Painting – The early Dwarf catches the Worm?

Or vice versa, depending on the size of the worm in question! These are both recently obtained Reaper figures that I painted. I finished the worm about two weeks ago, but I was waiting for some bases to arrive so I could set it up the way that I wanted.

 

The Reaper Bones “Great Worm” was a fairly easy paint. I’ll use it as a huge Purple Worm for D&D/Pathfinder, making it a slightly smaller version of the standard D&D worm. This approx 70mm high figure has been set on a 75mm base, whereas the “proper” scale would be on a 100mm base and “stand” (should that be ‘tower’) at the same height, if not more. I suppose Goremaw is what I want for a more accurate size, but that would have cost me at least another US$22. In any case, I’m very happy with this and my players don’t want to see it on the game table for a long time!

 

 

The dwarven monk is a metal Reaper “Dark Heaven Legends” figure named “Burl Oakfist”. I really like the sculpt/pose, even if I had to glue on the outstretched arm. (I prefer single piece figures.) It was fun to paint, and done expressly to use in my current FalsKrag campaign for one of the players. The brown ink I used to darken the flesh skin tones looks a bit mottled close up under good light – but much more uniform under normal light or typical gaming conditions. There are touches of orange in the beard that haven’t come out in the photography too.

“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit!”

Having this finished means I now only need an owl to have all the PC’s in my game properly represented. No-one’s actually playing an avian – my wife’s hunter has an owl companion, currently represented by an unpainted Warhammer Quest bat.

 

 

Painting – A bunch of Kobolds

Salamander shall kindle,
Writhe nymph of the wave,
In air sylph shall dwindle,
And Kobold shall slave.

Who doth ignore
The primal Four,
Nor knows aright
Their use and might,
O’er spirits will he
Ne’er master be.

— ”Faust” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This dozen of Kobolds are Reaper Bones figures. Years ago I bought two packs of six, giving me four figures each of three poses. I’ve painted them in D&D/Pathfinder style, going with a red draconic ancestry. They are nice figures with a reasonable level of detail, but they are small – only 20mm high and this made them quite awkward to paint well. Apart from cleaning up the base from the sprue they’d been on, no trimming or filing was required.

Initially I decided to do a red base coat and had trouble with paint staying on a few of them unless it was reasonably thick, or I did a second coat. I’d read of different problems with painting bones figures, but hadn’t had this problem before. Thankfully, nothing went wrong after some repainting. I stuck with simple colours, mostly green and blue for jackets, kilts, etc and so on. I was finding detail a nuisance because of the small size of the figures, so I haven’t been as fussy as I normally would with a larger figure. (For example, I’m not going back to dot pupils in their eyes.) Even so, I’m happy with the way they look.

I like the pavement sculpted base a lot, and since they were all square and flat based (without filing or trimming required) I’m not re-basing them.

I’ve almost finished a reaper bones “great worm”. The painting is pretty much done, but I’m waiting on some 50 and 75mm bases to arrive in the mail so I can mount and finish it properly. I would have completed it this weekend, but when I dropped in on my local Games Workshop store on Friday (enjoying a day off work) I learned that they don’t stock bases and would have to order them in. I chose not to order, and instead went online and arranged for to get four times as many bases at about twice the price (including postage and currency conversion). I hadn’t been to a GW shop for years and I don’t plan on going back.

Painting: A few more adventurers…

I finished these three a while ago and I’d have two dwarves done as well if I hadn’t spent most of the last week with an annoying cold. I’ve spent most of my time reading or watching TV, or simply going to bed early. I’m determined to get the dwarves completed this weekend!

 

Wizard, Sorceress, Barbarian

These three figures are all from very different sources.

1. Citadel Wizard – Plastic figure from Warhammer Quest. I finished the elf and barbarian from the same set two months ago, having done the dwarf warrior nearly three years ago! I wanted bright colours for this mini and had a lot of fun painting it. The staff originally had a very large ornate top with “wings” that I thought was way over the top, so I cut it back to something much simpler.
2. Reaper Bones – “Juliette, Female Wizard”. This was my first ever bones figure and I’m happy to do a few more after this. I’ve seen other paints of this figure and if I have some time, a very fine brush and a steady hand I’ll come back and do some touch ups to bring out the vest/belts detail more. By the looks of things there is slightly better detail on the metal version of this figure. My figure also suffers slightly from a not well shaped hand (extended) and a face that’s not smoothly formed – apparently common problems to this miniature. The hand once painted looks okay, and with a knife and file I was able to smooth out the face a little – at least the fault isn’t obvious unless you hold the figure up close.
3. Barbarian – I don’t recall the manufacturer of this metal figure. I’ve had it for a very long time. It’s a nice pose and reasonable detail. The figure is a bit smaller/thinner than the majority of my figures, so he looks like a “young” male, rather than the typical brawny adult.

 

Rear view

 

Coming soon… my two Citadel Warhammer dwarves… mostly weapons and jewellery to be finished.