After two weeks of work, I’m happy to say that Minerva is done. The last few pieces were tricky and a bit time consuming to work on. Unfortunately, some of the biggest casting issues with the miniature were also on these last parts so that made working on them harder as well. Fortunately, I don’t think those parts are very noticeable on the finished miniature. I tried to be patient but I can’t deny that part of me was in the “get this project done” mode too. I started Minerva in November and while I did take some breaks, the project was certainly 3-4 months of work in the end. Here is a look at her.
So there she is! Its hard to judge these things because whatever you just finished feels like the best thing you’ve ever done but I am most proud of her because she’s probably the most impressive looking thing I’ve painted yet. Her size is a big reason for that but she’s just full of details. A visual feast for the eyes, if you will. I really like that she’s big enough that I can see her across the room and she draws my attention. Most of the Warhammer and MESBG display minis I’ve painted can’t do this because they’re too small. Its funny because when you start this hobby as a gamer, you think the scale for gaming miniatures is normal but if you’re interested in display painting, I’m finding that bigger is better and there’s no reason we have to paint tiny miniatures that can only be appreciated from a 6-12 inches away. Speaking of which, here’s a size comparison of Minerva with some other display projects and some gaming miniatures I had on hand.
When I started Minerva, I thought I wouldn’t learn too much other than what its like to paint a 75mm miniature but I surprisingly found a lot of opportunities to learn new things and get better at painting fine details with her. I’m thankful for that and hope to use those skills in the future. I also really enjoyed painting this miniature because she is from Roman mythology, I got to learn more about lighting, and I got to use some colors in new and exciting ways. As a result of all this, I don’t have plans to paint anything Warhammer or MESBG in the future for display purposes. I’ve found something that I enjoy more and so I’m going to stick with it.
I never did show off the box art for this miniature and so I’d like to do that before moving onto other things. Here’s a real surprise for you, Minerva actually comes in two forms. You can get just her on foot or if you’re a maniac, you can get her with a massive chariot! Here’s a look at that.
Talk about a project! I think I’d be looking at spending close to year on that model if I took it on. Truthfully, I don’t think the chariot is as good of a miniature as Minerva on her own. That eagle would add a ridiculous amount of gold to paint and I think would be a bit tedious in the end. Kimera Models teamed up with Aradia Miniatures and Aradia’s take on a 75mm scale chariot is quite a bit more impressive and doable. Its a shame that its a Kickstarter exclusive and not available for purchase anywhere.
But wait, there’s a bit more. I ordered yet another display mini about a month ago because I noticed that the manufacturer was going out of business and it finally arrived this week. It is definitely a change of pace from what I usually work on too.
Red Pandas are probably my favorite animal and they’re pretty photogenic so I think working on this little guy in the future should be fun and a great challenge. I’d love to see someone else make more animal miniatures at a larger scale. I know I’d definitely consider buying them.
And lastly, I wanted to mention how playing Anno 1800 has been going. I’ve put 80 hours in now (!) and I have 29% of the achievements. So I’ve got a long way to go on the road to 100%. The last two achievements I worked on were an absolute pain. The one probably took 10-15 hours to get on its own but then the final one for the Anarchist DLC was probably 20-30 hours on its own after that. It reminded me of playing the old Warcraft games on PC. You could essentially beat the computer AI through a long war of attrition if you cut off their resources. That’s what I had to do to make the Anarchist want to be my ally. I slowly and methodically took over 80% of the map before I finally won him over. I’m taking a break from Anno to play something else and I’ll talk more about that next week.
Kuribo's Painting 
She is fabulous. Well done mate.
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Thank you, mate! I really appreciate it 🙂
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Looks great, and I can’t wait to see the next display model. I also liked how you put this mini next to some of your others in the photos, I had no idea how big it was!
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Thank you, Dave! Truthfully, I’m always looking forward to the next display project too even when I take a break in between. I’m glad you liked the size comparison too. It was fun to do!
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Lovely work. 🙂
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Thank you, Dave! It always means something when a painter who’s done something similar to you (larger scale minis in this case) compliments your work 🙂
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Brilliant, Jeff! :-) Really like her! Your choice of colours looks much better than the studio model as far as I’m concerned! I now understand the pose of the figure more clearly as well – it looks like the same figure is used for the chariot and the stand-alone model, with a shield substituted for the latter to maintain the pose! Very nice work indeed!
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I’m glad to hear it! 🙂 I’m glad you like the colors I chose too. Athena/Minerva is often in gold and red but I like using “royal” purple a bit better. I’m glad that seeing both model options was interesting too. I probably could have shown that sooner but I figured people like being surprised when :)each piece gets added to the mini! 🙂
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Stunning work on Minerva Jeff, large models can often sap the will to complete because of the size and the extra work needed to make the colour blending look right, and great that you feel that you learnt from it as well. The red panda looks a great sculpt, and should be a fun display piece to do, but may be an idea to do some gaming models before starting it as a pallet cleanser.
