Miniature Showcase

Second Frostmaiden Form: Base

This is another big project I worked on. I had to jump on this one because we are nearing the end of our sojourn in Icewind Dale. My husband/DM bought this miniature on Etsy to really give the Frostmaided a fearsome and intimidating look. I started off with the base. The cool part is that the base curls around the Frostmaided as a part of her.

This is the entire miniature, pictured above. The body of the Frostmaiden rests right in the middle of that base. I followed the same ice theme I had for the first miniature which looks more like what appears on the cover of the campaign book. I started off with priming the entire miniature in parts. I had some trouble with all the small protrusions. Some of them, especially on the ice dragons, broke off and had to be glued back on. The priming was white and I think this was the best for painting the light colors of ice. A black primer would have made the application of lighter colors a lot harder.

I used a light gray as the base color and covered the entire base with it. I really loved the formations on the base. There are spikes of ice but also crystalline formations that occur at the bottom. It really speaks to the chaos that is the Frostmaiden’s magic. I went over the base about two times with the light grey to ensure an even coat throughout the whole miniature.

Using a bright, frosty blue, I gave the base a liberal dry brush. Some parts look really saturated but I would rather have more color to work with than not when it comes to painting ice. It looks more like water at this stage but I still have more steps to go through to make it ice. The important part is that there are still plenty of areas where the light gray come through.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference in this photo but I added a second liberal dry brush of paint. Instead of using the frosty blue, however, I used my fluorescent blue and made sure to reach into every nook and cranny with the glowing paint. There is a slight difference, if you look close enough, the fluorescent blue actually faded the frosty blue out a bit and blended it more into the grey which brings it closer to looking like ice.

As a final touch to the miniature I dry brushed white all over the base to add a dusting of fresh ice to it. It fades the blue out a bit more and blends with it, creating subtle changes from white to blue all over. It looks even more cool with the UV light turned on and the glow paint shining. The finished effect is that of a magical ice the comes from the Frostmaiden herself as she defends her territory and her right to rule it.

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