Citadel Holiday Miniature of the Year - Jakkob Bugmansson

Last year during the holiday season I painted up the annual Games Workshop holiday miniature, The Red Gobbo, and took home a best painted in the local Warhammer Store's contest. He was a fun little guy to paint up, and I ended up putting him in an individual case and he is now a permanent part of the décor in my gaming room. This year, I'd doubted that there would be a holiday miniature painting competition, but like a champ Warhammer Hillsboro came through with a virtual competition involving this year's holiday miniature, Jakkob Bugmansson.

I guess technically this is the first Age of Sigmar miniature I've managed to finish painting, as he's a duardin and even has some fluff written around him (and a scenario). Of course, those of you who read my after action report from our trip to Warhammer World in 2019 will see an immediate connection between his name and the pub in the facility itself - Bugman's Bar. This is, of course, part of the in-joke. There is also a Warhammer World exclusive miniature, Joseph Bugman, you can pick up as well. I own one, but I haven't finished painting it up yet. I guess now that I have painted up his great (to the tenth or so power) grandson, I should get around to the original article. He'd look great in the line up.

Honestly, this was a fun miniature to paint. As with many of my projects, there was some method to my madness here. Bugmansson is in metallic armor with a variety of metals on his "holiday cheer" dispenser on his back. One of my new year, new army projects for the next year involves a lot of metallic colors - so I was using a combination of my tried and true Alclad and Ammo of Mig paints (like copper and gunmetal) coupled with strange new colors like Canoptek Alloy and Cryptek Armourshade. Three guesses as to what that "new army" is, and the first two don't count!

I even managed to get all of the gauges painted on the keg as well. I've been using white artist oil as a wash to sink into the recesses and leave the highlighted details untouched (and pre-painted). Unfortunately I think I've finally run into the resolution limitations of my venerable Nikon D90 DSLR. I simply couldn't get the level of detail I wanted at the depth of field I could achieve in my photos. I'm hoping for a good bonus this next year so I can finally upgrade my camera.

As this is the holiday miniature, I decided to go with a snow base in the same style as Red Gobbo's last year. If I paint additional holiday miniatures going forward, I'll likely go the same route as it creates at least some uniformity via the base colors and style. The local competition runs through January 3 - so I won't know until next year how he does - but regardless, he was a ton of fun to paint!