If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!

The only nuts these chaps are interested in are the ones holding their rather splendid Fez hats on!  On the face of it the idea of a set of 28mm clockwork chimps sounds, and is, ridiculous and yet from the moment that I saw them I knew that I had to have them!  Falling for another Kickstarter campaign, I was happy to pledge for a couple of packs of steampunk monkeys*, not least because the company behind them, 'Westfalia Miniatures', is synonymous with quality.**

*One pack with guns, one with blades.

**I just loved their Napoleonic rude Highlanders!

During the  course of the challenge, I had cause to contact Kawe of Westfalia to redeem a very generous gift voucher for coming out on top in the ‘Myth’ bonus round.  I was hoping to add this to my current pledge, putting it towards a Clocktopus.***  Being a splendid fellow Kawe suggested that this was no problem at all and added that he was happy to dispatch my pledge of chimps early as they had just safely passed quality control.  A couple of days later, ten mischievous monkeys and a zoologist landed on the mat here at ‘Awdry Towers’.   

***Best not to ask!

How they managed to achieve such clean casting on these amazingly detailed sculpts is beyond me, but they really were a joy to assemble and paint.  On the subject of painting, I found it difficult to dislodge Kawe's original choice of colours from an earlier post and went for a sympathetic brass colour.  I was delighted to discover that Vallejo do a metallic range suitable for the airbrush and so was able to achieve a lovely smooth finish with the first couple of coats.  All that remained was to pick out details with washes and a copper colour, not forgetting the splendid red Fezes. 

Their use or purpose may still elude me, but I can safely say that I am absolutely thrilled to have them in the collection, bringing, as they do, some much need levity, that and they are so wonderfully shiny!