The Princess and the Frog

Last week's theme for the bonus round of the Analogue Hobby Challenge was "l'Amour". Probably not the most natural subject for us Wargamers! But I was in luck. Last year while ordering my Frog Jester from Dark Sword I stumbled unto a few figures which I got as a future gift to Laurie. And of course this bonus theme landed on St-Valentine's day. The miniature painting Gods were smiling upon me! 

So I painted a romantic scene of a frog prince courting a frog princess. Your classic love story, really. A frog cupid, sending his love arrows into the prince's heart, was added to the scene, to tie the whole thing with Valentine's day. 

The figures are from Dark Sword's Anthropomorphic Animals range, and painting a frog during the challenge has become an annual tradition for yours truly! You may remember two years ago I painted a frog knight "Sir Kermit", and last year I went with a frog jester. This year I went big with three frogs! 

Painting this range is always a lot of fun, as I can let my imagination run wild and just go with lots of colours. I'm also getting good at painting the critters and really happy with this lot. I'm especially proud as they were painted using a GW brush! In a moment of sheer clumsiness I ruined my precious Rosemary and Co. brushes by spilling army painter varnish on them, and so had to buy the only available brushes in Montreal. They are worse than I remember! 

So obviously this entry is also my Valentine's day gift to Laurie, my girlfriend and mon amour. The Dark Sword's frogs have always been a favourite of Laurie (yes for some weird reason she prefers them to Chaos Champions and Napoleonic soldiers) so I spent two weeks working on them in secret, when I was alone or when she was sleeping! 

Not only did she loved it, but this piece won 1st place in the Challenge bonus round. I'm quite happy as my best score before that was a 3rd place for my Jabberwock. And the competition was fierce with some awesome entries. 

And for those wondering, so far my entries in the Analogie Hobby Challenge have been Oldhammer and Sci-Fi, which you can see in my other blog. But I am working on two historical pieces...