Grenadier Armoured Warrior

May was very busy for me and I missed my monthly post, but I hope to make up for it this month.

For some reason I had an itch to paint some sort of classic fantasy knight, and I ended up going with Grenadier's #8130 Armoured Warrior from Julie Guthrie's Fantasy Personalities II line. 

I'm fairly happy with him, although he is a bit dark.  This may be due to the fact that I primed him grey and not my usual white prime.  I really like Julie Guthrie's work for Grenadier.  Great line of figures in my opinion.

I struggled with the freehand on the shield.  I wanted it to look hand painted on wood, and I guess I achieved that, but it was tough painting on such a small surface.  I've always been impressed by other painters' ability to paint amazing little shields and banners, but I usually avoid it myself.

In my imagination he'll be part of an army with green, white, and brown heraldry, but in reality I am unlikely to fulfill that project, at least any time soon.  There are plenty of other things filling up my painting queue though, so stay tuned.

Dungeon Degenerates Brute Lord - Beastman

I have finished the fourth and final figure from the Dungeon Degenerates set that I have been working on: the "Brute Lord."  This figure was probably my favorite in the set and the main impetus for purchasing these minis.

  His design strongly reminded me of Beastman from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which I assume was intentional. So Beastman's color scheme was what I tried to replicate here.

Here's a shot of the Brute Lord with Reaper's Mr Bones that I gave a Skeletor-ish color scheme a while back.

And finally here are a couple of group shots of the Dungeon Degenerates set.

Dungeon Degenerates Cock Goblin

Third Dungeon Degenerates figure done, the Infamous Cock Goblin: A goblin riding on a rooster.

I had fun painting this figure and I'm mostly happy with how he turned out.

Just one more figure left in this set.  So stay tuned for the Brute Lord with Snake Whip.

Dungeon Degenerates Nasty Naga

I have painted the next of the Dungeon Degenerates figures, the Nasty Naga.

 

I imagined it as a Dark Naga when I came up with its color scheme.  It was hard to photograph and is one of those minis that just looks better in real life than in a photo for whatever reason.  It was a fun and easy to paint figure though.

 

I will be back soon with the Cock Goblin.  Stay Tuned!

Dungeon Degenerates Salamander - Big Lizardman

I'm back!  It's been almost six months since I finished painting a miniature and updated the blog, but I never stopped wanting to get back on schedule.  So here I am with a miniature I managed to finish this weekend.

He's the "Salamander with Sword and Shield" from the Dungeon Degenerates Monster Miniatures Set.  Despite the name, he looks like an overgrown Lizardman to me and not the classic D&D salamander.

 

These figures are ostensibly 32mm in scale but seem like they might even be a bit bigger than that.  This fellow is on a 40mm base.  Here is a picture comparing him to a D&D pre-painted miniature for an idea of scale.

I'm pretty happy with how he came out and I plan to paint the three remaining figures in the set shortly.  Fun miniatures with a lot of character.  Stay tuned!

Asgard Gargoyle / Weird Blue Demon

It's been a while!  I haven't posted a miniature since August.  But I'm back and hopefully back on schedule.  Here is my latest mini:  Asgard Miniatures FM8 Gargoyle.  There is something I love about Asgard's crude yet weirdly appealing sculpts.  I realize that this figure was intended to be a gargoyle, but I couldn't bring myself to paint him grey (or brown?) so instead I turned him into some kind of weird blue demon.  I tried to blend from red to purple to blue on his skin. 

I'm reasonably happy with this figure.  I didn't realize how noticeable the gash on the left side of his stomach was until I was happily painting away.  If I had noticed it earlier, perhaps I would have filled it with a bit of green stuff before priming.  Oh well. 

I have lots of minis primed and based and waiting for me to paint, so hopefully I will be back soon.  Stay tuned.

Drawings but No Minis

Unfortunately, I haven't finished any miniatures this month, but rather than skip my monthly posting entirely, I thought I'd share a couple of quick fantasy-related drawings I did: a "ratling" and a "fishoid."

I do still have an Asgard figure in progress on my painting table so hopefully I will be posting that one soon.  Stay tuned.

A Quickly Painted Yeti

I'm DMing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign right now and the PCs have a potential encounter coming up involving more than one yeti.  Unfortunately, I only have one yeti mini so I grabbed a Sasquatch Heroclix figure out of my pile and painted him in tints of blue.  A quick job of mostly drybrushing, but I figured why not take a pic and share him on the blog. 

