Legend of Drizzt Christmas

Hello dear readers of Analogue Hobbies. I would like to start off by thanking Curt for allowing me to hijack his blog for this post so I can share the story behind this special Christmas gift to my brother. I’m JeremyM, a member of Curt’s local gaming group and a past and present painting challenge participant.

Anyway this year I decided to give an extra special gift to my brother Jonathon. Jonathon is a pretty amazing guy. He is a medic in the Royal Canadian Regiment stationed in Petawawa Ontario, and a veteran of Afghanistan. Last year he married a wonderful local girl, Jen, and became the father to her beautiful little boy Jack. Now they are expecting another little boy on January 9th, 2015. We really can’t wait to meet the new addition!

Jonathon and I were quite different growing up. I was always a book worm, and he was much more into sports. I had tried to get him into some of the sci-fi and fantasy books I was absorbed in, but none really took. That was until I introduced him to R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt character in the Dungeon and Dragon’s Forgotten Realms books. He became completely hooked and read everything he could get his hands on about Drizzt.

To my pleasant surprise, I discovered a board game “The Legend of Drizzt” I decided to purchase the game as a gift to him. However, the minis were rather drab plain plastic, so these past couple of months I decided to paint everything up for him and the results are below.

Drizzt and his panther companion Guenhwyvar

The other heroes left to right. Athrogate, Cattie-Brie, Wulfgar, Regis, and Bruenor Battlehammer

I recognized a few of the characters from some of the older Drizzt books, but I haven’t kept up with the more recent ones and had to do a bit of guesswork on how some should look. Hopefully, the colour scheme’s I chose work alright. Because Jon has a toddler and a baby on the way, I also put several coats of varnish on with an airbrush to hopefully protect the paint jobs from the playfulness of his two boys.

A troll, demon, and my alternate snow troll

The game includes a number of rather classic enemies, like goblins, demons and trolls. I decided to make one of the trolls into a snow troll to mix things up a bit.

Three drakes, the dragon Shimmergloom, and some sort of eye monster

Good ol goblins

Three other characters Jarlaxle another dark elf, a mind flayer, and Artemis Entriri

Of course with Drizzt there are also lots of his dark elf brethren for him to fight including a drider (half giant spider half dark elf).

Dark elves and spiders, including a dark elf wizard and priestess

A few of the minis (ghosts and water elementals) were in transparent blue plastic. I decided to keep the transparent look and used a few different coloured washes to shade them. I think the black washes on the mouths and eyes of the water elementals came out particularly nice. I’m not as happy with the ghosts but they look okay in person.

3 ghosts in blue, purple and green and three water elementals

One issue I wasn’t certain of was basing. I guessed that the game’s maps would be a mix of cavern style, stone tiles, and possibly snow and ice tiles (Drizzt lives in the north after all). So I kept the figures bases rather plain and painted them dark grey and just added some gravel for texture. The figures came in different coloured plastic, so I painted the lip of the base to match that original colour in case that affected some aspect of the game play.

So Jon this was for you. I’m sure you’ll enjoy trying the game out and reliving the adventures of one of your favourite characters. I also hope that in a few years these colourful figs might attract your two boys into trying the game out and that you can introduce these books and a love of reading to them. I’m so proud of all you have done and to call you a brother.

And for all the readers of Analogue Hobbies, Happy Holidays!

JeremyM.