Meet the PC: Arahan Nolatari, Elf Ranger

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Another Elven Ranger? Yep! Although this one was played by a friend of mine, Mary.

The back story for Arahan here was very similar to Aeon: In the post cataclysm world the Elves didn't exist, or maybe they just didn't interact with the rest of civilization, who knows. Arahan here wakes up after a lengthy hibernation to discover the rest of her kin are missing, and so she sets out to figure out what happened to the world. At some point she joins up with the "Everyman Company."

The last member of our company was a Dragonborn Sorcerer, so we simply used the mini I'd painted for an earlier campaign.  So in summary, We had a Fighter (close range), an Artificer (mid range), an Assassin (mid range), an Archer (long range), and a Sorcerer (mid range). So we had a tough time in standup fights, and so many of them were standup fights.

I'd bought this mini close to a decade ago for another game (back when we were playing 3.5) but never finished painting it. I was dragging my feet in painting it for this campaign too, so Yorrik took it & ran with it. The mini is a Selwyn, Elven Captain for Reaper's Warlord game. It's pretty generic, but so was the character.

~Muninn

Meet the PC: Jon Bridle, Human Fighter

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Yorrik's character in the aforementioned post-cataclysm game was Jon Bridle, the public face of our motley crew of PCs, and the bastard son of a horse-baron. He set out to make a name for himself by forming the "Everyman Adventuring Company." Ironically named due to the fact he was the only human in the whole party (don't forget, in the world setting demi-humans were lower class citizens).

This mini is the Pathfinder Valeros, Iconic Male Human Fighter modified & painted by Yorrik (the original mini has two weapons). It's a good sword & board human adventurer & fit well with the rugged character concept. Plus the armor looks good as leather instead of the bronze on the original character.

~Muninn

Meet the PC: Paelias, Eladrin Thief

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

So here is my own PC: Paelias, the Eladrin Rogue. 4th edition tried some neat things with the generic D&D setting, and one of the changes I rather liked was splitting High Elves and Wood Elves into somewhat more distinct (and differently named) cousin races: Eladrin (the alien, civilized, and fae-like race) and the Elves (the nomadic, arboreal, more down to earth of the two). Elves retained their skill with bows and their light-footedness, while Eladrin were given an affinity for the more romantic and civilized longsword, as well as a wonderful ability to teleport around the map by briefly stepping between our world and their native dimension, the Feywild. Paelias here was a political exile from his home, a gorgeous but unchanging ivory city where the Duke of Pearls held sway. Finding the chaos of the mortal world to be much preferable to the predictable stasis of his home, Paelias had grand adventures with his companions - his favorite of which were those that involved wine, women, and song.

I started with Reaper's Shad, Mercenaries Rogue as a base for my conversion. The site identities him as human, but I thought he would make a fine example of the slender and impressive Eladrin race. The sword that comes with the mini was rather thick, and not at all the quick, lightweight blade that Paelias would prefer, so I swapped it with a much thinner, pointier plastic bit I had acquired from a box of Warhammer State Troops. Purple is obviously Paelias' color, so I started by painting his leather armor with a straight-forward lift from dark to light. I mixed that same dark purple into every other color that I used on the mini, which is why there is a ghastly tone to his skin and a purplish tone to his hair. The brown leather did not benefit from the process very much, and if I were to do this mini again I would definitely try something different - possibly a more contrasting color. The sword was simply painted using metallic paints, then coated with a purple wash. he base was drybrushed various layers of grey and bone, then washed with the same color as the sword. Overall I am quite pleased with Paelias, though he is not my favorite mini out of the set.

