Bad Squiddo Shield Maidens

Several companies are now making shield maidens in 28mm, but I wanted to go with these as Annie’s mission at Bad Squiddo is to produce ‘believable female miniatures’. As a sample, I bought both shield maiden hearthguard packs and Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia; Annie kindly popped in champion Jada the Subtle as a freebie.

As I mentioned in my previous Norse Myth post about Freya and Brunhilde, the quality control at BSG is absolutely top notch, so these required very little cleaning and prep work. The spear-armed minis do need the hand drilling out to take the wire spear (supplied with the figures), but I find this far preferable to having the spear ping out during gaming.

Painting involved a simple white undercoat followed by base layers of GW Contrast Paint and various acrylic highlights – nothing too fancy! Unlike the previous Norse myth minis, I based these without snow so they can do double duty in different terrain.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know I enjoy painting my own shield designs. I hadn’t done any spirals for a number of years and am definitely out of practice! I went for a black/ red/ white theme for the shields to tie the group together.

The eagle-eyed among you will know that the mini on the left with the white cloak isn’t a Bad Squiddo mini – this one is from Footsore Miniatures. I confess that she had been sat unpainted for many years, so working on the shield maidens was the ideal opportunity to get her painted up.