Reaper Mini Kickstarter – Too good to pass up

SO I signed up to help crowd-fund the Reaper Miniature company as they transition away from metal to new unpainted plastic miniatures with their new “BONES” line-up. They asked for $30,000 for the initial 30 miniatures, and when I signed up, they had just broken the one million dollar mark with five days left. Incredible, but what is really amazing is what they offer to those who sign up for the $100 “vampire level” Reward. It started out with around 60 miniatures from their Bones line, but as they keep breaking new records of pledges, 100k, 200k, etc. they keep adding new miniatures to the reward which is currently about 180 miniatures, all for the $100 vampire pledge. If you love miniatures you have got to check this out. The KickStarter ends this coming saturday.

Heres the website: Reaper KickStarter

Two things to keep in mind. First and foremost, this is going to be quite a painting project! And also, these have not been made yet, that is what this project is funding, and so the expected ship date for many of these miniatures is spring of 2013, almost 9 months away. One last thing, if they break $1.2 mil they are adding a second set of five local yokels, oh yeah! Without further ado, here is the pirate booty:

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In the Grim Dark Future, We All Play Warhammer 40K

Space Rangers to the rescue!

This weekend my son ( whom readers may know as DM JB JR on Wednesdays) bought the Warhammer 40,000 Starter Kit “Assault on Black Reach.” Warhammer – both Fantasy and Sci-Fi 40K – is a tactical wargame that uses miniatures of the same scale as Dungeons and Dragons, i.e. one figure takes up 1” and represents a single unit. There is also a role playing game that goes by Warhammer FRPG. Games Workshop, out of Great Britain, has been producing Warhammer for over 20 years, and it has achieved a fair amount of fame over the years. The lore is rich, gritty, and expansive. It is the pinnacle of painted miniature wargaming.

My only experience with Warhammer has been massively multiplayer computer game of the fantasy version. This is my first experience with the science fiction themed Warhammer 40,000 franchise, but I do have lots of wargame experience stretching back all the way to my Squad Leader filled youth. This will also be my first experience with miniatures wargaming, something I have been interested in trying out. Wanting more war in my gaming has led me to search for a fix, and until now I was eyeing the WW2 scene, specifically Flames of War vs. Axis and Allies Miniatures. I think those will now take a back seat due to my son’s fortuitous purchase.

When my son first came to me with the idea of spending $90 of his birthday money on a new game, I was hesitant. That is a lot of cash to be dropping on something untested, but after a few conversations on the subject, and a few weeks of waiting for it to be in stock and thinking about it, he was still sure, and so I relented and let him pick up the game. There is a good feeling that comes along with supporting our local game store, Basement Games in Zona Rosa, and the store is heavily into the Warhammer scene, so it was a perfect fit. (Now I just have to convince my wife to let us spend two evenings there per week inste4ad of one!)

About the Box
The Starter Kit comes with everything you need to start playing, including two introductory armies – the Space Marines and the Orks, which must be assembled and painted. The box also comes with the complete rule book, miniaturized down into soft-cover digest size, some dice, a few burst and range templates, and a thin but colorful booklet that gives stats for the included armies, as well as painting guides and other unit information.

The last book also doubles as a “Codex” which is a guide available for each army, and is a must-have item for anyone running an army. Luckily, my local game store loaned me a copy of the Orks Codex, but we don’t have one yet for the Space Marines. The included “codex-lite” seems to have everything we need for the included units, so it will work until we expand beyond our starter armies.

The box contains no maps, map tiles, or terrain of any sort. When I asked about this, they informed me that you could use anything as terrain, and indeed some battles featured entire rooms where the terrain was whatever happened to be lying around. It uses a system of measuring and line of sight that allows for this. There are also plenty of terrain features that can be bought or made. Personally I have had a hankering to play in a Staligrad style camapaign of a series of block by block urban street fighting engagements, so I plan on seeking out or making some awesome urban terrain for a planetary conflict I am calling Planet Stalingrad.. I wonder how the mechanics of the game deal with “destructible” terrain.

We's da Totin' Goffs, meat want!

The Miniatures
The figures come in plastic on sprues like most modern models, and have plastic 1” (or larger) bases. These sets are known for their “ease of construction” and in most cases only one or two gluing were necessary. One thing I am learning about Warhammer is the love of customizability of the armies, and for the orks at least, there were a multitude of heads, arms, and bodies to glue together in whatever combination one preferred. This results in a completely unique army, where even in a group of many of the same unit, each one will look unique. I was surprised about this, and it has become one of my favorite things about the game so far. I relish uniqueness in all things.

