In Solitary Confinement with a Griffon

Birds of prey have complicated plumage, and that's why I've had an unpainted griffon in my cabinet for more years than I care to remember. At last, I found a solution: take it on a family holiday to Wales, where it's the only miniature I own for hundreds of miles.

My family may have been politely baffled, but it got the job done.

Crucially, I made the decision early on to just relax about the painting standard. To get each feather painted to a high standard would break the average human brain, which is why even the 'Eavy Metal team never bother to paint realistic markings, and why as their griffons always look subtly wrong to me. I decided I'd rather have looser, sloppier brush work in exchange for real markings.

Choosing the right plumage

The official Empire Griffon kit is very clearly an eagle, but my griffon is a hand-me-down from Maisey, a remnant of his abortive Wissenland project. This griffon is from 8th edition's Island of Blood starter set, and it's clearly not an eagle; the beak is too short, the head and neck feathers are too broad, and the feet are huge compared to the head. I cast about the net for a suitable raptor for plumage reference. Eventually I settled on the female sparrowhawk, both for its beak shape and diminutive size.

Converting the conversion

Maisey had basically finished the original conversion; the rider was glued on and had a lance and a different head. It was a perfectly good conversion, but it wasn't right for my intended rider: Hochland's Elector Count, Aldebrand Ludenhof. I don't imagine Ludenhof being the lantern-jawed hero Maisey had built, so the head got ripped off and replaced with a more gaunt face from the wizards box, shaved down to fit a helmet from the greatswords kit.

As for weapons, I needed him to be armed with a sword representing Hochland's Runefang (which I imagine he can only use when dismounted). Thus, the lance had to go, and to avoid the problem of comedically insufficient reach, I replaced it with a pistol. Specifically, to avoid the Count having to constantly reload it, I made it a repeater pistol. The sword itself went in a scabbard on his belt - you can just about see it in this article's cover image.

Finally, I shaved down the shield's design so that I could freehand Hochland's state flag on the shield, since, well, it's the elector count. I also ripped the rider off the griffon to make painting easier.

Sloppy sloppy techniques

The griffon itself is almost entirely painted using drybrushing and loose, thin layers of paint for the plumage. I sped things up somewhat by spray priming black from above and wraithbone from below.

The lioness' body is entirely done with drybrushing highlights and shades over a basecoat of Vallejo beige brown.

Only when I got to the rider did I start using tidier methods, with a mix of blending and wet blending on the cloak. I've painted that particular cloak a number of times, and it's just so satisfying every time.

Anyway, look: I'm not going over recipes and so forth, since this post isn't really about the painting, it's about...

The joy of just getting stuff done without worrying about quality

This model was really intimidating to me, because I was imagining painting all those feathers using my normal methods. It was only once I let go of the idea of being super tidy that I could just crack on and have fun. There are times when it's fun to really push the detail and fidelity, and this was absolutely not that time.

I'm hoping future Charlie will remember this lesson: if one owns an unpainted miniature, it is 100% better for it to be painted at all than to languish as a conceptually perfect diamond in one's mind palace. 

Relative to the time I spent on this lad - and it was still a good amount of time even with quicker methods - I'm genuinely happy with the result, and happier still for there to be almost no WIP minis left in my Empire shelf.

Now to get him on the table!