The Final Green Dragon

I've based the Green Dragon and put some finishing touches on the paint job.  It is as good as I want to get it right now...it can still be improved with better blending on the face.

I used a piece of sandstone I have had for a long time.  I hollowed out a trench to fit the mini base into it, and then used green stuff to fix any gaps.  I've always wanted to use this sandstone for a miniature.

I made sure to lighten the highlights on the scales even more than the last pass...to really make this guy pop out on the table.  The homemade wing on the right does not bother me anymore interestingly enough.  Here is another view.

It's good to get old minis painted up nicely.  This one waited a long time in that bits bin at the game store.

Ral Partha Mind Flayer

This miniature came in a blister pack back in the 90's as part of the AD&D set from Ral Partha. I think it was a fairly popular mini at the time as I see it on eBay consistently.  It certainly caught me eye considering how much better it looks than the Grenadier flayer I have from the early 80's.

In the last two years, I've been on a big push to paint up all of my old monster miniatures from my collection of Ral Partha and Grenadier figures. They have been waiting patiently for decades in dusty boxes to get painted, and it just seems unfair to keep promoting the Reaper guys ahead of them. Also, now that I have rediscovered the joy of older D&D, these guys seem to fit right into that vibe.

I decided to paint tihe skin on this mini a kind of blue...getting away from any of the classic mind flayer colors.  I could not believe their eyes are just white per the Monster Manual.  I really wanted to paint an evil pupil of some sort ,but I left it alone.

Other than the skin, my biggest decision what what color to use for the robe.  I suppose I could have used a complement to blue or a split-complement.  I think green is approaching a split.  Orange, Yellow, Red, and Purple did not appeal to me for some reason.

Gold trim seemed appropriate since these creatures are super powerful; I assume they could have all of the wealth they wanted.

Finally, I used some green stuff to mold some dungeon stones onto the base for the dungeon look. Looking at the back view, I wish I had blended the green on his robe at the neck a little more. I'm very happy with the gemstones and the gold trim.  The custom sleeves are not bad....could be a little more precisely shaped.

Reaper's Ansel, Paladin

As far as effort goes, this mini has probably taken me the most time to complete. I was trying to see how well I could do the Non-Metallic Metal technique on a fully armored adventurer, and boy did I pay the price.  I must have labored on and off for at least two months trying to get the metals to look right.  You see, this does not come naturally to me like it does for other painters, so I suffer when I do it.  The results are always very pleasing however:

I chose brown hair for this guy as well as blue eyes. I laugh about that choice now because it really makes this sculpt look like Ozzy Osbourne in armor.  Oh well, he seems like a cool fellow to me, so I just let it be.

I really liked painting the red cape for this guy...I don't often paint red.  I need to use more of it.

Otherworld Pig-Faced Orcs

These are the kinds of orcs that I first came to know from playing the Holmes Basic D&D boxed set back in '81 or '82.  They look part crazy and part dangerous. I like the fact that they are not extreme musclebound freaks like modern orc sculpts. These guys look nasty, but beatable.

The armor that they came up with for these guys is, as the Brits say, "spot on". Look at all the studs and spikes on them! Studded leather and banded mail, not extreme plate for these lowlifes.   I used GW Boltgun Metal washed with A dark wash to weather the swords and armor.

Here are the three against a dungeon wall segment I made a few years back.  I tried to sculpt some stone floor tiles  on the bases.  Did I mention that Otherworld is my favorite active miniature line?

Fire Beetles

Below are a pair of Reaper Fire Beetles that I just finished. Monsters like these are really nice to paint , because I can go crazy on the color scheme and not have a lot of color coordination choices with clothes and things.  It is kind of liberating in a way.  Also, the simplicity of these vermin-type sculpts makes painting so easy that they are done in a few hours.

Here are some more angles of the beetles.  These could be used as fire beatles or even acid beetles.  I'm going to need to paint a lot more of these in order to create an effective swarm...

The top view..

Dwellers From Below

I painted several of the monsters from Grenadier's "Dwellers From Below" box set in 2012.  Below are the Yuan-Ti and the Beholder.  I love these guys, and I'm documenting them here for posterity's sake even if they are not "hip" right now.  With these old sculpts, I feel they need a really nice paint job to do them justice.  Non-metallic metals work very well with these old minis, giving them a sharpness that they badly need.  Here is a Yuan-ti I believe.

I think I came up with the idea for the color scheme from some kind of Boa that I found on a Google search. I wanted to do a snake that was not the classic green or red.  You will see with a lot of boas these brown squares with red or orange parts.

Here is another angle, perhaps to show off some NMM on the shield. NMM is very hard for me to do and takes many many hours to please my eye.  This is one of my best shiny steel efforts ever.

Next is the beholder, whose expression is very strange to me.  I can't tell if it is a malicious look or a look of curiosity.  That is what makes this guy cool.

Again, I went for a color scheme that you don't see very often on a beholder.  You might see purple a lot, but the blue and yellow highlighting seems unusual for me.  I added some skull bits to the base on this one... a mini conversion if you will.

Here is what a beholder's butt looks like in case you were wondering.

Otherworld Skeletons

The folks over at Otherworld Miniatures make my favorite fantasy minis right now and for the foreseeable future. Their take on the AD&D Monster manual creatures is just spot on.  The minis have a lot of character, are really really well sculpted, and the selection is crazy good.  If I could spend tons of money on minis, I would get the entire Otherworld range.  I have three sets of minis from Otherworld, the first being their unarmored skeleton warriors below.  You get three in this pack as follows:

I tried many things on these minis to get an "old bone" look, including washing them with Citadel washes and also using layering techniques.  I made a point to highlight the joints on these so that they would "pop" on the gaming table.  Also, I decided to give them a dungeon stone base treatment using green stuff.  I am too chicken to saw the mini off the slot base and glue it onto a new base, so I just sculpted the stones.  It does not look as good as the other method, but it does avoid any mishaps in the sawing !

I used regular GW metallic paints on the weapons along with some stains of wash to weather them down a bit. I also highlighted the wood on the shield and spear to stand out a little on the table as well.

Overall, I'm happy with the paint job and I love these minis.