Christmas armies of Good and Evil

 

Steven has been spending a few days with us and he brought a couple of 15mm Hordes of the Things Christmas armies he's just finished. This lot is the Good Christmas army (Khurasan Miniatures). - text by Steven.

And this is the Evil army (Alternative Armies). Both armies are just what the respective manufacturers provided in their ranges, and bear little resemblance to the Christmas armies in the HOTT list. I tried to theme the basing for each army so they were distinctive but still definitely snowy. So the good army got a blue undercoat underneath the snow flock, and a quite uniform covering, to give a crisp, clean look. The evil army got a darker, more muddy, patchy look.

Good Stronghold. I added a skirting board made from card, a wall socket, plug and wire for the Christmas tree (hidden from view in this photo) and sculpted a cat on a rug. The cat is painted to look like my own cat, Henry.

Evil Stronghold. Alternative Armies house covered in snow, with icicles made from bits of melted plastic sprue. The tree is scratch built from a wire frame covered in modelling putty. This was the last thing I painted, literally finished the day before I came to my parents. It was packed before the glue under the snow flock had fully dried!

Santa is the good (Hero) general. The holly bushes are clump foliage with tiny balls of green stuff painted red. They were rolled as tiny as I could manage, but technically are still way too large.

With faithful Rudolph as a Flyer. Unbelievably I never realised, until Dad pointed it out, that the antlers are bent down. Now it is all I can see on this model.

The snowman (Hero)... The little girl miniature, being a 15mm scale child, is tiny.

Buddy and Jovie (Paladin) from the movie Elf, because why not. Green stuff toy box and a piece of bent wire to make the candy cane.

Toy Soldiers (Shooters). The challenge here was to make each one as identical as the others.

Nutcrackers (Blades). It doesn't show in photos, but these, and the toy soldiers above, have a gloss varnish. It seemed appropriate.

Evil Magician General. Jack Frost, an interesting painting challenge to make him look icy. I painted the base to look like magical iciness is spreading around him and cracking the earth.

Snow trolls (Behemoth). Pretty distinctive with their Christmas hats

Winter wolves (Beasts) by Demonworld, added to give another option (and because I had spares from the prehistoric project).

Evil Snowmen (Hordes). It was interesting to paint such a variety of colours on them to give a chaotic, haphazard look.

Evil Gingerbread Men (Warband). The first group I painted in this project.

Psycho presents (Shooters). It was fun painting the variety of colours on these.

Evil Christmas Trees (Lurkers). These were actually very finicky to paint and difficult to make look good