inspired by Alex, of Leadballoony, I decided to enter his Fembruary Challenge this year.

The challenge is basically to paint a female figure and post it up…pretty simple really.

I picked one which had been sitting in the paint queue for a while. I converted this model in 2015, based on a version David Thomas entered (and won for best squad) into Golden Demon 1998 (France). I imagine she is some sort of hanger on to a sisters of battle army, or an inquisitorial hench-woman type, out to kill as many psykers as she can in between spreading word of our Lord and Saviour the God-Emperor.

The sword is from the 1992 Space Marines close combat sprue. The hand with the book is from an old Rogue Trader Imperial Guard Commissar. The base is of course the wonderful Bretonnian damsel sculpted by Brian Nelson.

Since then I had painted the base green and that was about it.

I painted her fairly quickly but I am pretty happy with the overall result. I intended to paint the dress with Contrast Paints but I couldn’t get an even white primer coat because Winsor & Newton inks I had used on the base kept leeching up into the white primer. Whilst they are beautiful colours, they are not waterfast and so overall I (reluctantly) do not recommend these for miniature painting (having said that I will probably buy more in future, and keep using them, but to make life easy for yourself Citadel Contrast Paints are good enough for most applications where inks would be required). I painted the dress in old GW Shadow Grey then blended up to pure white which seemed to work fine, and actually probably gave a better final result than Apothecary White Contrast Paint would have, though it is darker than it would have been if I had used Contrast Paints (I think).

I was initially going to paint the dress as sheer fabric, but I decided not to for a few reasons: I was really happy with it when I finished and didn’t want to risk messing it up; Without getting into whether or not a see-through dress would be objectifying or not, I thought it would be opposed to the aims of the Fembruary Challenge to paint an objectified model; and, I felt a see-through dress didn’t suit her as a character (a chaste and pure raving psychopath).

Colours used:

Dress: Shadow Grey, blended up to Pure Skull White.

Sword: Handle, pure Foundry Black, highlighted with Vallejo Game Air Silver 72.752 (very happy with this); Blade, Flash Gitz Yellow shaded with Contrast Iyanden Yellow and highlighted with White, blood red for the chainsaw teeth highlighted with Flash Gitz Yellow, and Foundry pure black highlighted with shadow grey for the stripes.

Gold jewellery: shade over the primer with Contrast Guilliman Flesh, then GW Shining Gold, then Vallejo Game Air Silver (in retrospect the head band does not stand out enough from the blonde hair but oh well).

Blonde Hair: Contrats Guilliman Flesh over the white primer, drybrushed with GW Bleached Bone, then randomly glazed in some areas with Contrast Iyanden Yellow and drybrushed with White in others.

Skin: Contrast Guilliman Flesh, then GW Dwarf Flesh, the GW Elf Flesh adding white all the way up to pure white for the final highlights.

The base rim this time is the old GW Gretchin Green.

In all, an easy and satisfying project.