Meet the PC: Olivia, Human Wizard

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Olivia

This is my favorite mini from the set. I feel like everything came together for this mini to produce exactly what I had in mind. I started with Elise Anya, Vampire Hunter, a great mini that I have bought and converted a few times now. I like the coyness in the mini, and the fact that she is not overtly sexualized. The miniature holds a short sword behind her back, but in keeping with Olivia's arcane nature I swapped it out for a scroll (complete with runes in blue ink). The blues work together very well in this mini, and the skin ended up with a pale, greenish tone that I feel adds to the theme. The hair has a certain blueberry-like quality, whcih I also like. Her stalwart companion was a bit acquired from... somewhere. I remember having to kludge the feet from plastic card. The first iteration of the book stand's feet resulted in a very topsy-turvy looking fellow, and I liked it so much that I kept it. The brass metals took to the blue wash much better than the silver did - and you can see that I didn't even wash the silver metals on this mini. The sidekick, the paintjob, and conversion, everything came together on this mini, and even though I think the Fighter came out a little better, this is definitely my favorite form the set.

Meet the PC: Lucy, Half-Orc Ranger

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

 Lucy here was being played by a first-time gamer, so her personality didn't come out as strongly as the veteran roleplayers. Still, she was a enthusiastically violent gal, who took instruction well and wasn't afraid to get stuck in. The two-weapon ranger was a fun build in 4e.

Finding a miniature to represent a female half-orc is a bit tricky. Lucy's player was adamant that Lucy not be represented by a "pretty" miniature - she wanted to play a tough-looking warrior, not a dainty elf! This proved to be difficult, however, and eventually we had to make quite a few compromises. I suggested Moraia, Overlords Hero as the miniature is wearing a mask, and had hands that could be converted into holding two axes (Lucy's weapon of choice). By this time I had decided to use differing shades of the core color in the minis, as is obvious here. The olive-green armor was supposed to provide visual interest against the bright green cloth, but I don't feel it completely came together. The skin tone also didn't end up with as much green tint as I would have preferred, and the hair is (I feel) too dark to add to the overall effect. The axes were painted metal, then washed, with a result that I am not happy with. Despite my issues with the paint job, I love this mini's dynamism. I posed it in such a way that Lucy is jinking over a hole int he floor, either bringing her axes to bear, or just finishing a follow-through. This model looks great in three dimensions, and no picture can really do it justice because of that.

Meet the PC: Human Fighter

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

 The name of this PC is, tragically, lost to time. Even the player who played him cannot remember the gent's name! What I do remember about him is that he was a reliable, if slightly lethargic warrior who carried a variety of weapons, selecting the most appropriate for the task at hand. While not a particularly powerful build, he did make for a fun, engaging character.

I was drawn to Alain, Iconic Cavalier due to his relaxed stance and plethora of weapons. The character switched fluidly from sword/shield to longspear to mace, a variety of gear nicely represented by the mini. This was the last mini I painted for the set, and I feel it benefited most from what I had learned. The orange cloth is bold and bright, but I kept the white untainted by the main color to provide greater contrast. The skin tone on this mini took better to the mixing of the primary color than the other minis did, giving him a more natural look that still ties in. By this time I had learned to take it easy when washing the metals, and I feel that the more subtle tinting of the sword and armor works better overall. My favorite part of this mini is the shield on the back, which is quartered like the small loin guard and has a black boar's head emblazoned in the center. Probably the strongest single mini in the set.

Meet the PC: Harkoth, Dragonborn Warlord

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

His all! Yorrik here to talk about some of my own pieces for the blog. Most of my tabletop roleplaying experience has been in the Gamemaster's chair, which means that quite a bit of my creative output is tied up in the preparations for that role. Whenever I get a chance to be a player in a game, I like to add a little something to the proceedings (a little something that I might not have had the time to contribute if I were the GM). When a friend of ours offered to run a little D&D 4E for us, I jumped at the chance to convert and paint some PC minis, and I was struck with the whim to paint them with a particular theme in mind. Fourth Edition is the most "board game-y" iteration of D&D so far (with the use of a battle grid compulsory) so I decided to embrace that idea and paint the five player characters in a color-coded fashion reminiscent of the board game Clue.

