Ral Partha Chaotic War Dragon and Rider

 

I don't think this miniature was ever shown here, even though it is was painted 4 or so years ago.  I recently dusted it off using a soft brush to make it presentable.

I found this mini in a bits bin at a local game shop years ago...what a great find.

Old Ral Partha Ogre 2

 Here's another old Ral partha ogre miniature. I think this was sculpted by Bob Olley who seems to have a large fan base, particularly in Britain.

I used basic colors on this guy. Lots of Browns and  rusted metal, dark gray and black. I just figure an ogre is probably not going to look too flashy.

Welcome to the team Mr. Krondor

Ral Partha and Reaper Orc Skintones

Over the last several months, I've painted a half dozen or so older miniatures that I have found in a discard bin at the local game store.  The guys there sell them to me for $1-2 each, depending on their mood, day of the week, etc. As I have mentioned on here before, there are a lot of treasures in those bins that are overlooked because they are vintage and also because the bins are a pain to go through.

Below are a couple such pieces.  They are both orcs from two different companies.  The little guy is a Ral Partha Fantasy Armies orc and is lot older than the bigger guy.  I think he was cast  sometime in the early 1980s.  The bigger guy is a Reaper orc in metal..not one I see often but perhaps they have made a Bones out of him.

Anyways, I could not paint these guys shades of green anymore.  I just couldn't do it for some reason...I think boredom.  So, I tried to paint them with skin tones that I almost never use...blues and greys.  I like the grey one better I think:

Another Ral Partha AD&D Goblin

I'm not exactly sure where I found this goblin, but my best guess is in the the bits bin at one of my local game stores.  I think I pulled him out along with several of his brothers after I recognized them as the AD&D Ral Partha goblins. The sculptor for these models (Bob Olley?) has done a brilliant job in my mind.

I've got 3 or 4 dozen of these guys unpainted, along with some that I painted back in the 90's.  I think they would make a great war band ...

Here is Mr. Goblin with another fellow from his tribe I painted earlier.

1990's Ral Partha Goblin

I present to you a Ral Partha Goblin from the 1990's.  This fellow has a very nice flail...I called it a morning star when I was a kid...but I think it is a flail.  He looks very devious...I really love the nose. 

I used Citadel Ironbreaker metal paint on this guy and some Citadel washes to kind of weather the metal a bit.

This goblin looks like he would have NO problem fighting dirty in the dungeon.  I think I'm going to call him "Cheap Shot".

I still have trouble trying to figure out what colors a goblin would wear... I opted for forest and earth tones.

An Old Orc and Some New Caverns

Here's a cool little orc for ya. I found this gangly guy at the local game store in one of their "old lead" bins.  Those things have so many treasures it is amazing.  This guy is an old Ral Partha mini.  I think he's got a lot of character, and I like the fact that he is scrawny looking as opposed to super muscular.  I would use him at the game table as a scrappy Mordor Orc who has worked his way up to being a mean leader.

Mr. orc sits atop some new cavern tiles that I got from the Dwarven Forge Caverns Kickstarter.  I've started painting them up for use one day at the table.  Dwarven Forge products and service are top notch in my experience.  These things are pretty close to being indestructable.  They are easy to paint and they don't require primer. They are really beautiful after painting.

As usual, I tried to paint Non Metallic Metals on this old mini to see if it would look good.  I'm getting better, but still not at that "realistic" level.  Notice the eye of Sauren sculpted onto this guys front armor...

Finally, here is a back view of him just to show off all the browns that an orc can have.  One day I will get brave and do black armor.

Ral Partha Dealers of Devastation

About a year ago, I met a gaming and painting friend at our local game store to go through their boxes of old metal minis.  This store has a lot of treasures buried in those boxes, and no one there seems to know or care about them.  That night, we basically picked  through the boxes for all of the cool old fantasy miniatures we could find.  We ended up paying something like .25 cents a piece for them.  It was surreal...especially since I had seem so many of the figures we found go for big $$ on eBay.  These Dealers of Devastation were found on that fateful night.

We recently made another trip to the store and went through the bins again late on a Friday night.  The Magic players thought we were strange or something.  After finding even more good minis, I decided I needed to paint up the ones found a year ago or they would probably rot.  That is why you are seeing these guys here now.

I usually start the skeletons in a brown and then work up to a tan and then finally an off white.  I find that I have to do many, many corrections to the bones to get them to look right. It is a long process for me doing old bones.  I usually stop when I like what I see.

For the weapons,  I decided to give them a tarnished but sharp look.  I used metallic paints and glazed them with several  washes to get the coloring I wanted.  I know some painters like to make these look rusty, and that looks good as well.

For the eyes, I decided to give them the Scooby Doo treatment. In that cartoon, the skeletons and ghouls always have these neon greenish eyes to make them look spooky.  That is what I went for with these minis. I am probably going to put a layer or two of Dullcote on these and have them ready for gaming along with my Grenadier personalities minis.

That is all for now.  Good luck and good painting.

Old School Ral Partha Ogre

This is an old Ral Partha Ogre from the late 70's or early 80's.  You will see this guy around a lot on eBay in lots or individually, so he is either cheap or very popular.  Why do I like him?  He has a cool kind of defensive posture, and you know the way he is hanging on to the club that he will hit HARD. I know the modern ogres are huge with crazy muscles and are bigger, but I just think wild ogres might be more scrawny , desperate, and hungry...not Gold's Gym Ogres but more like coyotes or bears.
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Below is picture of his backside.  The cameras hate this ogre...most likely because there is so much green that they get confused. He is mounted on a 25 mm magnetic base from Gale Force 9.

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.

Green Dragon Update

Greetings loyal viewers out there.....anyone?  Bueller?

Today I finished painting the wings on the green dragon, and I must say, Im happy with how they have turned out. i went for a lighter color than the body that would seem a little transparent.

I wanted the areas that were lower to be a darker shade than the highest areas....classic highlighting and shading stuff. I also wanted the shaded parts to be more dark greenish rather than shaded with black.

I continued to work on the claws and the horns on the wings.  I did some more highlighting on the face and mouth as well.

The lines of delineation between the scales are strong, and I am not sure if I will keep them this way. By the way, the crummy right wing I sculpted myself does not look too bad at this stage!

A Ral Partha Ogre

While I continue to work on the Green Dragon, aka white dragon from Ral Partha AD&D, I wanted to share this completed Ogre from the same company.  He was done in January 2013 I believe. At first , I wanted to paint the metals in the Non Metallic Metal (NMM) style, but that seemed too time consuming for my slow skills, so I went ahead and used my Citadel metal paints.  Below is the first pass at the mini.

 I think the hardest part of painting miniatures for me is to select colors for clothing and decorations that look good on the mini and go well together.  This Ogre's skirt thing is a kind of grey-blue, which at first I liked but then decided  was too bright and happy.  Almost like he belonged to an army of men.  I wanted something more wild nad independent.  I pondered going to something more brown or earth tone in color, and came up with the next picture which used kind of a reddish brown from Vallejo.

Not only did I changed the color of the skirt, I decided on green skin instead of tan. He now has the skin tone of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz...kind of a grey green.  I performed some washes using Citadel Gryphonne Sepia on the metals, and some washes on the boots and skirt and weapons using Citadel Devlan Mud.

The final mini just had the base flocked as well as some additional highlights here and there. The light for the camera was incandesent, which gives the picture too much yellow tint.  I added some little tufts of grass from Army Painter to the base which I think are great.

That's it for Mr. Ogre.  I hope to use him in some games someday.