One of the party’s clerics is Asgrim Fuxfell, Tempest Cleric of Tempus. Reaper’s Azarphan, Necropolis Captain (14052) seemed like the perfect miniature for him – except for the terrible helmet. So I swapped it for a Spartan head.

Here is the group of adventureres from the 5e Tyranny of Dragons campaign:

• 

  Asgrim Fuxfell (cleric/paladin)
  Reaper (14052) – Azarphan, Necropolis Captain

• 

  Vinaya (assassin rogue)
  Reaper Bones (77033) – Callie, Female Rogue

• 

  Elena von Greifenfels (battlemaster fighter)
  Reaper (02725) – Alaine, Female Paladin

• 

  The Red Raven (great old one warlock)
  Reaper (02028) – Elquin the Daring

• 

  Hakran Steamhammer (archfey warlock)
  Reaper (60122) – Cheiton, Dwarf Hero

• 

  Lafisar (circle of the land druid)
  Reaper Bones (77092) – Elquin, High Elf Adventurer

• 

  Alester the Distant Light (light cleric)
  Reaper Bones (89013) – Ezren, Iconic Wizard

The game character of Asgrim wears a full set of plate armor, a magical battleaxt and a magical shield which also doubles as divine spell focus of his God, Tempus. He is the God of War in the Forgotten Realms campaing setting. There are not too many miniatures in Reapers range that fit these criteria. As the player character received his armor from his god, it was modelled in the image of the god’s own armor. This is the image I used to represent Tempus in my campaign.

It was clear to me that the miniature also had the reflect the colors red and gold of the cleric’s god. Furthermore, Asgrim Fuxfell’s shield bears the symbol of Tempus, a flaming sword on a red background. The miniature came with a flat shield with lots of empty space, so I decided that it would need to have Tempus’ symbol on it. Quite a challenge, as I am not very experienced with freehands.

The miniature of Azarphan has this ugly helmet with bat wings attached to it. Luckily there are bits of other manufacturers with better heads! Scibor has a wide range of great heads, and for Asgrim I bought a couple of Spartan Heads. You know, they have these nice Corinthian helmets with crests of horsehair. Asgrim would need exactly that to look similar to his god.

Preparation

When you look at Azarphan from the front, the helmet looks especially cheesy. It clearly had to go. You can see the blister with the Spartan heads from Scibor in the first picture. I chose one with a medium size crest and placed it on the mini with a small metal pin made from a paper clip (my standard pinning method). Azarphan then was placed on a 25mm plastic base. I then had to smooth over the neck seams with green stuff. The excess was used on the base.

Priming

In the next step, I primed the miniature with Vallejo Black Primer with my Airbrush and then dusted it with White Primer to achieve a basic shading, as usual. I think Asgrim already looks great here!

Painting

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures during the painting process for this mini. D’oh. I started with the red cloak. The cloak is sculpted with sharp edges and many recesses and thus it was quite easy to paint. I used wet blending of different tones of red paint to apply shading and highlighting. My red Vallejo colors are always pretty shiny, though. I had to apply two coats of matte varnish on the cloak to reduce its shininess.

Next was the metal armor. Although I like the look of NMM in pictures (non-metallic-metal painting), I’m not really eager to apply this technique to my tabletop minis. Real metals are easier to paint, but also don’t look as contrasted as NMM. Someday, maybe. But not for Asgrim. I basecoated the armor with Vallejo Model Color Bronze, and then applied two black washes. I re-highlighted with the base color and then applied highlights first with a mix of Silver and Bronze and finally with pure VMC Silver. The cloth/leather parts of the armor (just at the arms and legs between armor plates) was painted in blue to complement the red of the cloak and shield.

I painted the axe with Vallejo Model Color Gunmetal, a nice dark metal color. Highlights were applied with VMC Silver. For the crest on the helmet, I used the same colors as in the cloak before. The shield was another challenge. I wanted it to really stand out, so I decided on a white undercoat. I then painted it with VMC Carmine Red and lined the edges in VMC Silver. The blacklining between edge and shield was added afterwards with a small black pen. Then came the hardest part: The freehand. I used the picture of the Symbol of Tempus from the Sword Coast Adventurerers Guide which is a little bit more stylized then the usual symbol. I painted it with three colors: dark ochre for the hilt, white for the blade and mustard yellow for the flames. I’m quite happy how it turned out.

There are several other details on this miniature: It has a belt with a giant skull, a cup in the form of a skull and a small pouch. I painted these in different colors, so they stand out in front of the armor. Finally, I decided on a simple, brown base.

And here he is, Asgrim Fuxfell, cleric of Tempus: