Fantasy Clerics & Other Folk

Clerics, the religious fanatics of the fantasy genre, are a class of characters I’ve never played. In fact, I rarely include them in my adventuring parties. When I do, it’s only because I think I need a healer in the party. Yet, I have a bunch of them in the lead pile waiting to be painted. I don’t have to use them as clerics, I can use most of them as just plain generic fighters.

Not only were there a lot of clerics in this batch of fantasy figures painted this week, over half of them were sculpted by Sandra Garrity. All of the figures, except for one, are from Reaper Miniatures – the lone exception is a delightful dwarf from Hasslefree Miniatures.

Christina the Devout is an early figure from Reaper’s Dark Heaven Legends range. She was sculpted by Sandra Garrity. There are two wonderful things about Sandra Garrity sculpts – one, they always have massive amounts of hair & two, they always look as though they stepped off of a fantasy paperback cover.

Karina of the Blade is another early sculpt by Sandra Garrity. The guys at Reaper developed a fantasy world and back stories that have never been fully written down. I wish someone would. The Sisters of the Blade were originally a mercenary guild formed by female adventurers to compete with the more established all-male guilds. There is a tragic story of a band of sisters trapped in a vampire’s castle and that many of the female vampire warriors were once blade sisters.

Muriel the Just rounds out the last of the clerics sculpted by Sandra Garrity painted this week. I think I have four or five of these. When I stopped playing Warhammer, I looked at a game that was element or multiple-figure stand based.

Sora Goldflame, sculpted by Jeff Grace, is from about 2000. She is a two part model in that you had to glue the shield hand and shield to the figure’s arm. A little fiddly, but not nearly as fiddly as an Infinity figure.

Tristan Loremistress is another early Sandra Garrity sculpt. This one is a magic user. I really do like the way her sculpts seem to tell a story.

Mishka the Mystic, another magic user, another Garrity sculpt. Except this one says “crazy cat lady” to me. She may be a competent magic user, but that smile and expression says “I’m bat-shit crazy.” And the poor cat seems to be saying “save me, please.”

Elia Shadowfeet, Halfling Thief is a charming sculpt. She looks nothing like a Hobbit, but more like the Halflings and Kender that appear in D&D literature. I wonder, however, how often does she use her crossbow? The thing is almost as big as she is. She is also a Sandra Garrity sculpt.

Samantha of the Blade looks as though she just stepped out of a Larry Elmore or Keith Parkinson painting. She’s the last of the Sandra Garrity sculpts I painted this week and one of my favorites.

The last picture is a picture of two Samantha’s. Reaper reuses character names, often depicting a character that has matured or gained experience. In this case, the figure on the right is Samantha of the Blade, Warlord – sculpted by Jeff Grace for Reaper’s Warlord range of figures. They are both nice sculpts, but I like the Garrity one better.

This is another delightful figure that looks as though she stepped out of a painting. Anushka was sculpted by Jennifer Haley. While not as well known as a figure sculptor, Jennifer Haley is best known as an award winning figure painter.

When playing with Mirari the Seductress, you definitely do not want to forget the safe word. Mirari was sculpted by Werner Klocke. He is so well known for sculpting sexy women that a lot of his figures are labeled “klockbooty” on Reaper’s web site. What I like about his sculpts are the way he sculpts expressive faces with wide, easy-to-paint, eyes.

I have nine of these Shadow Sisters in two different poses. I think I have three or four left to paint. On these two, I decided for fun to give them bright Anime-style hair color. You know, the color you see on a lot of young folk these days. Saori Shadow Sister was sculpted by Jeff Grace and is found in Reaper’s Warlord range.

Heidi is short, even among Dwarfs she’s short – but buxom. This cute Dwarf is full of exuberance! I love Hasslefree Miniatures, I just wish I could buy them when they aren’t on sale. She is only 21mm to the top of her head and was sculpted by Kev White.

The Count

This week I completed 14 28mm fantasy figures out of a batch of 24 (I put the other ten back in the paint queue for another time). This brings my total count of figures for the year up to 340. I don’t think I’ll make the goal of 520, but I do think I’ll get past 400. In any event, I don’t think I’ve ever painted this many figures in one year.

Painting is going to slow down to a trickle starting next week. I going to give NaNoWriMo a try this year. This will be the third time I’ve tried, I failed the other two time in years past. For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month where the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month.

It will be a challenge for me since I am so easily distracted (the failings of many Floozies). So wish me well and always, always, your comments are appreciated.