The Hogfather

        The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett is one of my all time favorite books (and one of the few that I have read more that once). I try and read it almost every December. For people who have not read it I will give a brief summary.

       The Hogfather is an anthropomorphic personification in the Discworld (he is basically Santa Claus). However he is a little more rough in appearance (he has tusks) and 4 large boars pull his sleigh. In the book, an assassin is hired to kill the Hogfather. Death (the character) believes that the world needs to believe in the Hogfather or the sun will not rise. So Death pretends to be the Hogfather (complete with a false beard and a pillow stuffed into his jacket) to maintain the belief. Meanwhile his granddaughter, Susan, tries to figure out why her grandfather is pretending to be the Hogfather. Susan must figure everything out and save the real Hogfather.
The book is peppered with enjoyable humorous character such as, the Oh God of Hangovers, a tooth fairy, and the Veruca Gnome. I can't recommend this book more!

       When I found out that Micro Art Studios also made a Hogfather miniature I had to paint it this December. I ordered it a little late and it had to come from Poland but it arrived shortly before Christmas. Sadly I did not get enough time to finish up Elf Albert too. I frantically tried to get The Hogfather painted by Christmas. I wanted to use it in a game of Guards Guards after Christmas dinner (which I won). I put the snow on the base at 11pm on Christmas Eve.

       I tried some different paint for the red this time (compared to how I painted my Blood Angel army). I felt it made a good solid colour. The main difficulty I had with the model was doing so many different shades of white/bone. I ended up going with yellows, greys and brown bases with the same highlight white to mix in.

Kevin