Lady Justice
Lady Justice is in charge of the Death Marshal elements of the Guild in Malifaux. She is a blind, Buffy the Vampire Slayer type cowgirl who, judging by that massive hairdo, moonlights as an eighties rock star…
I bought my Death Marshals box before I had any interest in playing Malifaux. I bought it because of the cowboy aesthetic that the other figures in the box have. The Lady Justice figure was not originally a draw for me.
The sculpting is very nice technically but the subject matter and design initially left me cold. In particular the massive amount of hair on the figure, which spreads left and right to span the length of her sword gives the figure a lozenge shaped silhouette, which doesnt really appeal. From behind the miniature looks a little like Cousin Itt.
Click for image credit.
Lady Justices voluminous barnet also obscures her scabbard, the strap suspending her scabbard, bits of her fingers and elements of her pistols and holsters in a confusing way. And I dont just mean confusing to paint (which it was). I mean confusing in the sense that depending on how the figure is painted and the colours used it can be very hard to see whats going on.
This view is pretty much all that I ever see when I play games with Lady J.
And yet, despite my apathy towards the figure initially, as I painted Lady J it all started to make sense. To start with I had difficulty imagining what colours to use as I wanted to make sure that the elements somewhat lost in the hair would be visible and identifiable. I also wanted the figures palette to tie in with the other figures in the crew but without making the figure too gaudy.
But, as I decided to embrace the (as I see it) eighties rock vibe I found the figure easier to work on. As I painted my original attitude turned around 180 degrees. I went for the vaguely Dick Turpin, somewhat Adam Ant and definitely Meat-Loaf-one-minute-into-the-video-shown-below look shown and ended up quite happy with it.
By the time that I finished painting the figure I was really quite pleased with both how it turned out and with the design of the figure overall. I dont remember my opinion of any miniature altering so drastically during painting before now, but in this case it did. And it all turned out pretty well I think.
Here is a group shot of my first completed Malifaux faction, the Lady Justice crew.
Lady Justice Crew
Incidentally, the three gravestones were prepped for use in the game when the Death Marshals “bury” opponents in those magic coffins that they lug around. I dont know if they will be of any use when playing, but they were fun to make anyway.
Comments and criticisms all gratefully received.
Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2012, Cowboy, Guild, Malifaux, Steampunk, Western | 5 Comments »
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