Mini of the Week 12-11-15

Welcome back to Mini of the Week, where every Friday I will find a miniature from around the web that exemplifies an aspect of our hobby and share it with you.

Fire Warrior by Sergio Torregimeno on Putty and Paint

There are quite a few things that are striking to me about this mini. The most obvious being how well this hobbyist recreated the cover to the video game and novel Fire Warrior. There is definitely a little bit of nostalgia about this. Fire Warrior may have been a little disappointing as a game, but for me it was my first time getting to experience the worlds of GW on a console system as opposed to on my PC. I just remember being super excited getting to fire the weapons, explore the battlefields and finally hear what sounds a melta-gun makes. The novelization of it was actually surprisingly good, and definitely outshone the game itself. I think GW just re-released it as an ebook, so maybe think about picking it up if you haven't read it. Now back to the model.

It's expertly converted and looks seamless to me. The most striking thing about it though is how it is painted. It would have been easy enough to just convert a Tau into the same pose as the game cover and paint it normally like any other mini. Instead though they went the extra mile and recreated the very atmospheric lighting. This really looks like there is a spotlight shining down from above on the Tau. This would be extremely challenging and requires a very in depth knowledge of how light behaves, not to mention the expert blending required to achieve that effect. This is a great piece on its own just based off the skills required to make it, but it's the nostalgia it evokes that really does it for me. I love when covers or artwork are recreated this accurately. I kind of want to go dig out my PS2 and my copy of the game somewhere and give it a spin again.

Be sure to check out more views of the model on Putty and Paint, and show the artist some love if you like it. 

Until next time,

Tyler M.

What do you think of this model? If you have any models or have seen any around the web that you feel deserve to be the Mini of the Week feel free to send them to me at tylerm@mengelminiatures.com with the title "Mini of the Week" and a brief description of how you painted it or a link to where you found it. There is also a dedicated board on the Mengel Miniatures Forum for Mini of the Week where you can discuss past entries or post of minis you think are deserving of the title.