A Swarm of Bats

Since the refurbishment here at ‘Awdry Towers’ there has been a certain amount of relocation, by this I mean that my little cosy corner of the dining room table has been banished!  With this banishment the lead pile was spilt over a couple of locations with the more esoteric elements of the collection finding further isolation in the loft.  

This was carefully considered at the time, with a degree of sorting out and labelling, but alas as with all good intentions the system has fallen by the wayside!  What this now means is that when I go in search of something it is now over several floors of the house and takes an inordinate amount of time!  All griping aside, this arrangement does have an unexpected upside, namely that when rooting around for one miniature you come across a number of others that might inspire a complete change of direction. 

So it was that I came to find a Vampire Knight, a Man-Bat and a swarm of bats in my hand at the same time!   Although not completely sold on the idea that the three pieces could show the transformation from human form to flying mammal, I started the process of preparing the miniatures.   The Swarm is from ‘Reaper Miniatures’, whilst the Vampire Knight was an impulse buy in one of ‘North Star Miniatures’ clearance sales and has more than a passing resemblance to Gary Oldman’s portrayal of the immortal Count, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Finally, the Man Bat was from ‘Heresy Miniatures’ and was the most involved to prepare and took some pinning and filling to secure the wings to the body.  As with all Paul Muller’s work, it is a finely sculpted and balanced miniature and so worth spending some time to get the construction right. 

When it came to painting, and having spent so long building the thing, I panicked and just used the website’s images as a guide.  There was an idea that I could use some of the colours in the Man-Bat to tie the three elements together.  On reflection, I am not convinced that it has worked, but I certainly matched their bases to further reinforce the idea.

I am happy to report  that both the Man Bat and the Vampire Knight have both been blooded in action, taking on the roles of Alain de la Slaughter and Gareth of Oldham respectively in last summer's Witchfinding fun, 'The Scouring of Muchwhinging'.  I wonder what will crop up next?