Selfie Queen
28mm resin figure from Ilyad Miniatures
Painted in 2020
Ilyad, like Rackham, are a long defunct company that produced some fantastic little 28mm figure and monster offerings.
Although Rackham pieces are still available to some extent, second-hand on Ebay, and in the main aren’t too stupidly prices, Ilyad figures are a lot rarer, and the female barbarians are about as common as hen’s teeth.
This particular model was given to me by Mark Taylor, and it was soon on the painting bench, as I’d been after one of these for quite a few years.
The casting is very clean, hardly any mould lines to find and clean off, so it was a case of sticking it to a wood handle with some Blu-tac and getting it primed, undercoated and ready to go.
Photo #1 shows the enthusiasm with which I approached this, having completed the flesh areas and got the loin cloth done in red.
The suggestion of her having a mobile phone and taking a selfie came from some idle conversation or other, and the pose just seemed to be so right for the slight addition of a small rectangle of plastic into that beckoning left hand.
One thing to note is that the resin is quite brittle on these models and a crack that split the right leg at the knee can be seen in this shot. A bit of superglue fixed the problem, but it’s something to be aware of when dealing with Ilyad figures.
Photo #2 shows the figure at the same stage but from a different angle. The “phone” can be seen a little better in this picture, although it’s about 5mm by 3mm in size.
Photo #3 and I’ve painted the rest of the model in this picture and fastened the resin base onto a larger resin rocky base produced by Bash Models.
To blend the figure base into the larger one, I’ve added some sand and cat litter that’s fastened in place with thin superglue.
Photo #4 shows the same stage from a slightly different angle and it was about this point that I was realising that getting an image painted on the screen might be a bit of a problem….
Photos #5 and #6 show a few more pictures taken from different angles whilst I thought about what and how I’d paint something to represent a selfie on such a small space……
Photo #7 shows the image I managed to paint, a smudgy face with a dark background along with a pale bar at the bottom where the options are for editing.
It’s worth repeating that the screen for that phone is only about 5mm by 3mm so getting anything less than a blob on there is a bit difficult. The fact that I got something approximating a face was pleasing enough for me, and looks a lot better when it’s not blown up massively in a picture like this.
Photo #8 is the full model along with a very nice plinth. This is a lovely piece of wood turned by the talented hands of Nick Tebbs.
He did used to produce these commercially, although in very limited numbers, and they didn’t stay on sale very long, even though they commanded a relatively high price. They’re very high quality, and although I’ve got a few of them on a shelf, I don’t often use them.
Final thoughts
Ilyad miniatures went out of business before I became aware of them, so sadly this is the only miniature I possess from their range.
I would like to collect the rest of the barbarian women figures at some point, but the prices second-hand seem a bit prohibitive, possibly because they were only produced in limited numbers, or weren’t readily available outside of France.
It’s a shame, as there look to be some cool designs with well sculpted and moulded offerings, but they were probably pushed out of the market by the more popular and better marketed ranges from Rackham and especially Games Workshop.
So, recommended, if, and it’s a pretty big “if”, you can find them.