Gloomhaven - Spellweaver
You might be wondering why I’m only now painting the Spellweaver given all the other classes that I have unlocked. The Spellweaver was my wife’s starting character and had indeed started painting her. So I didn’t want to step on her toes in case she wanted to finish painting the Spellweaver. Alas she did not, so I got the chance to slap some paint on this Orchid and finally finish off all the starting classes.
Before I could get to the painting though, I first needed to sort out the base. Like the Mindthief, the Spellweaver is standing on a little raised area rather than standing on the base itself. As I did before, I mixed up some milliput and spread it on the base so it smoothed out the interface between the character and the base. I left it twenty-four hours to cure then primed her with white.
For the skin I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to test out the Runic Purple that I got from Duncan Rhodes Two Thin Coats paint line. As it happens, Runic Purple has great coverage, I didn’t even need two thin coats, and is perfect for the skin tone of Orchids. I then washed the skin with Scale 75 Instant Colours Arcane Purple to bring out all the crystalline textures. I chose this over my Painter Purple Tone as it tends to leave a bit of satin finish whereas the Scale75 Instant Colours have a matt finish.Once the wash was dry I then drybrushed very lightly the crystal areas and face with Ulthuan Grey. To finish off the face, I very carefully painted her eyes with a small amount of Temple Guard Blue.
The Spellweaver isn’t wearing many clothes admittedly, after all if you live for a thousand years and have crystal skin why bother with clothes? In any case I painted the tassels around her waist and shoulders with Vallejo Dark Fleshtone as the artwork leans towards the darker colours. With that in mind, I painted her shorts with Vallejo Night Blue and the leather armour on her shoulders and shins with Corvus Black. Each of these areas I then washed with Nuln Oil.
For the elemental fires, I decided to go for a bit of variety. The flames around her feet I basecoated with a few thin coats of Yriel Yellow before giving it a wash with Iyanden Yellow contrast paint. Once that I was dry I then drybrushed the tops of the flames with Troll Slayer Orange. The flames in her left hand I basecoated with a few thin coats of Vallejo Squid Pink before giving a wash with Army Painter Strong Tone and following up with a drybrush towards the tip with Ulthuan Grey. For the flames in her right hand, I basecoated them with Thousand Sons Blue before giving it a coat of Talassar Blue contrast paint and drybrushing with Temple Guard Blue.
I toyed with the idea of trying to do some object source lighting but in the end I was happy with how the Spellweaver turned out. So with that in mind the last thing that I needed to do was the base. This was done in the same way that I have for the rest of my Gloomhaven miniatures; first I slapped down some Stirland Mud texture paint, then washed it with Army Painter Strong Tone and finally drybrushed it with some Tyrant Skull. Last but not least, I stuck down a grass tuft or two and painted the rim of the base. And with that, the last of the starting characters is finally done. Been a while coming but it feels good to complete the set, so to speak.
One more boardgame miniature completed, it might not be much but I’m glad that I’m making progress again after a month or so away from the hobby. Hopefully I can keep this up and make a real dent in the numbers over summer. I have a few more Gloomhaven classes that I need to paint, spoiler alert, but after that we shall see.
Boardgame miniatures left to paint: 706
Boardgame miniatures painted this year: 60