Skip to main content
Empi tries to paint
Tags: , ,

Player Character: Janikarumshed Hopsward

| admin |

The rock gnome cleric/wizard Janik is the next player character in need of a miniature. He’s more of a wizard than a cleric, really, and he is in pursuit of knowledge. There were not many gnome miniatures that really caught my eye, but Reaper Miniatures’ “Halfling Wizard” was a good fit. We just needed to get rid of the rabbit familar and make the halfling put on some shoes.

Here is the group of adventurers from my D&D 5th Edition Storm King’s Thunder campaign:

Concept art by Tim “Talin” Collier

The Halfing Wizard (02667) was sculpted by Sandra Garrity. The low SKU tells me that this must be a rather old miniature. Although the figure clearly depicts a halfling with his bare, hairy feet, it could also be a gnome considering the height of the figure. The mini has great detail, with the fancy traveler’s clothing, the glasses and the open book.

You can see the great concept art of the figure on the right. It always helps me to look at the concepts (if there are any pictures to be found online) to get a feeling of what is really shown on the miniature.

There are not many painted version of this miniature to be found on the internet. I like these two shown below. The version by Vacaroja also changed the feet and the familar of the figure, so I was confident that I could, too 🙂

Character Background

The cunning rock gnome Janikarumshed Hopsward was raised as a son of a famous beer-brewing family clan in the small town of Triboar. Like all his brothers, Janik learned the trade of his family at a young age.

But even as a youngling, the gnome felt drawn to the mystery of the magical energies of the multiverse. He started to read about magic and tried to understand the universal magical forces.

Janik always believed that he himself harbors a small part of a magical essence of a primordial energy, driving him ever forward to learn. So Janik studied as an apprentice at the Mystra temple in the neighboring town of Yatar – a temple dedicated to the goddess of Magic.

He completed his training as a priest of Mystra a couple of years ago. Finally, he understood the art of divine magic. But his thirst for knowledge did not stop there: He decided to study the arcane arts as well and travelled to Silverymoon to do so.

Now, he wants to test his theories about the universal truths behind magic. He travels the land to study sources of magical energy in the field.

Preparation/Priming

And yet again, I cannot show you any pictures of the painting process, as I did not take any. D’oh!

Janik does not have a rabbit familar, and he wears shoes. So the rabbit had to go. It took about an hour of cutting and sawing, but it worked out without leaving too much damage on the clothes. For the shoes, I used green stuff to sculpt simple boots. They are a bit clunky, but I think it works for the miniature.

As always, after pinning the figure on the plastic base, I airbrushed the primer using first black and then white colors to achieve a basic zenithal lighting.

Painting

After Janik’s player and I decided on a cool artwork to use for the character (see above), I used the colors from the artwork for the miniature as well. So it would be mostly warm colors with greens and browns.

I like it when my PCs have a signature color for their miniatures – I tend to use these colors for the art and graphics I do for the campaign. For Janik, it is the yellow scarf. I intentionally made the yellow a bit colder to get some more contrast in the figure.

Altogether, I am happy with the miniature!

Latest Posts