Blades in the Willows – Burrows and Badgers

An Otter with a sabre! Who would have thought you could ever write such a sentance

I love this mini because it is so bold. The arrogance it takes to take the concept of a Snake Wizard with a staff and make it seem perfectly plausible is some level of genius that I will never fully comprehend

The smallest of winged creature can still be a deadly warrior.

The last shadow is known in myth and legend but stories are loose in details. If you experienced the last shadow you were not able to tell the tale. As fast as lightning and silent as a final breath on the wind

A more noble thumper has never been seen amongst the woods. His sword and shield are ever the protector of the warren

Emole Musky is the mole creating the tunnel that will bring the woods together. No longer will you have to take the hills and highways of the forest. The Boring Project tunnels will take you straight to where you need to go, candles not supplied

He mutters about a mysterious Prince John in his dreams and someone called squirrel Marian. He can shoot an acorn off a mole’s head at 300 tail lengths

He is known to regular pick up mice, ball them up in his fist and bat them straight into a different forest.

I have been playing with and painting minis for over 30 years now and there are few minis I have come across that have the character that the B&B Badger does. He looks so gruff and mean, I love him and he was a pleasure to paint

Weasels in all their weaselly glory

A Shrew with serious anger control issues. One day I hope he takes down the mightiest of mighty and spends his days in the tavern telling his tale for inappropriately large tankards of ale.

Basing the B&B minis for me is really important and an extension of the fabulous world they live it. I wanted this awesome fox to appear to be stalking his prey from within the long grass, ready to pounce on his unsuspecting victim

If a mouse built a folly this is how it might look as far as my mind goes.

I used a coffee can as the tower to build around. It give me a nice lightweight but very solid structure. I love laval rocks too as I think they give great textures without adding loads of weight to the terrain piece. They paint up really nicely too. Like my burrow house I use foil to build it out. It can form to whatever shape you like and is light but can be made dense enough to be able to do as you want whilst covering it

I use tile grout as it creates a great texture and also sets really hard so you can be confident that it call all take handling and will be good and durable. My usual techniques of flocking with a mixture of shades and then adding incidentals like vines and weeds. Those little things are the bits that make all the difference to me and increase the immersion in something. You will see this in the way I base B&B minis and takes them to the next level for me

Although I am a massive fan of the buildings that are designed for the this great game I don’t like the idea of ‘regular’ houses for the creatures of this world. In my mind they should be dwellings based in nature. Bit of a Shire vibe to them in some cases and this was my first attempt at the images I had in my head.

Here I started to build the structure of the hill and pack it out with foil and build the front wall from individual foam bricks. I plan a bit but for the most part it is in my head and I play it by ear/eye as I build.

I then use tissue and watered down PVA, basically papier mache to build the surfaces

Priming, sealing and texturing

Flocking and detailing. I always make sure to use a mixture of colours of flocks as grass is never uniform in shades unless it is astroturf, but I don’t think the woodland realms would believe in plastic grass