Reaper Miniature's Dr. Ervin Friedman, Mad Scientist

I’ve had this miniature lurking on my desk for several months but I’ve always had a more urgent need to get something else painted so I was pleased to have a bit of spare time last night to get this one done.

In a sharp contrast to the Mason Thornwarden miniature this one gave me very little trouble. 

I spent a little time deciding on the colour scheme, I knew I wanted the test tube & flask to be colourful and I wanted him to be wearing a white lab coat and felt that this kind of dictated the other colours.   I toyed with the idea of giving him beige trousers, a pale blue shirt and crazy red hair but it just didn’t feel right.  The idea of giving him a white shirt seemed to be a problem considering the white lab coat and I didn’t want it to all blend in together. 

Then I had my eureka moment for this figure.  Why not paint all the clothes and hair in greys and whites so all the colour was concentrated in the flask, test tube and skin, I was hoping that this would draw the eye to what was in his hands and his expression. 

I was very sparing with washes on this model, modern fabrics are generally very uniform in their colouring and people are generally much cleaner so used successive light layers of colour to build up the shading.  The flask, test tube and sunglasses got a light layer of gloss varnish but the rest of the model was left matt.  The model is destined to be used as a tabletop figure so the base is simple, just a tuft of dried desert grass on a sandy coloured base.

I’m happy with how he turned out and can see him being used in several different types of games, he’d be useful in any Pulp setting from the 40s to modern day and would also work in a Superhero game.