The charge of Octavius

The idea for this miniature began about a year ago when I saw both Night at the museum films for the first time ( a third instalment is rumored to be underway btw ) and when Steve Coogan as Octavius riding a squirrel I looketh upon my tv-screen and thought it funny.
Last summer I was on vacation with the family in Germany and while the kids were browsing the Lego section in a departmentstore I was amelessly wandering around the shop, that's when I saw this Schleich display with a little squirrel sitting amongst the rest of the plastic animals.
An idea was born and so I quickly snatched the little bugger up and payed for him while the wife gave me her trusty 'what the hell is that git up to now' look.
It was a gamble wich payed of at Crisis, Warlord Games provided me with the Roman General I needed.
Since it is a display piece I wanted a nice cavalery base, I found what I wanted at Hasslefree Miniatures.

Now please note that the miniature is based upon the previous NatM character, I had to downscale the mount and the base for practical reasons.
I couldn't find a bigger squirrel, I briefly toyed with the idea of looking for a 15mm rider but dismissed it since I needed the general's horse as a mount for my Albion Chieftain.
Octavius in the film's a miniature himself so a monotonious base was out of the question too, or do you have a good idea for making a 25x50mm base look like a 250x250mm slab?

The whole thing was painted in 3 parts, starting with the base.
Next was the mount, it was prepainted so I undercoated it black and made it look more like a gray/brown American squirrel.
After glueing mount and base together it was time our Roman friend got the attention he deserved and despite I've never painted a Roman before in my life I tried to make him as historical correct as I could.
I hope you like him, it was a fun little thing to do and it had me grinning from ear to ear all through the paining and assembling, occationally I dashed of to missus like a happy kid showing my progress and getting comments like "you're nuts".