Ye Who Enter Here

Gothic Gateway
28mm scale

The gargoyles slumber through time
With patience they wait for the sign
These demons of obscurity
Shall fly once again, soon they'll be free

In the abandoned ruins, you come across a shattered arch.  Flanked by blocky pillars and carved grotesques, it once had an elegant crest, now lying in ruins below.  Nothing remarkable seems to lie beyond, but as you pass through, you sense that something has awakened...

When my son gave me a set of Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures gargoyles for Christmas, I knew immediately that I didn't want to just paint them grey and base them.  The arch is blue insulating foam mounted on an MDF base, with dabs of moss made by mixing flock with Mod Podge.  Nice and atmospheric, I think...

Dark Disciple

Sinister Adept
28 mm

You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.

 

The Sinister Adept was once a monk, like so may others.  But over time, he grew to see his brothers with contempt.  To him, their meditation, praying, and humble daily rituals became the servile activities of weak, inferior beings.  He scoured the monastic library for deeper knowledge... not how to control the self and achieve inner peace, but how to control others: the mantras of terror and subjugation.  However, his impious researches could not remain secret for long.  Discovered, he departed the temple with his favoured volumes, leaving carnage and destruction behind him.

 The Adept is a Ganesha Games "Psi Paladin" from Alternative Armies.

Jolly Old Elf

Aviator Santa
28 mm

"Let's get this crate in the air!" Nicholas roared, above the drumming sound of ten rotary engines and the near-hypersonic whine of the temporal glaciator.  Elves frantically loaded the last of the cargo containers, packed with presents, through the belly hatch and secured the doors.  Pulling his scarf snug about his neck, he grabbed Mrs. Claus and gave her a big kiss.  "Smoke me a kipper, darling, I'll be back by morning!"  Then he climbed the ladder into the cockpit.  The elves pulled the wheelblocks, and the Sleigh thundered down the runway and lifted off into the Arctic night.

 

This one is a bit late, it only showed up in my mailbox days before Christmas.  It was a lot of fun to paint; I love his Heroic Pose and dashing flight cap and goggles.  I got it from North Star Military Figures, but it doesn't seem to be offered for sale there any more.  Perhaps next December :)

Hard-hitting Hannah

Hannah (Stargrave cyborg)
28mm 

Once I wanted to be the greatest
two fists of solid rock

A climate refugee born with tiny arms and hands in the chaotic, sprawling Frankfurt Displacement Zone, Hannah Gupta seemed destined for a hard life.  But her father scavenged and repaired a mismatched set of adult prostheses for her, and she grew up as the kid others came to if something needed to be fixed... or a bully needed to be taught a lesson with a very long right hook.

Now she works the ships, traveling across the solar system from Venus to Triton, but never too far to send her parents a video message and a credit transfer.  And she earns enough that her new arms are custom fitted, with swappable heat- and chem-resistant titanium hands for work, and tactile synthskin ones for play.

And these?  These are her fighting hands.

"A boxing match?  I think I pass, Earther... Perhaps we go drink instead?"

A Stargrave figure from North Star Military Figures.