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Thank you, Dave and you’re spot on with the thought on large models. I was patient but at the end, it was difficult to remain that way on the final parts. I don’t know when I’ll tackle the Red Panda but it will stay stored away for a bit. I do need a break and I have a lot of gaming miniatures and terrain waiting to be painted…
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Amazing! It may have been 3 – 4 months in the painting but the result is truly wonderful. Leaving aside casting issues, is there anything that you would do differently if you were to have your time again?
My daughter would approve of your next project as red pandas are also her favourite.
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Thank you, mate! The one thing I had intended to do but ended up not doing was to paint secondary highlights in the gold. They would mostly have been purple/magenta in the dark parts of the gold. I got ahead of myself on painting the gold which made it hard to want to go back and add them in while risking making mistakes and having to fix those, if that makes any sense.
I’m glad to hear it on the red pandas too! It won’t be something I tackle straight away but I look forward to it when I feel ready.
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Wow, man! She turned out pretty amazing! I thought those curved whatever things coming up behind her was her hair at first. I’m still not sure what those things are. Also, from the front shot of her, I can almost feel the weight of the feathers on her helm. They are so soft and fluffy, impressive!
I actually like the chariot a bit…it explains the movement you see in the feathers and such. Though if she’s holding the shield while riding the chariot, that would look really dumb. So I guess you were better off without.
Yea, I think you should keep at this scale too. As you mentioned, it seems there are a lot of advantages for display pieces.
That Red Panda looks pretty awesome, looking forward to that one!
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Thank you, Brian! I meant to talk about the curved things and forgot. They’re a fantasy reimagination of the laurel wreaths that Roman emperors wore. I was tempted to paint them a proper green color but ultimately decided that metal would look cooler, especially since its basically an extension of her armor.
Truthfully, I don’t know how the shield works with the chariot. It might be there or it might not. If it is there, its basically wasted because you’d never see it, sadly. I think the chariot has some cool parts to it but the amount of time it would take it to paint, makes it somewhat unpractical. You better love that thing if you’re going to spend 10-12 months on it!
Will do on the larger scales! I have busts to paint next most likely and those are at an even larger scale and will be yet another new thing to try and learn from. I’m glad you like the panda too. That one should be fun and fairly straightforward to paint up!
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I’m curious to hear what its like to paint fur at that scale, when you get to the Red Panda.
Thanks for clearing up that those are laurels. Kinda makes sense now. I’m with you on the chariot, it looks decent but way too much work for a mini that looks good as is.
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When I paint the red panda or really when I get it assembled, I’ll snap a picture of it so you can see what I had to work with. I hadn’t seen the bare resin before it arrived and I was a little surprised by what it looks like. I think it will make the fur fair easy to paint but time will tell!
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Gorgeous work mate. I do think she is among your best work. You really brought her to life.
And the bonus is, she still makes a great gaming piece for 28mm gaming as a giantess or goddess.
I am not a huge fan of the chariot and agree on it being a lot of gold all in one spot visually. I prefer the Polaris ensemble.
Good call on the Red Panda. Looking forward to seeing you bring it to life as your mascot or totem animal.
Anno 1800 is a game I am pretty sure I would try if I was still computer gaming.
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Thank you, mate! I’m glad to hear you think so too.
In a way, her scale fits really well with her being a Roman God. I tend to think of those mythological figures as being larger than life as well.
I’m glad to hear you like the Red Panda sculpt as well. I’m looking forward to painting it down the road.
I think Anno 1800 would be your cup of tea as well. It is a time consuming game but very satisfying, especially if you’re the type of person who enjoys building things.
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Holy hell man she is perfection! You’re right about the size. I haven’t worked on many larger minis but they are definitely a lot of fun to paint. Absolutely brilliant mate, you should be very proud of her.
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Thank you, mate! I appreciate the kind words as always!
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Pardon my French, but that is f***ing beautiful! Just fantastic work.
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Merci! Thank you, my friend 🙂
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Excellent job as always! Glad to see it all together and looking forward to seeing some more terrain done and maybe a game?
If/when you do the fox, will an airbrush be used? Can’t image doing it all by brush. I also think the eyeballs will be the hardest part to do on that figure.
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Thanks, Bret! I have a lot of terrain and miniatures to paint so I had better get going with some of them.
I don’t own an airbrush, so I’ll be making do with a regular one, I imagine. The miniature is smaller than it looks in the picture too. It isn’t as big is Minerva in height, for example. I’ll make sure to take some size comparison photos of it whenever I get going on it.
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She came out excellently, mate! The hair choice worked out well in the end as well.
I look forward to seeing what you do with the Red Panda!
I also thought The Arnarchist was a bust you’d picked up for a second before I read the text!
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Thank you, mate! I was so fed up of the Anarchist by the time I got that achievement that there’s no way I’d paint a bust of him haha
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Really nice to see her finished! Really appreciate the shots next to gaming minis makes me really appreciate the size of that model. It’s big! Big models are quite challenging to paint I find and getting blends that smooth on a larger surface is a lot of work I think so well done there!
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Thanks, Nic! Next time I might do the size comparison photos earlier on, especially if I don’t blu-tack the mini down to the paint handle (which is not my preference as it is). Everything you said is true about larger models. You want to keep your paints thin to try and keep it looking smooth.
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