...Madness in Miniature
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...Madness in Miniature
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Maidenhead Miniatures are an Australian company producing a line of figures called 'The Babes That Time Forgot.' The range at the moment consists of a slowly expanding Amazon army, but they plan on adding further armies later. Here's what Maidenhead's Kym Pennell has to say: Click Here And so: On to the miniatures! First ImpressionsThe bundle of minis that I received was a bit of a mixed bag, including several models on foot, a Sabre-tooth Cat rider, and a Terror Bird rider.
On first inspection, the models are a similar size to GW's models, (see a comparison here) but with much less exaggerated proportions. These girls, while certainly built to impress the lads, look like warriors rather than the petite little ladies with ridiculous bosoms we've all come to expect from fantasy female miniatures. The sculpts are a little rough in a couple of places, but nothing that can't be fixed during a brief session with an x-acto knife. The casting itself seems very clean, with very minor mold-lines, and little to no flash. The cavalry models are interchangeable, with the torso and legs being seperate pieces. The Terror Bird has convenient grooves on its back for the legs to slot into, and the model sits on quite snugly. Getting the legs around the Sabre-tooth took a little more effort, but the metal is fairly soft, and bends without snapping. 
The Archers' bows really caught my eye, as I am used to Games Workshop's chunky bows that look like they were carved from half a tree... These actually look like bows! The soft metal would possibly make them a little fragile over the long term, and they must be a right sod to cast, but it certainly looks much better than what I am used to. Painting!I've always had issues with painting flesh, so these girls were always going to be a challenge. It did, however, give me a chance to practice a few techniques, to try and find a quick and easy way to do flesh that produced decent results.With this in mind, I got a little experimental: I normally undercoat with black, as I find it gives much deeper and richer colours than a white undercoat. However, since I intended to paint these girls in predominantly earthy colours, I took a plunge and undercoated them brown instead. The first one was painted with a Leprous Brown undercoat, which turned out to be too pale, and was further compounded by the flesh tone, which was built up from Dwarf Flesh, with Palid Flesh mixed in for highlights. The end result was far too pink; She looks rather sunburned. 
For the others, I started with an undercoat of Bestial Brown, which turned out perfect as a nice rich base to build the other colours on. Their skin was also started with Dwarf Flesh, but I mixed in Bleached Bone for the highlights, which gave a much more realistic flesh-tone. 
The various leather and wood bits were painted with Dark Flesh, with Palid Flesh mixed in for highlights. For the shell-armour and cloth sections, I used a base of Dark Angels Green, with highlights of Snot Green and Goblin Green. What little metal they wear (On most of them just the nipple shields... that's assuming they're supposed to be shields, and not the actual nipples. They are rather chunky, so I figured painting them as shields would look better.) was done with Beaten Copper, with highlights of Mithril Silver, and their hair was simply black with a small touch of white for highlight. The bone on the weapons and ornaments was Bleached Bone with Skull White highlights. Aside from my general Flesh-phobia, which I now seem to be largely over, these miniatures were quite good to paint. While the detail is not quite as crisp as it could be in some places, it's certainly sufficient to do the job. My only real disappointment is with the faces: The eyes on a couple of them are a little lop-sided, and lacking in definition. So on to the Leader: She has a lot more detail than normal girls did, which is mostly nice and crisp, although the face once again is lacking a little in definition. Still, there's enough there to make her stand out from the crowd, painting her was actually easier, as the extra detial helped define everything better. 
And finally: The riding beasts. I love both of these! The cat is beautifully done: compact and muscly, with nice definition. There was a tricky mould line on his rump which was a bit of a headache, as removing it meant sculpting the fur detail back in. The base also caused a minor hassle: Both the animals are one piece, base and all, which was fine with the bird's long legs, but getting the brush in under the cat's belly was awkward. 
The bird is similarly well detailed, and due to being rather long and gangly, was rather easy to paint (Everywhere is easy to reach!). The detail on the feathers came out nicely with a quick drybrush, and the face was just perfect: Simple detail, but crisp and nasty-looking. Not a bird I would want to meet in a dark swamp... 
ConclusionsWell, they looked nice before painting, and after getting some colour on these girls, I'm even more impressed. The standard models could perhaps be a little better detailed, but the leader and animals more than make up for it. They're interesting models (flesh-phobia aside) to paint, and will look quite distinctive in my cabinet. At a relatively low price (the bundle I have here would set you back around $40) they're certainly worth a look for an alternative army, or just for something different to paint.--Back to the main Reviews page-- |
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