Day 7: Duergar Grenadier

I accidentally poured a glass of water on my laptop last night, which is why I'm so late in posting this (I got it turned off, upside down & on a towel almost immediately, so it's fine this morning)

I decided to go ahead & wrap this guy up. He's the fourth dwarf mini in the Chainmail booster I bought two years ago. I spent Wednesday at my inlaw's place a few towns away. When I do that I take a few paints with me & I a mini that only requires a limited palette.

This guy was pretty easy to finish up, all things, considered. All I needed was some browns & washes, so it didn't take super long. Had I put a bit more thought into my paint selection I probably would have diversified a bit, since a few places look kinda one-note. At very least I probably should have made the grenade lighter to add some more contrast. Oh well. It's done, and it fits in nicely with the rest if the Duergar, so I'm happy.

If the kids give me enough time to paint today it should be a nice new mini that many of haven't seen before.

Day 6: Maki Watanabe

What can you say about this mini's face that you couldn't say about a flat shovel?

This is the second mini I was given to paint from Fantasy Flight's Adventurer's box, Maki Watanabe. The mini is alright, but everything from the neck up was a bother. Where David Gore had a few notable aspects on his face, glasses, a nose, etc. Maki here was almost featureless. the eye holes were slight indentations. The lips were a slit. Not the best.

The original artwork

Looking at the picture I can tell my paints were too thick. It looks a little caked on, but I did what I could with the time I had. I'd tried to make the coat more red, but it ended up more brown.

On the plus side, I don't have any more of these things to paint. :P

~Muninn

Day 5: Duergar Gunner

The Cinco de Mayo mini is one that I picked up two years ago for my very first May Mini Madness. Back then I bought a 4-pack of dwarves from the old WOTC skirmish game, Chainmail. I painted the cleric the first year, the legionnaire the second year, and now the gunner.

There's also a grenadier that I'll paint in the next few weeks. No need to save him for 2015.

I want the Duergar to look drab, so I've been using browns for much of their clothing, and using Agrax Earthshade to mute the golds. She isn't perfect, but she's a proper cave-crawler. I guess I'll have to write a duergar encounter to put into a game someday.

~Muninn

Day 4: Ring, Dwarven Rogue

I'd originally bought today's mini in 2008, at the dawn of 4th edition D&D. I'd come up with the idea for a sassy, headstrong, dwarven rogue with the moniker "Ring" that ran away from her mountian home to avoid a less-than-favorable betrothal.

So I wrote up a little back story, bought this mini (Reaper's Bailey Silverbell), and waited for the new edition of D&D so I could play her.

Turns out that was a terrible combination. In an edition where optimization and mobility was pretty important dwarven rogues had no stat support, and less movement than most. So I filed away my character for another day, and tossed the mini into the bits box: Never to be painted or played.

Until my GM got a hold of 13th Age, that is.

13th Age is a bit more free-form. One of your stat bonuses comes from race, and another from class, so suddenly "Ring" was a lot more viable, and I got to painting.

The campaign went on hiatus before I finished the minis, but I thought this'd be a good opportunity to complete Ring at least.

More tomorrow.

~Muninn

Day 3: David Gore

Today's mini was a bit of a pain in the butt.

The owner of my friendly local gaming store bought Fantasy Flight's Adventurers as a present for his daughter, and wanted all of the minis painted before she got back from a road trip this week.

I told him I'd take a stab at a few of them, in exchange for a pot of Red Gore paint (I need it to paint my remaining Chaos guys & my paint pot just dried up), so he handed me a pair of minis and the character card that showed how they should be painted.

 The minis themselves are lowish quality as far as these things go. The faces are really non-descript, with almost no detail (the second mini has it way worse. I imagine you'll see her in a few days). They're just as soft and bendy as Bones, so you have to watch how you handle them too. There's also that mold line under his pointing arm. The store owner flashed most of the model & primed it so I left it alone, but now I can't stop staring at it whenever I look at the picture.

Plus this guy was wearing a while suit & pants. That's always fun while attempting to paint speedily.

 Here's the art he was based on.

I stayed true to the color scheme. Although I imagine my mini's suit is more of a light cream than white, but it still stands. The face is what got me the most though. It's all wrong to me, so I did what I could before calling it good enough for government work.

Wife & I are going to go see a show in Portland tomorrow, so the next mini might be a little late.

~Muninn

Day 2: Fenrisian Wolf

The second finished mini for the month is a Fenrisian Wolf commission for a friend's Night Wolves army. This is the 18th and final wolf from the group I did for him. This one lagged behind the others a bit because I've been taking my time in order to take photos for a tutorial.

I adapted the Zenith spray painting technique a bit in order to knock out a bunch of these wolves in a quick and easy fashion. It isn't super high-end painting, but it should catch plenty of attention to see over a dozen painted wolves hit the table.

Aside from the base and several details (eyes, teeth, paw-pads) only one paint is used. Everything else is spray paint and washes.

I'll be posting a tutorial in the next few days.

~Muninn

Day 1: Pathfinder Alchemist

I took it easy for the fist day.

This guy started as a test mini for painting freckles, but ended up pretty decent. He's actually a Reaper Bones version of the Iconic Alchemist. A few months back I wanted to try a few stippling/splattering/spraying methods for freckles, so I picked up this mini. I got it for $2, since it was on consignment, so I wasn't particularly worried about making him look good.

Well, the freckles really didn't work, and by that time I'd come to really like the color scheme I came up with for this guy so I set to painting him. I was later derailed by a shiny object, so he was never finished until now.

Like all the Bones minis I've dealt with, he's kinda bendy (particularly that arm & wand) and the details suffer a bit, like the nose. I tried to compensate with a bit of shading.  All told a decent start to my month.

More tonight as soon as I have time to post today's mini.

~Muninn