The Warlord class is, in my opinion, one of the best things to come out of 4th edition D&D. They effectively gave mechanics to an archetype that many players were already klugding together from the fighter and bard:

an inspiring officer or combat leader that could fight as well as command. Harkoth here was a mercenary sergeant turned adventurer, more bombast and bravado than cunning and strategy. 

I started with Golanth, Half Dragon Warrior as a base. This is a mini where I love the converted elements quite a bit, but feel a little cold on the paintjob. Roshko (the player) wanted his character to use a warhammer, so I pulled an old metal bit from the bits box and made it happen. I eschewed the stylized "dragon scale" shield that came with the model in favor of a smaller, more weathered-looking bit from the Vampire Counts range (from the skeleton box, I believe). The strap across his chest connects to a backpack on his back, sculpted from greenstuff. I felt the pack was necessary to bulk out the model's torso (the mini suffer from a certain scrawniness up top) as well as to give him some adventuring panache. The armor, shield and scales were painted with a similar recipe of red, though the scales had an extra layer or two of orange highlights to give them a subtle difference. The metal areas were painted with typical metal paints, then the whole model was doused in red wash. The base was painted grey and drybrushed bone, then washed red to make it match the mini. If I were to go back and paint this model again I would darken the armor or brighten the scales to give the mini more contrast. That said, I find it to be a great addition to the set, and it served it's purpose by being immediately recognizable on the battle mat.

Meet the PC: Bo'bika Thri-Kreen Knight

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

The final complete Dark Sun mini was played by my friend Havok. His character's clutch (family) just died, and Thri-Kreen have a genetic predisposition to join into groups, so when he was thrown into jail alongside the other PCs it was meant to be. The unfinished mini was Roshko's (again), although it was about halfway done by the time the game died.

The mini is a converted Zizzix, Mantis Warrior by Reaper. You can't tell very well from the photo, but the weapon has two stone axe-blades that Yorrik fashioned from scratch.

Overall I enjoyed my first GMing experience, and could see doing it again once D&D 5th edition comes into full swing.

~Muninn

Meet the PC: Ka'si Tak'cho, Half-Elf Ardent

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Continuing on with the Dark Sun campaign we come to Robotlich's character, Ka'si, a Half-elf raised by Thri-kreen, (a race of insect-men native to the setting). Half-elves are pariahs in Dark Sun, so her only real companion going into the story was her adopted human sister, who she would do anything to protect.

 

Yorrik did another knock out job with this mini, an Iconic Female Barbarian made for the Pathfinder game by Reaper. There's a lot to like here, like the deeply tanned skin, and excellent detail work to make the sword and spears appear to be stone. I particularly like the sun-bleached hair that you'd expect to see on someone who has spent too much time in a harsh desert environment, really good attention to detail there.

~Muninn

Meet the PC: Phyrrus, Tiefling Psion

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

In 2011 I became a Game Master for the first time. I always really enjoyed the Dark Sun campaign setting, and wanted to guide my friends through the harsh desert world as well. Since I was busy with my GM duties, Yorrik stepped up and planned out the PC minis for everyone. Finding good minis for Dark Sun is tough because there is almost no metal in the whole world, so every little bit and detail has to be non-metallic: Belt buckle? bone. Plate Armor? carapace. Sword? carve nicks into the edges and make it look like obsidian. It was a tough task, but he rose to the occasion.

Unfortunately my players had schedule issues, and the game ended just before I was able to get into the central story arc. Yorrik bought all four minis, but was only able to complete three before the game was canceled.

Here is the first he completed, his own character, Phyrrus:

Dark Sun is a world where magic creates horrible mutants, and he went a slightly different direction with his Tiefling. Phyrrus was a slightly cracked psychic slave. He was raised to fight in the arena, but he was dangerous to his handlers and had destroyed more than he was worth. His owner threw him to the gladiator pits which is where he met the rest of the party.

I really like this sculpt, and what Yorrik did with it. It's another Reaper, Damien, Hellborn Wizard.  I particularly like the extreme highlighting technique. The hard edges make me feel like he's from a harsh, bright environment.

