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Every once in a while I encounter a visionary customer ending up head to toe in a ‘Special Project’ of someone else’s design. Such event occured just recently when I met Thomas, who is both a miniatures collector of grand magnitude and a great fan of Geckos. So, Thomas had an interresting idea of converting a Newt Warrior from Dark Sword Miniatures into a ‘Gecko Mage’. He was very specific about all the details for this particular project. He even drawn some concept arts to point out his expectations which is a rare thing. I was pretty much consumed by the idea and started to think about how I would proceed with it…
Alongside typical Gecko tail I was asked to create a torch and a book for the miniature to stand out as a ‘gecko mage’. Torch and tail were a matter of some time spent with green stuff and it went pretty smooth, but the book was a totally different thing. First of all I had to remove the miniature’s left arm, almost entirely covered by a shield. Taking that into consideration I decided not to rebuild this practically ‘obliterated’ limb but rather mask the damage and use a proxy hand to hold the book. Sculpting a new hand was out of question, as this would consume a lot of time and is on a verge of the limit of my skills. I used a Warhammer Ghoul’s hand instead and cut off one of it’s fingers to mark the other hand. Then I used some green stuff to fill the space left after previous ‘operation’ and masked the ‘wound’ using a book on the one side and a scroll-like bookmark on the other.
The base was yet another interresting idea. It was meant to be partially submerged with fish, plants and river bank being clearly visible. Alongside the mage, some books were to be added on the coast. Also three rats were to accompany the Gecko, being it’s familiar pets. As it happened, I had an old Micro Art Studio base with a tree trunk all over it. I decided to modify and use it as a major feature of the coast. Once it was prepared and placed on the base, I just added detail all around it and positioned the Gecko miniature in a slightly more dynamic pose. It looked well so I got a green light from Thomas and proceeded to painting…
The overall concept for the paint job was to use the original colour scheme of light green with underbelly creme and add a red pattern to the tail and back. I also got some specifics on the eyes and armour. Otherwise I had a free will to choose colours and their depth so I just did my best, providing a nice ‘Heroes Never Die!’ lvl 6 paint job.
I actually started painting with the base. While the Gecko paint job proceeded, the base was already prepared to get submerged. I used Fantasygames awesome tutorial to prepare the base then poured the resin in. As with all things – mistakes happen, and my first attempt ended up with a mess, resing pouring all over the desk, me trying to block it with blue tac and other stuff… I failed and restarted the process after clearing the base of resin. Second attempt was a success and after 24 hours I was ready to add a finishing touch to the base…
I had a lot of fun with this Special Project, mostly because I would have never had an idea like this on my own. Thomas not only provided the concept but also entrusted me with his vision. He had a great impact on the project and it makes it even sweeter. If only I could produce two identical pieces so that one would adorn my own collection 😛
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