Sir Squigalot
1/8th scale resin bust from Spira Mirabilis
Painted in 2020
Quirky ?
Perhaps a little like Marmite in that you either love them or detest them?
Original and imaginative ?
I think all of the above can be comments levelled at Spira Miribilis offerings, and I’m definitely on the side of loving them. Not the whole range mind you, but I’ve collected a good few of them, and really, I should get paint on them ( I berate myself on a regular basis )
And I love GW Squigs: large, spiky, rotund, energetic and probably noisy, globes of fun. Whoever came up with the idea, I salute you.
And yes, I’ve a good few of the GW offerings in metal and plastic stashed away for a time when I can paint them too.
But this one just had to get a run over the painting bench, it’s just brilliant.
Enthusiasm as usual got the better of me, and unpacking the box, cleaning up the few mould part lines and one or two pour assistor flanges got me through to the primer, undercoat and paint stage before I even thought of picking up a camera.
I wanted to do some “Old School” stuff, and chequerboard was a must.
If you’ve got the old books from the original Golden Demon competition – the 1988 book shows a feature on the first show of 1987 – just two pages of pictures, but the little red and white knight with an overall chequerboard finish is mine – see photo #1
Photo #2 shows the edging of the Goblin’s coat with checks added, I’ve made them look a bit grubby - he is, after all, a goblin.
The coat itself has been painted with various brown oils, aiming for a dull and uninteresting finish so that the Squig will receive centre-stage from the onlooker.
Photo #3, and the Squig, it has to be red, because “red ones go faster” is a well documented law, and I began with a couple of coats of Mechrite Red acrylic, and then added a mix of Carmine and Mars Black oil colours over the deeper recesses of detail, using just Carmine on it’s own to cover the more exposed areas.
Scarlet was used to build up mid-tones and some Orange to add in the highlights.
The small eyes were painted in with an almost human appearance, and the horn given a start of Vandyke Brown, followed by Mars Yellow and then Titanium White to build up to the sharp point.
There is a lot of detail on the model taken from original GW ideas and iconography, the shields with faces ( that I for one was painting in the mid-80’s ) is seen here in photo #4, although it is a lot more 3D than back in the day.
Photo #5, and clever split of parts allows for painting some of them prior to fastening them in place - like the arm, which is missing here, the shoulder and left hand being completely disconnected too.
Speaking of which, Photo #6 shows the separate head and both arms. I chose to keep these separate for the painting process, only fastening them in place once the paint had dried. At this point the head has had a pin inserted in it for holding whilst it’s being painted, and later on I found a bell from a Budgie’s cage that could be fastened onto the end of the hat.
Photo #7 shows the arms and head being test fitted to the model, One thing Spira Miribilis are good at is making parts that fit together well.
Photo #8 shows the process of the face being painted. I intentionally used a larger than normal brush to “not quite” blend in the colours on the face. Starting with Olive Green oil paints, and then Chrome Green as a mid-tone and finally Chrome Yellow being added as a highlight. The spottiness of the finish can be appreciated in this shot, although drying would soften the effect somewhat.
Photo #9 shows the other side of the face, and the softening effect that the drying process has begun to have on the paint blending.
Photo #10 and further highlighting has been done along the brow ridges and particularly at the end of the nose, along the upper ridge of the ears and the wrinkles around the nose and mouth, together with some deepening of the shadows alongside the nose and at the inner corner of the eyes.
There’s a lot of little details on this model, the small goblin under the mushroom hat shown in photo #11 is just one such, there’s plenty of others to look out for too.
Photo #12, whilst it was tempting to paint the face on the shield with red / orange colours, I felt that this would draw attention away from the body of the Squig, so I opted for the less commonly seen green colouration, adding a little black to the initial mix so that it looked different from the Goblin, further enhancing that difference by only using the smallest amount of yellow for the highlights.
Photo #13, and in a fit of idiocy, I decided to carry on the Check pattern over to the hood of the goblin rider. The beginning of marking this out is seen in this picture, although as the shape of the hood contracted it became more and more difficult to keep the pattern sane and workable.
The finished pictures show that I used a yellow and green quartering design on the tail of the hood to prevent madness entering, because then I could stop trying to work out the layout of the ever-diminishing size of the squares.
A nice base from Steve Crisp at Darkstar was selected for this piece, as I think it’s something a little bit special.
The final addition was a small bell from a Bird cage, and yes, it does work when you gently shake the model.
Final thoughts
Spira Miribilis continue to produce some lovely offerings, sometimes quirky, sometimes a bit odd, but always interesting and very high quality.
Unfortunately they are released over a very limited time – usually pre orders being taken across two or three days, and then after that only “second hand” pieces will be found available ( if you’re lucky ) usually at vastly inflated prices on eBay.
It’s a clever marketing ploy by Lucas Pina, simply because he knows how many kits he’ll be making, sells out very quickly and can move on to his next project.
However, for anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time, you’re all out of luck unless you’ve got deep pockets.
I’ve been lucky to pick up the kits I wanted at their time of release, but I know some others who have not.
So I guess it’s a case of keeping your eyes open for new releases from Spira, and getting in there for the pre-order when it can be made.
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