The bimonthly resolutionary challenge in the Reaper forums is to get about 4-5 minis painted each month, and also there are some bonus challenges. This February, like last year, one of the bonus challenges is to paint a minature with your fingers. No brushes allowed. And no fingers of other, smaller people either. And it needs to be a creature, not scenery.

Challenge accepted. Again.

Last year I fingerpainted this:

This year, I am doing this:

The Bones 2 “77372 Burrowing Horror”. Basically a teeny tiny Tarrasque. Technically I probably should have done the primer with my fingers as well, but seeing as it was undercoated by spraycan many moons ago, there have not been any brushes on it. So there.

In preparation for this, I have let my fingernails grow a couple of weeks…since my fingertips are way to big to get at any details at all…but a fingernail, both edge and torn, does the trick!

 

These are the colours I used for this. I picked them as I went along, only having a vague idea of how this was going to end up.

The miniature was baseless, so I made a base for it:

Bespoke 3D printed 80 x 55 mm oval lipped base.

 

Starting by dipping my finger in a pool of Scalecolor Heavy Metal (=midtone silver) I wiped the finger a bit and “drybrushed” the whole model with a movement from front to back on the model. A few goes at this covered nicely:

This was followed by a highlight of Army Painter Shining Silver on the ridges and main plated of the head and tail, taking care to not cover up all the Heavy Metal.

After that, some Vallejo Game Color Glorious Gold on the claws

I mixed some heavy metal with the gold to create a highlight color, which I dabbed on the tips of the claws. I also tried to do the teeth in gold with the edge of a fingernail, but this did not turn out too well.

 

Tearing a fingernail, I used the point to paint the teeth individually, and also did the eyes in Vallejo Game Color Magic Blue, highlighted with a small dot of ancient Hobby Game Products Blue 005. The nail broke off, and I had to tear me a new one.

 

 

This I then used to clean up some areas with black lining and fixing bits I had missed or slopped the wrong color on.

I finished with some blobs of Vallejo Green Ink on the sides and underneath.

Then I had to fix all the spots of green that had gotten where they should not be.

And then I had to fix all the metal that had rubbed off here and there with my handling of the mini.

 

The base:

A thick layer of Army Painter Walking Dead Dirt Spatter, followed by Reaper Pure Black on the rim.

After this was dry, I marked where the feet would be by dabbing some lighter brown on the soles of the feet and holding it to the base. This was followed by a globbing on of thinned down PVA woodworking glue to the base surface with my finger again. A couple of tufts were added straight into the wet glue and then I dipped the whole shebang in my box of flockmix.

Gently clearing flock from where the feet were to go, I put some superglue in the general areas and placed the miniature on the base, and it was done:

Painted by hand. In the most literal sense.

 

All in all, a fun couple of hours of getting messy fingers.  Mostly waiting for the paint to dry whilst frantically wiping at my tacky paws to get the paint off.

And at last I got to cut my fingernails down to their proper place again! Cardboard boxes being the sworn enemy of fingernails, they caused a couple of casualties at work today.

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 58  / 126   (+7 / 12 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 68 left to do!

Finished from the stash: 25

Finished minis in total this year: 83 / 365 (target one for each day on average)

 

January: 59

February: 24