Thursday, December 30, 2010

Knights of Bal Timorea, Part 4

I am happy to report Sir Cumference has finally begun his long journey to the land of California. Safe travels, friend! I finished painting him a couple of nights ago but was not able to get him in the mail until earlier today so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he arrives on time. Seems my original confidence that I'd finish with plenty of time to spare was rather unwarranted. I'll never learn, will I?

From beginning to end this project was a blast and I'm really happy I decided to participate in The Knights of Bal Timorea. Despite the misgivings I had along the way about the color scheme and concept I had chosen, I'm now quite pleased with my contribution to the group. There are certainly things I wish I could have done better but there are as well some parts of the mini that turned out much better than I had hoped. Also I learned at least a few new techniques that should be helpful in the future so I'd say this was a success. Hooray!

I mentioned back in Part 1 of this series that my inspiration for Sir Cumference was the villainous black knight of the same name seen in the 1946 cartoon, A Knight for a Day. This is the reason why I went with a predominantly black color scheme. I knew right away that I wanted his heraldry to be the letter pi but there were a number of variants that I had considered. Ultimately I decided to keep it as simple as possible knowing even that would be challenge enough for me. My aim with the green background for this heraldry was to be reminiscent of a chalkboard in math class upon which the symbol has been written. I hoped the black would reinforce this Old School Chalkboard feeling and compliment the simple aesthetic I had in mind for the miniature.


I decided to go with red for the helmet's dragon crest because I thought the extra bit of color would be nice since the rest of the model is quite dark overall. Also at one point my goal was to have Sir Cumference finished by Christmas so the red and green helmet seemed at the time appropriately festive. My final reason for choosing to paint the dragon red is that amongst the knickknacks on my painting desk is this little fellow seen to the left whom I picked up decades ago during a family vacation. I thought it would be neat to pay respect to him as one of my longtime painting buddies and to incorporate a little more of myself into the project.

Like I said I'm really happy with how my miniature turned out and look forward to seeing him ranked up with the rest of the entries. That being said I am now a little sad to let him go, though I know I must as it is his destiny. It is the journey for which he was born.

And so with that Sir Cumference and his faithful steed, the warhorse Diameter, set off for distant lands in search of glory. Happy questing, brave knight. Farewell!

10 comments:

  1. I wish him and his steed lots of luck and a happy new year
    Cheers
    paul

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  2. I hope that it arrives at time!
    Fantastic paintjob BTW!

    Cheers!

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  3. Hahahaha! Let's hope Sir Cumference never will have the hesitation to defend a fortified square by himself.

    Great job on the mini, and using pi as heraldic is just truly classy ^_^

    Happy new year btw!

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  4. Good mini, great story showing all of the influences and reasons for choices, and fun shots showing him leaving on his journey. A+

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  5. Well done! Free-handing that heraldry isn't easy...I know! He came out looking great!

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  6. Good job. The red is a nice flash of colour that makes the brooding bold, even with no knowledge of the painting buddy. The final effect is clean and understated enough that it should really stand out when ranked up with the others.

    Great sequence of pics too. You've got a knack for this!

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  7. I think he looks great, I love all of the thought you put into the mini and I think the final product turned out to be pretty awesome. Thanks for posting the final image and telling the story of how you got there!

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  8. @ Paul - Thank you, happy new year to you as well!

    @ Nesbet - Unfortunately I did not take into account the new year's holiday and so it turns out he likely won't be there until Monday. :( Maybe there will be some lenience on this, perhaps? I hope it works out but regardless it was still a really fun project for me. Thank you very much, Nesbet, and happy new year!

    @ Fridge - Lol... good one! :) Much appreciated, Fridge, happy new year!

    @ sonsoftaurus - Sweeeeeeeet. Hopefully I won't lose too many points for turning in my assignment late if it doesn't get there in time. Thanks, man!

    @ Gyro - Thank you! It was pretty nerve-wracking painting the heraldry, I was thankful just to get through it. I really like how your own knight looks, too. Awesome work on him, it will be cool to see these guys all together. Thanks again, Gyro. Happy new year to you and the rest of the Minions!

    @ Porky - Thank you kindly, friend! I wanted to be sure I took some fun pictures of Sir Cumference knowing I would soon have to send him off. I took some more that might be interesting which might show up sometime in the future. ;) Thanks, Porky, and happy new year!

    @ Meatball - Right on, thanks a lot! I'm glad you like the knight and won't be embarrassed to see your guy riding along next to Sir Cumference. I am grateful my thoughts about this project proved interesting for you as well, thank you very much. Best wishes, Meatball... happy new year!!

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  9. great stuff, don't worry as long as I know he's on the way he will make it "on time"

    John
    Santa Cruz Warhammer

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  10. Awesome, thanks John! I'm still hopeful you'll get my entry maybe today or tomorrow at the latest and I really appreciate your leniency on this. I'm excited to see how all the knights look together, thank you for initiating this project as it has been a lot of fun. Happy new year to you!

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