Gnow There are Gno More Gnomes To Paint

 Look at that. A second post.

the new villagers

Back in 2020, for the Old World Army Challenge, Old School Miniatures was kind enough to sponsor my entry: a small force of their wonderful alpine gnomes. I never considered the project complete, though; one regiment of spearmen was under-equipped, and I wanted to expand the cavalry regiments a little.

As part of my new focus on finishing projects (I know!), I have managed to actually complete the gnome army. I also wound up adding a second spearman regiment as well as a small pile of new villagers (above).

The force is fairly small in most editions, especially as Byron's list design eschews heroes in favour of wizards, but I'll be able to ally in Wood Elves or my old, ancient Empire army (whichever of these boxes that's in...) if I really need more points.

So, what's new?

Let's start with these wonderful carts. Fun to paint and full of character!

I was going to freehand sunflowers on this, but it turns out that's hard.

yes, i would like to live deliciously

I like to think he's from the Guarden Gnome regiment, on night watch duty.

I know you saw these at the top of the post, but everyone loves a group shot.

Many of these were painted in March 2020 for the OWAC Challenge. I can't remember how I did the spears then, but I think they work as a regiment raised from guild journeymen. I do love their little skittle hats.

This regiment is raised by the Guild of Wool Manufacturers and Merchants, who proudly wear their product undyed to show off it's beautiful finish even before colouring. Also I realised I'd never painted anybody in grey uniforms.

They bear the white-stag-on-black of the Guild, which was inspired by some of the similar standards in Swiss cantonal heraldry, although Gnomes have more gentle heraldic animals, with rather fewer bulls and bears.

I had painted five of these Fuschsshütze before even the 2020 project, but now I have a more respectable unit of ten. Or, given that there are two musicians, I could split them into two flexible units of five.

Cavalry from the Order of the Red Fur (I'm hilarious). They aren't going to go toe-to-toe with human knights, but I think they could give skirmishers and war machines a really hard time.

The master of the squadron got a handsome silver fox to ride, which was very fun.

Wow, I took several photos of these guys, huh.

Frustratingly, the project then lay fallow - all of the above were done in May, but then the weather turned and I couldn't get any undercoating done!

But finally we have the last regiment of the project, another spear regiment raised by the Guild of Shoemakers, Curriers, and Tanners. Their banners were also inspired by history, with the red-squirrel-on-black echoing Bern, and the guild banner a combination of historical shoemaker and currier symbols.

This regiment includes some of Byron's lovely female gnomes, which I'm really happy to have included here (even if I trimmed their spears too long). I went with a different set of hat colours from their rival regiment, trying to to keep them distinct.

They're even led by a woman!

Red hair on a miniature this small is hard, but she was based on a friend. I also gave her a unique orange shield, the favourite colour of said friend - who stopped talking to me before she was finished. Love that for me.

We finish on an action shot of the regiment. I'm really pleased with how these guys turned out!

I'll have to try and clear some space to get some photos of the whole project. We're done! Unless maybe Byron sculpts some kind of fun monster or centrepiece! Then we might not be done. uh