Alejandra from CMON

In the weeks before the expected arrival of the new Hobbit miniatures, I spent some late nights trying to complete a few minis to make room in the queue for Mr. Baggins and the dwarves.  I felt like I was painting like a speed demon when in fact, as usual for me, I was painting the speed of a dying tortoise.  Nevertheless, I was able to finish up not one, but three figures before the box set came in last Saturday.  A pirate, a goblin, and this lovely lady have now been moved to completed status.

I purchased Alejandra from the Cool Mini or Not shop around a year ago and have been wanting to paint her since then.  I'm not sure of the sculptor, but whoever worked on her did a fantastic job.  Although her simple and clean lines suggest lack of detail, she is anything but.  Each item, no matter how small, is detailed and crisp. 

 

I must admit.  I'm a metal guy.  Always have been and probably will be.  However, I was impressed with this resin model.  Perhaps I'm just a bit jaded by the GW Finecast crap or the drop in quality once Black Scorpion went to resin, but I'm usually disappointed with resin miniatures.  I was pleasantly surprised with this model however.  There were no issues...ZERO....with Alejandra.  I did not have to fill any bubbles, fix missing parts, or repair brittle pieces.  Now that I think about it, I don't think I did much prep work at all on her.  Why can't GW produce such quality resin miniatures?

The only problem I had with Alejandra was with her weapon of choice.  For some reason, the sculptor chose to attach a HUGE axehead/scythe on the end of her staff.  It was quite monstrous and really detracted from the theme of the model.  You can see the original sculpt here.  So I removed the ridiculous axe thingamajiggy and replaced it with a 6mm BB.  I was shooting for (see what I did there?? ha!) a swirling orb-like structure on top of the staff.  Though my lack of painting skill probably failed to achieve the desired effect, I still think it looks better than the huge hunk of junk that was there before.

All in all, she was a great model and a fun one to paint.  Alejandra would make an excellent  wizard/sorceress model for RPG play or could be substituted for a hero model in brand XYZ skirmish wargaming.  Whatever the use, pick up one from Cool Mini or Not if you want a resin miniatures that doesn't suck!

Thanks for reading!