Grenadier AD&D Charging Warrior

 This mini in the middle  must have come from the bits

bin at my local game store 4 years ago.  I finally got around to painting him up.  He now joins the other Grenadier AD&D brave souls!!!

I spent a lot of time trying to get a clean look on the different sections of this guy. These old Grenadier minis are hard to get right.

Here is another group shor of my AD&D minis from Grenadier. There are some adventurers, hirelings, and fighters!!

Reaper Bones Snakeman Warrior

Happy New Year!

I forced myself to pick up a brush this week and start on any mini that interested me.  I grabbed a Bones mini, thinking that I didn't have to make it perfect and it could be used for gaming.  Also, I was not keen on doing anymore NMM metal work since it takes me forever.  I chose this guy, the snakeman warrior (Yuan Ti?). He will make an excellent addition to the gaming mini box.

Picking a color scheme was tough as usual, but I decided on a Western, rattlesnake kind of color scheme.  This scheme is very orangeish with yellow highlights.  I found that painting the scales on this mini was very enjoyable and relaxing...I have no idea why.  They were not dry brushed, but rather individually painted with layers.

I still have a chance to do some freehand work on that arrow holder thing ...I can't remember the name hahah.  I may do some kind of snake script on it to liven the back up a bit.

The mini is overall pretty good in detail.  However, there are several spots where the Bones casting process came out pretty rough.  The right shoulder pads are very bumby, The interior of the tail at the bend, and so is an entire side of his fanny pack.  Still, he is worth it for the light weight and the stickiness of the paint to the PVC material.  These qualities are good for minis used in gaming (metal minis fall over and chip or paint rubs off with hand holding, even with dullcote spray).

Grenadier Personalities: Desert Warrior

Here is Grenadier's Desert Warrior.

I chose this model for several reasons, one of which was the ornate shield he carries. I thought it would be interesting to paint that up in NMM style.  The pose on the model is quite good too, but that is expected from Julie Guthrie. He looks ready for anything thrown at him.

I purchased this mini from Mega Minis.com while they were still in business a few years back.  He was only $2 - what a great deal.  Too bad they went out of business because of the high metal prices.

I researched pictures of Saracens, Moors, and other desert warrior groups throughout history.  One thing that stood out was how colorful their clothing was, and this surprised me. I thought they only wore white or black robes and head dresses.  I saw lots of reds, greens, and blues in the pictures. With the whole array of colors available to me,  I took a while to decide upon the color scheme.  I decided on blue and yellow,  which always gives a good result .

That's it for now.  Happy painting all.

Reaper Bones Lizardman Warrior

I picked this mini up a few weeks ago at the local game store - Game Empire.  They have a huge selection of Bones miniatures, more than the metal Reaper minis I think. The Bones are fairly inexpensive, so I always pick up 1 or 2 when I visit.  Metal minis used to be like that back in the day...ughh.  

Like I said before, the Bones minis are perfect for RPG gaming because they don't chip like metal minis so you can throw them in a case and handle them at a game and not worry. I decided to take more time on this guy than usual, to see just how good I could make him look.  No dry brushing of the skin or club here for me.

Here is a head on view showing off what I assume to be a snapping turtle shell. I painted the crests or spines on the back a blue color to contrast with all of that strong green skin color.

Here is another angle.

I think I may add some water effects resin to the base in between the legs there.  Perhaps a greenish swamp water color.

That's all for now.

Gavin, Warrior Thief from Reaper Miniatures

Here's an oldie but a goodie.  Done around 3 years ago when I decided to experiment with the Non Metallic Metal (NMM) technique on the armor and sword.  I picked this mini because I liked the pose...it looks like he is disarming a trap on the ground or lifting a dead orc or something.

There are a couple of strange things about the mini and the pictures that I should mention.  One of Gavin's fingers got attacked and has not been repainted on the back side.  The tip of his sword has been attacked many times and needs a redo.  Finally, there are some shiny artifacts in the next image on the mini that must be a result of the light shooting off any shiny areas on the mini.

I really like how the sword turned out on him, much more than on the Ansel Paladin mini I did.

Reaper Warrior Women

I'm going to continue documenting  my painting work in the last few years on this blog.  So, without further ado, I present to you two Reaper minis.  I painted these two female warriors  for a friend in our gaming group back in late 2010 and early 2011. They were the choice of he and his wife.  Reaper minis are much larger than the old Ral Partha figures, so they are easier to paint for me. I think they are considered to be 28mm heroic scale, which seems more like 30mm to me.

The first mini, Lorielle Silverrain, is a ranger whose primary weapon is the bow. She seems almost like wood elf royalty to me.  I went for a non-metallic gold trim on her leather armor to see how it would look.  Before the varnish (vallejo flat), the NMM gold looked really good.  I think the varnish wiped out many of the highlights that gave the gold a luster; the picture you see here is post varnish.  So, for later minis, I switched my varnish of choice to a can of Testor's Dulcote which seems to preserve highlights.

Here is the backside of Lorielle.  I recall working very hard on the NMM on the quiver only to have the varnish kill it.  Oh well, at least this figure can be held and the paint won't peel off.

Finally, here is a female warrior from Reaper whose name eludes me.  Anyone know who this is?  She is really armed to the teeth.  This one did not get the NMM treatment since it takes me so long to do.  She got the regular Citadel metallics which are not quite as nice, but are still great for tabletop. The technique of using some of the brown washes on the gold really helped on this mini.  It gave teh weapons a more worn look.   I like the swirly snake thing on her sword and the choice of red hair.  Hair color is one of the first things I think about for some reason...