Living in the woods, hugging a tree…

Next in my desperate sprint through the painting queue before the year ends is the final entry in my Dungeons & Dragons Classes project, the Druid:

To recap, here is everything else so far:

Classes (as of 5e Player’s Handbook):

• Barbarian
• Bard
• Cleric
• Druid
• Fighter
• Monk
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue (and also here)
• Sorcerer

• Warlock
• Wizard

Originally when I was looking for a Druid mini for the project I was considering using one of the sculpts from the old board game expansion Forbidden Forest:

(Especially fun is the fact that the antagonist Druid in this has a separate staff, cloak and headdress that you can dress him up with)

But then I remembered this chap, that I think was from Wargames Illustrated at Salute a few years back, and fell a bit in love with his look of absolute disdain (I imagine he’s looking at someone who just thoughtlessly stood on a flower). It’s a lovely little sculpt, with a bunch of little details that add visual interest (the various bones and whatnot hanging off him) without there being so many that it’s a pain to paint.

Speaking of painting, when it came to it I went for a faded leather duster look, even if the idea of a nature loving Druid wearing that much leather might not feel quite right (although I justify it to myself as him having honoured the animal to continue using it after its death, rather than having killed it for fast fashion). What in hindsight might be a bit of flash rather than an earring I painted silver, which just makes it look a bit like he’s got a chipped paint job… but that’s how it goes sometimes. I also wanted to give him a non-white skin tone, to add a little more variety to my miniature collection. Unfortunately, I base coated his face months before I came back and finished him, and could not for the life of me remember what colour I’d originally used, leading to an evening peering at various Foundry skin triads trying to work out which one was closest in order to highlight the flesh…

[edit - my copy of The Silver Bayonet turned up the day after I posted this, and I suspect this Druid might slot nicely into that…]

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

33 vs 23 = +10

And let’s me cross the Classes project off of this year’s Challenge:

• Finish something old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Finish some scatter terrain (3/3)
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Play a game with fully painted miniatures
• Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Frostgrave)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted

• Convert a miniature and show WIP pics

• Finish the last member of the Nextwave team
• Complete the classes project (and when I do that, start a project to have painted miniatures to represent all of the Races in the Players Handbook)
• Add at least 3 entries to the Monstrous Alphabet Project (1/3)
• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

Looking at the Challenge, I’m probably on track to cross a few more off by the end of the year, which is nice! Also, at the start of the year I considered expanding the Classes project to include all of the races in the Player’s Handbook, which if I look back at things I’ve already finished would look like this so far:

• Dwarf
• Elf
• Halfling
• Human (there are plenty more, I won’t link them all here!)
• Dragonborn 
• Gnome
• Half-Elf
• Half-Orc
• Tiefling

(I’ve also done a Goblin adventurer, which appears in the Monster Manual iirc)

So only four miniatures to paint and I’ll complete that project too! Although I know I don’t own any Tiefling miniatures, and am fairly certain I’ve not got anything that could be pressed into service as a half-orc… that sounds like a problem for next year’s me though…