Holiday Heroes

I painted these little fellas over the holiday break.  Painted from bare metal over the course of 2 days, I painted these up as a Christmas gift for my mother.

These wonderful models are by Dark Sword Miniatures, and I have had them in my collection for probably 3 years or so.  I was amazed when I came across them, because not only do I have 2 Schnauzers of my own, but the studio paintjobs almost perfectly resemble the coloration on my little guys, Bootsy & Geddy.

Geddy on the left and Bootsy on the right.

The background story by Dark Sword Miniatures is pretty neat.  Painting master, Marike Reimer, worked with an artist named Des Hanley who owned two Schnauzers that just so happened to have the same coloration as my guys.  Dark Sword wanted to expand their range of anthropomorphic characters, and the Des' Schnauzers were the perfect answer, lucky for me!

Not only do the colorations match my dogs, but the personalities do, too.  Bootsy, the paladin, is the ever-alert sentinel (watching for squirrels who dare to set foot on his patio), and Geddy, the archer, is the crafty tag-along.  Plus, Geddy is such a diva, that I often mockingly call him "princess", so the dainty gem on his forehead is very fitting, too.

The shield cracks me up.

I decided to use the same color scheme as the studio version for Geddy, and I modified Bootsy's color scheme from blue to purple.  The paintjob is not quite as refined as I would like it to be.  Some of the blends are little rough, and some of the highlighting is unfinished, but I was pretty pleased with what I accomplished in two days.

In case you're wondering, the dogs are named after famous bass guitar players.  Bootsy Collins of Parliament/Funkadelic and Geddy Lee of Rush.  I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to name one of them for the bass player from the Red Hot Chili Peppers -- "Flea"!