Red Sonja a painting experiment in 1:12 scale

Life seems to have found a way to get in the way of blogging. Fortunately I do still find time for my hobby (a lot of it is taken up by 3D-printing to be honest). Despite having a lot of half-finished projects on the table, I couldn't resist taking on another one. So this week I attempted to paint on a new scale. Here's a  1:12 scale Red Sonja 'miniature' (it's about 7 inches to the top of the stone throne). 

I was inspired to take on a new scale when I saw this video on YouTube. Primarily I was curious about the 'purple - transparent red - (skin) pinks'-way of painting skin tone on a model. To be honest I didn't mind adding a new decorative element to the hobby room (Red Sonja complements the dragon head in the center of the room quite nicely). As to the character, I have to admit Red Sonja is not on the top of my mind when it comes to great fantasy stories and characters. I own a trade paperback with some Frank Thorne stories and when I have time to waste watching enjoyable bad movies, the one starring Brigitte Nielsen, Arnold Schwarzenegger and a horrid collection of thrift store costumes and armor is an nice choice (I could have sworn Grace Jones was also in it, but IMDB says I'm mistaken). Hokey as Red Sonja is, it is a splendid alternative when Excalibur, Willow and The Sword and the Sorcerer get boring*. Also something, something about sexism, misogyny and all the awful things I didn't quite notice growing up in the seventies and eighties being raised with the message that the second feminist wave had sort of resolved all outstanding issues on that front. I agree we still have long way to go, definitively am on board with aiming for actual equality, understanding and freedom of choice for every human being. But I'll be damned if good intentions set the clock back and turn us all into Victorian style prudes. I'll fight that war by raising my kids right, defaulting to politeness, keeping the free seventies attitude alive (and applicable to everyone) and giving a very eighties punk middle finger where warranted.  

* Nonsense of course, these masterpieces never get boring (let's sneakily add Conan the Destroyer to the list here, Conan the Barbarian has a better main quote, but let's be honest, that movie is just too silly :).

Here she is, pondering the recent carnage on my hobby room shelf. I couldn't resist adding a hapless  28mm peasant for scale.

Anyways, long story short, I had to search the internet to get the STL files (they are available here at Studio3dprint). The YouTube video mentioned a Patreon, but I wasn't quite planning on filling my shelves with 1/12 scale comic book and movie characters (I'm already drowning in 28mm models, stepping up to 170mm would not improve my storage situation). I did learn I have to spray a bit more varnish in between steps when working on a model this big (layers of airbrush paint are very fragile, especially when handled by an uncaring brute like me). I also drilled holes so I could pin separate parts on paperclips for easier handling while painting. Let's say I learned where not to drill these holes. It gave me a lot of trouble when I was sticking the model together. Working on large surfaces is quite a lot of fun and way more forgiving than I expected. I also had a nice 'getting out of the comfort zone'-moment flicking 'blood' with a synthetic brush at a rather nicely painted model and abusing my airbrush by pulling back for paint before pressing down for air (it turns out that this is very hard when you've been drilling yourself not to do that for years). Long story short: 1/12 scale is awesome (and I'll probably be adding another big scale model to my collection at some point (perhaps another Sonja print to see if I get better at a second attempt)). 

What do we like? Rust! When do we like it? Rust!

With that I'll wave off for now, I have a rather fun collection of mostly Stargrave oriented terrain and models on the paint station I'm planning to actually fully finish soon. Hopefully I'll find some extra time to blog too (also there's some Tyranids getting near 'finished'. Perhaps I'll find make more time to blog about those things too. Ah ambition: it starts with three witches and ends in tragedy.