Meet the PC: Brother Bertrand, Human Cleric

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Continuing with Robotlich's funny D&D game we have Yorrik's character. Anyone can play a powerful, svelte, handsome scion of their patron deity, but how many of you would want to play this guy?

This handsome paragon is Brother Bertand, our Cleric. He carried a magical shovel, and ran in combat far more often than his girth might suggest. The mini itself is Friar Stone by reaper and was painted by Yorrik.

Meet the PC: Vindolfr, Deathwatch Devastator

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Yorrik painted the third member of our Deathwatch team here. This Long Fang was the veteran Deathwatch marine in our party, and was played by Roshko. In the Deathwatch RPG Marines are capable of bringing down torrents of firepower and death upon their enemies. Unsurprisingly, the heavy weapons specialist takes that to an extreme. His best moment (in my opinion) came when he was thrown out of a crashing Valkyrie, and focused his attention on shooting an enemy rather than save himself.

Like I said before, this mini was also painted by Yorrik, and he also free-handed the chapter symbol on the shoulder pad. The thing with the Deathwatch is that the chapter symbol is on the wrong shoulder, which means any asymmetrical decals will be pointed the wrong way.

~Muninn

Yorrik's Kaptin Badrukk

Hello all! While Brother Muninn loses his babies under couch cushions, forgets them on the bus, and all sorts of other new-dad comedic errors, I will be pitching in by contributing to the blog with minis from my own collection. Around here I am known as Yorrik (you can see a helpful button at the top of the screen that links to my other contributions) and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to showcase my work. However, while Muninn enjoys painting skills, camera skills, and blogging skills, I alas only have numchuck skills, so my contributions will be of decidedly worse quality.

I live in the same college town as Muninn and have been painting miniatures for about 15 years. My interests overlap with Muninn's quite a bit, focusing quite a bit on nerdy activities like board games, roleplaying games, and other assorted time-sinks. Our local game store hosts a monthly painting contest wherein the entry fee is to buy a miniature from the store's stock and submit it. Feeling quite orky and flamboyant, I decided on Kaptin Badrukk, the overpriced squad-upgrade to what is probably the worst unit in the current ork codex:

I wasn't lying about the camera skills. At least my iPhone can make up for some of my incompetence. I had a blast painting this mini, and hope to do more ork pieces in the future. The skin tone was a fun adventure, as it involved building up layers of drab olive greens and ending with a purple wash. The Kaptin's Snazzgun is a favorite detail, I love how burly and nasty that thing looks. Hopefully I'll bag first place!

Dark Vengeance Librarians: Dark Angel & Guardians of the Covenant style

The Librarian is hands down my favorite Dark Angel mini from the Dark Vengeance box. It's just everything you want out of a Space Marine psyker: A severe face peering out from under a hood, a pose that belies the forces at their fingertips, and a big freaking runed sword. What more could you want?

This is another mini that both Yorrik & I have completed, so I figured I'd do a side by side comparison to show how different styles and paint jobs can give an entirely different feel to the same mini. As you can see, I stuck to the Dark Angel scheme, since I'm hoping to sell the DA half, and he continued with his Guardians of the Covenant.

I think I probably ended up spending a little more time on some of the details, like the glowing eye, but I think he nailed the force sword. He also has a better hand at the lined details at the edge of the hems, and the librarian symbol. By the time I got to the sword I was kinda tired, so I relied a little too much on washes to cover up my gaffes.

Once I sell off the Dark Angels I'm probably going to head to Hoard-o-bits and get another, I like the mini so much.