He doesn't really "match" my Reaper Miniatures yeti (seen below) but he'll be better than using a counter or paper mini or something. 

This Reaper yeti was actually one of the first miniatures I painted as an adult.  I can't believe it was almost 12 years ago now.  The paint on his chest got a little thick (I was using artists' tube paints at the time) but overall I'm still pretty happy with him.

Hope to post again soon with something I put more time into.  Stay tuned.

Heritage Gnome and Grenadier Dwarf Archer

I didn't manage to post anything last month, but this time I have, not one, but two vintage miniatures for you:  a Heritage Miniatures gnome and a Grenadier dwarf archer. 

This gnome is from Dungeon Dwellers set 1239, which apparently came with three of these figures and three with a spear.  They were sculpted by Steve Bissett. 

The Grenadier figure is from AD&D set 2003 "Dwarves," which came out around 1980, if I'm not mistaken.  I chose him for his gnome-like hat, as I intend to have him stand in for a gnome.

And finally here are both figures with my Ral Partha Gnome Illusionist, as the start of my mighty gnome army.

I'm pretty happy with both figures and hope to post again soon.  Stay tuned.

Grenadier Umber Ripper / Mirliton Tasmania Devil

For this update, I present Grenadier's Umber Ripper (MM87 from their Monster Manuscript line from the mid 80s,) which is currently still available from Mirliton Miniatures but is listed as "Tasmania Devil."  

I went with a mostly naturalistic color scheme, although his tongue was highlighted with a florescent  pink.  I somewhat regret this color scheme now though, as I think it might be interesting to see this figure painted in some really wild colors.  Maybe on flaming base.

Overall, a fun and relatively fast figure to paint.  Thanks for stopping by, and stay tuned for more.

Ral Partha Gnome Illusionist - Deep Gnome

Here is stage one from Ral Partha's 3-Stage Player Characters Gnome Illusionist set.  I painted him to represent a deep gnome aka Svirfneblin.  I really enjoyed painting this little guy.  His face is really well sculpted considering how small it is.  I went with classic gnome colors for his clothing, i.e. red cap, blue shirt, brown pants.  

 

I took this comparison shot, with a typical Reaper figure to show how small this figure is.  

I picked up a Heritage gnome and a Grenadier dwarf archer (that I might use as a gnome) as well.  Although these may or may not be the next figures in my painting queue.  Stay tuned.

The Sockstrosity and More

I bring you another of the Low Life miniatures that I have been working on, for what seems like forever at this point.  I now have two left to paint if you are keeping track.  This one is the Sockstrosity.  Probably my least favorite in the set.  It's basically a big sock knitting more socks while sitting on a chair mounted on a reptilian creature. Just everyday normal stuff.

I also made visual representations of powers for my friend's 4th edition Psion character: force shard and static mote.  Force shard is a few pieces of "sea glass" that I painted with a wash or two, and the static mote is just a marble on a base.  I think they look kind of cool though, and hopefully they will come in handy for her.

And finally this is a scan of the drawing that Matthew Allison sent me in exchange for the Cankor mini from my last post. Yay!

Reaper Bones Giant Rats

I didn't get in on the insane Reaper Bones Kickstarter, but my most excellent FLGS recently got in a big load of Bones minis and I picked up a few.  I needed some giant rats to throw at some first level adventurers this week, and this seemed like an inexpensive source for them.

Reaper Bones pack "77016: Rats", contains six plastic rats in 3 poses and can be had for less than four dollars.  Not a bad deal at all, even if the details are a bit shallow or even crude in places.

I painted these quickly, assembly-line style, which is something I really never do.  But I will say that I got them done in a short amount of time and, by my standards, looking good enough to game with.

Here is a shot that shows their size in comparison to a typical Reaper mini.

I hope to post again soon.  Stay tuned.

Female Drow Warrior

I painted up Reaper's "Anjanise, Elf Druid" figure as a Drow warrior, and here she is:

I used Reaper's Dark Elf Skin Triad paints for the skin tones and I'm pretty happy with them.  I did mix some in-between shades and a slightly lighter color for highlights but overall they made it easier to get this model painted, and I think they look pretty good.

The metallic paints I used on the swords didn't photograph particularly well.

More Drow and more Low Life minis to come.