Zoe's World - Fantasy Creatures

After a long absence and a pretty substantial break from the hobby scene my daughter Zoe dove back in with both feet this past week and added a bunch of new models to her collection.  It's been a while since she picked up a brush so she was a bit rusty but ventured far more out on her own (no touch ups by me this time) and much like her previous cyber-ape made some bold colour choices.

First up we had just seen Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom and I had some dinosaur-ish lizards from an old D&D board game so she was stoked about doing some pseudo-raptors.  The first one she decided she very much wanted to look like Blue from the Jurassic World movies, and then for the second one she just went with her favourite colour (purple) and one accent colour.

I think they turned out really well and if she lets me I could definitely see myself borrowing these to use in a game.

Next up from the same board game (I think it was the Drow one?) she found a big cat model.  Zoe loves cats and dogs so I think any cat or dog models I come across will always be a draw for her.  For this one she went a bit more traditional with a panther-like basic coat but then went with white teeth and claws and red eyes to give it a bit of a pop.

I feel like this model would work really well as a cat version of a Hound Of The Baskervilles type scenario.

Zoe's final model was the one that actually got her interested in taking another shot at painting; WizKids new/current Unicorn model.  Watching Zoe paint this reminded me a lot of myself when I first started painting.  She really wanted a light and bright colour but really wasn't patient enough to do the layering and/or prep in to get her colour to pop.  She started with a brown coat over her unicorn and then went straight to yellow with a single coat.  For the most part she got good coverage but there were definitely a few places that could use a touch up or second coat.  Having said that before I moved out west in the long ago time, I had a ton of models that had the same issues with reds, yellows and oranges.

I really like the fact that she picked a pile of colours that are unique instead of going for traditional horse colours.  I've always thought miniatures were a great outlet for expression and its amazing as some of us (me included) get more serious about our hobby we can get less adventurous with our choices.

Well there you have it.  After a year-long break her first foray back into painting was cranking out 4 figures in one roughly three hour sitting.

-Jay