Let’s paint something  different. Something  less provocative  or some people might  say more conservative.  Women characters who don’t have to bare all (a fantasy  the media have led us to believe today)  to be beautiful, brave, intelligent and strong.  Let’s depart from the myth of warrior women  descending from the Amazon wearing thongs and bikinis.

Hopefully,  I can inject some new ideas and widen the horizon on painting female miniatures through  a different direction in this article.  My female miniature character,  Eowyn or also known as the shieldmaiden comes from the story, Lord of the Rings written by J. R.R. Tolkien.  

Image via Wikipedia

The Female Character

In The Lord of the Rings Éowyn, a daughter of the House of Eorl and the niece of King Théoden, is introduced in Meduseld, the king’s hall at Edoras. She was the daughter of Théodwyn (sister to Théoden) and Éomund, and the sister of Éomer.
 
When she was only three years old, her father was killed fighting Orcs and her mother died of grief. Éowyn and Éomer were raised in her uncle’s household as if they were his own children.

Eowyn is a fearless character who yearned to go into battle because she rather fight alongside her fellow man than be a spectator and a prisoner in  her own home.  She got her chance by disguising herself as a man in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

Image via Wikipedia

Eowyn was gravely ill as a result of her contact with the Lord of the Nazgul. Her sickness was compounded by her unrequited love for Aragorn coupled with the years of frustration and despair she had endured while Grima exerted his influence on Theoden and on herself.  She  recovered and  later on married Faramir who became Prince of Ithilien.

Eowyn The Miniature

The 28mm miniature character Eowyn is beautifully sculpted figure and cast in white metal. The figure was posed with both hands holding onto her sword getting ready to fight off potential enemies. It’s very clear this heroine character was made by Games Workshop to be used in the Edoras or Helms Deep scenes since she is wearing a dress as in the movie.

Initially I opted to make a simple base for this miniature but after toying with another idea while painting her, I decided to create a customised base specially for this character.

With the completed base and the miniature fully painted, suddenly the whole outlook of the miniature figure changes. There seems to be more interest with a storyline. Just simply by adding a Rohan door and groundwork,  the figure seem to be guarding the door against something( maybe an Ork or Uruk-Hai) coming towards her.

Simple Tips to Remember when Painting Female Faces

Differentiating the facial features of a male and female character is the first step  you should try to understand.  Male faces have sharper planes and angles while female faces have a more curved and rounded facial features.

When painting female faces always bear in mind the difference with painting a male face. The contrast between the base color and shade should be more subtle. The skin color is usually  more softer and fairer. The contrast comes mainly from the eyes, lips and hair. Just look at faces of female supermodels and you will get what I mean.

When painting male characters, you might get away for not painting eyebrows but for female miniature faces, eye brows are a must.

As for the character Eowyn, I painted her with Vallejo Acrylics Basic Skintone, highlighted her skin with White and used Citadel Colour Dark Flesh as a glaze for shading. Her skin needed to be very fair as possible to depict her description in the story-well she is also known as the White Lady of Rohan.

Conclusion

The next time you decide to  collect female miniatures, I hope these simple tips and the video journal might help to motivate and inspire more creativity when  choosing your female characters. A sexy miniature is just only one direction you can take-there are many other paths to choose from if you inject more creativity and vision in your work. For information on painting miniatures for beginners, visit the 2PaintMiniatures website.