~Muninn

Yorrik: Penal Legion

Another update of Yorrik's Abhuman Guard army:

"My cycle seems to be "forget about these guys for a few months, then polish off a squad or two." Right now I'm working on the Penal Legion. When picking them back up I noticed that my initial skin technique (lots of paint mixing between purple, pink, and white over the course of seven or eight layers) was simply too time consuming. So I developed a compromise technique that delivers a much less rich skin tone, but at a quicker pace. I do like that their skin comes out more pale and sickly, though the old technique has far more depth and richness. In these pictures it's hard to tell, but the second fellow from the right has the first, more time-consuming recipe. On the table they'll all look like pale freaks, though, so I guess overall it's a win.

Hoping to get the first five Veteran Guardsmen done soon. Their skin has been painted (using the same technique) but now I'm struck with some important decision-making. As they wear scavenged armor to a greater degree than the regular foot trooper, I have to actually map out what the PDF uniform might have been, so I can replicate it on the minis. "

Yorrik

Yorrik: Guardians of the Covenant

As soon as Dark Vengeance dropped Yorrik & I stepped into a friendly competition to see who could complete it faster. For the Dark Angels side he decided to go with the Guardians of the Covenant successor chapter here:

Yorrik is really fast (that's what she said), and I have a fairly time-intensive job, so I don't hold out a lot of hope in completing the whole box before him. I've made some good headway though. Almost all of the minis built & based, and my Tactical Squad is ready for its first wash. My minis won't be as distinctive or identifiable as Yorrik's, but hopefully that'll help when I sell them.


~Muninn

Yorrik: Psyker & Sisters of Battle

My buddy Yorrik continues to grind along with his project & this week he's added two more. The first, this Bane-looking lady, is his Primaris Psyker.

"Mordeheim Augur body with some conversions in the head and hands area. The idea here is that this little lady is a Throwback, an abhuman who appears "normal" enough to act as a liason between the tunnel crawlers and the surface dwellers. So she's sort of two-times a mutant. Oh wait, she's also a witch, so that makes her three-times a mutant. Anyway, she is a fun, welcome addition to the army."

Secondly, upon warming to the potential of the new Allies rules he's set out to build a small contingent of Sisters of Battle. In his army fluff a virus/plague/whatever decimated the population though so they didn't come out of it unscathed:

 "My thought here is that the planet Asclepius has a moon, and that moon had a chapel-barracks for the Order of the Bloody Rose. Now, the sisters were infected just like the planetary population, but the most faithful Sisters survived the worst of it, and now fight on in a state of painful living death. For the Emperor, of course."

~Muninn

Yorrik: Abhuman Commander

One of my good friends, Yorrik, also happens to be an avid mini painter & modeler. In addition to my usual painting projects I'll occasionally be featuring his work on this blog as well. The above mini is his most recent success, an Imperial Guard Commander converted from an SoB Missionary, an Enforcers Cyber-mastif, & some other bits & bobs. Not sure where he got the hat from.

For several years now he's been slogging away at a unique, highly converted Abhuman Imperial Guard army. Here's the story he put forth:

"The idea is that there is a planet where normal, healthy humans live on the (relatively) livable surface, while a race of degenerate, hunchbacked abhumans toils away in the tunnels and mines below. The attack of an enemy force (maybe Chaos, maybe Necrons, could be anything really) has wiped out the humans that lived above ground. A single Guard Officer (perhaps a Commissar) survives the attack, and escapes into the tunnels, where he whips the abhuman slaves into a ragtag fighting force."

Here's what he wrote about the mini:

"The idea here is that the Commissar is the only non-mutant to survive the weaponized disease that ravaged the planet. The fiction is working out so that a Nurgle-aligned Chaos warband is responsible - maybe the Purge. Anyway, the Commissar here whipped the underclass of mutants into a force of guerrillas that are trying to take the planet back. His cap is the only bit of his uniform he has left (the coat got shot full of holes) but he's been able to scavenge some key relics from the surface (including a rosarius/refractor field, and several other icons of the ecclesiarchy). My favorite bit is the Cyber Mastiff, which I figure he came across when looting an Adeptus Arbites Courthouse. It's going to count as a powerfist."

It's easily one of my favorites I've seen from him, and there will be more to come.

~Muninn