Klause Copperthumb, Dwarf Thief

For my next trick here is a miniature I have had on my desk for a very long time. It started when I wanted to test some of my new colors on his cloak. After that I left the miniature for... I don't know a month or two?

I finally decided to finish him. He was a quick one, but looks really nice on the table. Meet Klaus Copperthumb, Dwarf Thief.

Other paintjobs from 2012

It seems 2012 is already almost over. This is a shame, because I have been painting like crazy. I aim to keep it up so that the shelf is a lot emptier come Reaper kickstarter dead drop.

I have spotlighted some of my recent paintjobs since I started this blog, but of course I painted a lot more this year. Here are the best of them (and the ones with the best pictures).

Shadows from Otherworld Miniatures

Troll from Otherworld Miniatures

Balazar, iconic summoner from Reaper Miniatures
Giant frog from Otherworld Miniatures

(Swampy) Zombies from Reaper Miniatures

Rust monsters from Otherworld Miniatures

Faramere from Reaper Miniatures

Spirits from Reaper Miniatures

 

Huge spider from Reaper Miniatures

 

Ushabti with great bow from Games Workshop

I did paint a lot more then just this, mainly in the Warhammer department, but I do not have proper pictures of most of them. I only got my lightbox near the end of the year and anything not in the lightbox is no longer something I am happy with

 

I learned a lot from painting all these miniatures this year. One thing I know now is that I could spend days on a miniature or hours. I general I will not spend days on a miniature, but hours. I just don't have the time to paint up to a 'museum' quality spec. I also want to use the miniatures, so there is another reason. I will thus tend to paint up to a level of quality I am comfortable with doing within at max 8 or so hours.

 

I also learned about water effects (see the huge spider), still love drybrushing (see the spirits) and actually blended some things (see the rust monsters).

 

This was a good year, let's have another.

 

*Waits patiently for Reaper-day to arrive*

D0: Hollow's Last Hope

This is a special occasion. As some might know I am a huge Pathfinder collector. I am specific though. I do not collect the pre-made mini's, the gamemastery line, the novels or the comics. I do collect the core rules, campaign setting, adventure path, modules, player's guide and player's companion books.

I've been at this for a while and I have most of the out of print books that are no longer available through paizo.com. I still need to purchase some of the still in print items though. I lack two out of print books though:

• Module D0: Hollow's Last Hope - This was a special promotional module handed out for free at (I believe) a GameCon. Whatever they had left afterwards they put on their website to be sold. Needless to say I did not collect back then and I missed it.
• Pathfinder #1: Burnt Offerings (Alternate cover) - This one is even rarer. Also a special handout from GenCon 2007 this time. This item was also sold on paizo.com for a short while and has seriously sold out. I do have the alternate cover from a later adventure path issue, but not this one. This is the one I will probably never find for a good price.

So why this quick blog? I have found Module D0 for a reasonable price and it has already been shipped my way. Please, gods of mail, do not lose this package and deliver it to me ... in 3-6 weeks.

Regardless I am very happy! One down, one to go.

Module D0: Hollow's Last Hope

Frost (purple) worm

I have recently finished my first bones miniature! It is a purple worm, that is not quite so purple. I was inspired by the many really, really, awesome, paintjobs done to the miniature lately.

I had two of these. I figured that I would make one a more traditional 'dungeon worm', while I used the other as a excuse to get snow flock and turn him into a frost worm!

The head is slightly out of focus. I blame my photograph skills. I got a few tips to try to get it 'in focus' better.

Working with snow flock for the first time was easy enough. What I did notice was that I had to apply several layers for it to look as white as I wanted it to look.

My findings on the bones material is that it is extremely durable and nice to work with. The main thing that I do not like is that you need to be extremely precise in removing your mold lines with a really, really, sharp knife. This took me a few tries to get right and I can only imagine that a smaller miniature makes the process a lot harder.

After a good primer the miniature held wash very well, something I needed because most of this paintjob is a judicious application of blue washes.

Overall I cannot wait for my Reaper kickstarter to arrive next march. Bones are awesome, cheap and here to stay.

Painting the dungeon, part 1

So after months of not being able to decide on the paintscheme of the new dungeon tileset I finally decided last week. Since then we (me and my girl) have been working on the painting of the dungeon!

Step 1
First of all I had to decide on a colorscheme, see this post for the results on that.

Step 2
With a colorscheme in hand it was time to pay the local paintsupply store a visit. Once there I got a very nice grey, three shades of wall color and the green to highlight the floor. I still have some black wash in a big pot, so that should not be a problem.

The goal here was to make sure I chose paints that I would not have to mix, so it would be easy to reproduce the exact same color in a year or more.

I also quickly nabbed a very nice paint-holder-thingey. After that it was back home!

Step 3
Remove everything from the bag and start painting like a roadrunner. I decided I wanted to do all the floor basecoating first. They will all need two layers at least, some of them three. After an hour or so my table looked sort of like this:

The mini layout at the bottom of the picture was to get a quick feel for how it looks when put together (spoiler: quite nice so far). Notice the Fellowship of the Ring appendices that are good watching material while I paint. Assorted mini's also always seem to end up on this table.

(Step 4)
I considered adding durt and sand to all wall sections, but decided against it. Maybe for a cavern set or a specific ruined set.

More to come!

Yuan-ti

It is no secret that I run the Serpent's Skull adventure path form Paizo. I have thus mini-ed up a long time ago. I got a serpentfolk (no painted  picture handy, might post it later), but also two yuan-ti. They have been collecting dust on my 'unpainted' shelve for a long time. At one point I painted half of them and then quit again.

In the spirit of my 'Oh my god I have Bones coming by the hundreds this march' offensive I chose to finish them. I touched the existing bits up and added the non-painted parts. This lead to some good tabletop quality mini's, but obviously not my best (I was a lot worse a painter a year ago).

Next up is some work on the dungeon tileset. There are also two Bones great worms on my desk that I can't wait to do a proper paintjob on. I am thinking standard dungeon worm and ice worm. I already got snow flock for the base.