Stonehaven Miniatures Kickstarter

I don't really involve myself in many Kickstarters. Most are neat enough to watch & follow as they progress, but few catch my attention enough that I actually invest. This month found the creation of two such kickstarters. The first is the crazy-popular Bones 2 kickstarter, and the second is from the less well known Stonehaven Miniatures.

Stonehaven already has two KS drives under their belt (Dwarven & Gnomish adventurers). They first caught my attention with their Gnomish Adventurers drive. Their gnomes were fun & whimsical while staying close to their fantasy roots. Plus there was a wide range of fantastic classes & schemes they covered (who wouldn't want a Gnomish Knight on a riding dog?) Sadly, I didn't notice the group-funding effort until it was already over & done.

I heard they were doing another one, & I wasn't going to miss it. Their new kickstarter is Elven Adventurers.  had a fun variety of wee folk. So far they've shown some intriguing concept art such as the Kitsune, Necromancer, and Sorcerer below.

Art from Stonehaven Miniatures, Copyright 2013 Michael T. Evans

They also toss in some fun nubbins with their pledges like, like familiars, musical instruments, character biographies. Their scale is similar to Reaper, although judging from the size comparisons they probably aren't on the "heroic" side of 28mm. After this Kickstarter they've made comments for a few other races they want to produce. Most notably for me are Half Orcs and Halflings, two poorly represented races in fantasy minis.

Art from Stonehaven Miniatures, Copyright 2013 Michael T. Evans

 The Kickstarter has 20 days to go at this point, and I'd encourage you to go check it out.  Of the concept sketches they've shown so far I've been a big fan of over half, which is a good ratio for me (I like the other half too, but don't necessarily feel the need to own them). This is definitely a miniature company to watch and support. Go check it out.

~Muninn

Easy Dragonborn Paladin Conversion

A few years back I picked up a Dragonman Conversion Kit to build a Dragonborn sorcerer a few years back and have been looking for easy conversions for the rest of the bits ever since. Head swaps can be a little finicky, so I always kept an eye open for a good pairing.

With the onset of bones, I found it. the Bones Duke Gerard mini was right on several levels. It looked spot on for a Paladin or Warlord, and being plastic meant it was easy to carve the head away. I couldn't stop the sword from curving, so I swapped it out with a blade from the Black Templar's Emperor's Champion (Games Workshop).

I've already painted blue and red dragonborn, and this time around I really felt like making a black one, and keeping in mostly monochrome (there are a few blue, gold and brown accents though). Black can be a bit tricky, since it can tend to look unfinished, so to combat this I'm not going to keep the mini a bit darker, hence the black shield and cloth. I also added a little bit of a blue tint into his scales, and am using the blue accents to hopefully tie it together.

The armor is mostly done, but most everything else needs at least 2-3 layers before I'm happy, but you can see where I'm going.

~Muninn