Community Spotlight: Fantasy Axolotl, Frostgrave Monsters & Of Oil & Iron!

Come and join us for another delve into the Projects to find the best of the best from the last week or so. We’ll be getting stuck into lots of great-looking miniature wargaming painting and hobbying this week…

…always let us know what YOU have been working on and share it across the site.

Axel Tricklebrook by richsh

We start off this week with a project from richsh which they had admitted they were "forced" into by their daughter. Their daughter has quite a love of charming axolotls and so when one of them popped up as a champion for use in Kings of War Champions, the inevitable happened. richsh had to go ahead and paint him!

richsh has done a sterling job on this miniature for Axel Tricklebrook, getting all of those bright and poppy colours in place to really show off the fun that you can have with this miniature. Whilst richsh is a confessed slapchop painter nowadays, they wanted to try and test themselves with this paint job and so went for a "normal" one, including trying their hand at a bit of wet blending.

I think that the pinks look brilliant on Axel himself and I really how the lighter colours contrast so nicely with the darker blues for his robe. I also commend doing all of that edge work on the robes, making sure that the pattern is picked out well.

The water effect also works very nicely and you get the sense that Axel is whipping up that magical power around him to unleash on his foes. Having the little familiar be blue is also a nice touch so that it stands out. I guess the real win that came out of this little painting project is that richsh's daughter really likes him and he is now sitting amongst her Lego in a glass cabinet in a place of pride!

Frostgrave Bestiary by Gaiseric08

Next up, we're turning our attention to the work of Gaiseric08 who has been working their way through a rather interesting Spring Clean Hobby Challenge project. They are painting through a collection of miniatures to use with the game, Frostgrave.

One of the key elements to this project that I latched onto with this project is how Gaiseric08 is slowly but surely working their way through the bestiary for the game. A lot of us will have Frostgrave warbands and crews that we've painted up over the years but I would imagine that a lot of us haven't done much painting when it comes to the enemies that you'll be facing. That's what Gaiseric08's aim has been here.

They have been working their way through their miniature collection and the list to see if they can paint up all of the different creatures, monsters and more that you'd need for any given scenario in Frostgrave. I think it's an excellent idea and not only does it mean that a bunch of official miniatures get painted up but all sorts of other creatures from Gaiseric08's collection that could fill in the gaps.

It is well worth diving into the project to see what miniatures Gaiseric08 has been painting for Frostgrave. Maybe it will give you some examples of what you could include in your collection. This is all going towards games of Frostgrave later on down the line, so make sure to keep an eye on this to see where the adventures go next!

Of Oil & Iron by dugthefug1644

Last but not least, we have dugthefug1644 who has been showing off some amazing 15mm and 28mm miniatures from a game that they saw at Salute this year. Of Oil & Iron is a mech-based game which dugthefug1644 really liked the look of and has been doing some sterling painting on when it comes to the mechs, troops and even some terrain!

As dugthefug1644 explained in their project, they're not normally someone who would go in for a mech-based game but something about the ease of the mechanics and the miniatures really drew them in. So, they dove into the offerings and picked up a bunch of the miniatures, as you can see here. dugthefug1644 is also an incredibly quick and adept painter and has done a great job on these!

The game has Dieselpunk vibes and dugthefug1644 has painted up a variety of different mechs that come from various factions and corporations within the game world. It seems like they have properly fallen for this game, which is always awesome to see, and I love all the care and attention that dugthefug1644 has been putting into the miniatures.

As if that wasn't cool enough, dugthefug1644 has also been working on some of the 28mm infantry from the world of Of Oil & Iron as well.

This is one of the Triton Marines and dugthefug1644 really wanted to lean into the Bioshock vibes with this one. The yellow works well for that industrial worker style that you want to get across with the miniatures and also works nicely as a colour to draw the eye rather than this simply being a big, metallic, clanking rust bucket of a miniature.

Make sure to go and check out the project above for more information and find out a bit about Of Oil & Iron!

What Are You Painting Right Now?

Every week, we’re absolutely blown away by the incredible topics that are put into the Projects; it’s getting more difficult to choose Community Spotlights! We love your work and we hope to see a lot more of it in the future!

If you fancy getting your hobby fingers out and showing off your newest paint job, terrain piece or even greatest gaming achievement, we want to know about it! We don’t mind if you’re a newcomer to painting or a veteran of the brush; everything you do inspires us to create more and more content together!

What do you think of the entries this week?