The Empire army did not seem to have quite the same level of customizability as the Orks, but we can make up for that with unique painting schemes, like my son has done. He chose the Imperial Space Marines as his army of choice, leaving me with the Orks. I am ok with that choice, and though I usually prefer armies of quality over quantity, I am looking forward to playing with a different strategy than usual. I love these Orks, and have decided my army will be a sub-set of the Goffs who call themselves the Totin’ Goffs. The theme appears to be mainly black/white chessboard pattern. Maybe I will try and come up with a black/white skull symbol.

The Game
So I have never played the game, and really haven’t even broken open the manual other than to peruse the pages, so I have no idea how the game plays. Right now we are in the stage of getting our armies glued and painted, tough we plan to start playing as soon as we can, and paint isn’t required for that, so who knows, we may have a game on soon.

Battling on the Crystal Seas of Planet Stalingrad

Well we had our first game, or at least the first two rounds of The Battle for Planet Stalingrad Phase 1 the Beach head: Capturing Dzherizinsky Nuclear reactor on the Crystal Sea.

Captain Nob-Slaughter charges and takes out an entire squad of Nobs with his power sword. He leads his company by example.

A squad of ork boyz attacks the heavily armed walker and a lucky shot puts it out of commission quickly. The orks rip into it like its dinner time.

Well that was out first game, and it took about an hour and a half, mostly of looking up each rule as it came up. Most of the rules are straight-forward and make a lot of sense. It hard to get used to hit-wound-save and the rules for vehicles get a little confusing, but I think in genereal, it is a game that will be second nature once the rules are internalized. I love the “true line of sight rules:” Put your eye at miniature level, ad see if you can see the enemy target.

There area few areas Im not sure about. like how to keep track of wounds on multiple units, and other fiddly bits, but luckily we will have a crash course in learning the game this Saturday. The son and I will be heading to Basement Games, our local game store (and host of our weekly D&D Encounters) where Saturday is Warhammer Day. Hopefully we will get to play a few battles, even if we are too newb (or our armies are too small) for the tournament.

There you have it. We have opened up a Pandoras Box of fun I can tell already.

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Building the Huge Red Dragon Ydraiggoch

A while back I was the lucky beneficiary of a friends box of unpainted minis, stowed away in a closet since the very early 90s. Beside some utterly cool PC miniatures, the big prizes in the collection were a pair of Ral Partha dragons. One was the White Dragon, showed off here, and the other was this huge red, from the age of dragons campaign setting. These dragons were known for having unique looks and lots of personality, since they were meant to be player characters. This miniature is dripping with character, from its glaring expression, grasping claws, and upright position, the malevolence of the dragon is palpable.

Council of Wyrms Red

Here we see it as I got it – partially painted but apart, with some built-up glue buttresses that needed to be removed. I actually had no idea it was a red dragon, and it wasn’t until I did some research that I found out which particular campaign the sculpt recalled – being atypical in its horn and facial formations. Seeing it apart, I was worried the dragon might look strange, sort of like a giant dragon-man, and those huge horny claws – just wow! But my concerns were completely unfounded, as we will see once it is together.

I briefly mentioned my gluing techniques in my article on the white dragon, but to sum it up, I use gorilla glue for most gluing, often with a tiny dot of superglue to hold it in place while the gorilla glue hardens. This dragon is an especially difficult challenge for gluing, as it comes in 7 separate pieces. The gluing process took all of a week to complete, because I made sure one section was FULLY dry before starting on a new section. Word of advice – patience leads to success, try to hurry the process along and I can guarantee there will be issues. On my first night gluing I had both arms together and foolishly decided to push my luck and add the wings – it would have saved me two days! Instead it cost me a day when I knocked off the arms trying to position the wings and had to let it ALL dry, then scrape the glue of and start over the next day. Trust me, do a small bit and move on until it is dry.

Because of the nearness of the wings to the arms and neck, it is important to clean each area of excess glue before starting on the next section. Gorilla glue has a tendency to expand in big bubbles as it dries, but I have found a brand new blade in an X-acto knife is perfect for cleaning up this and any other flash. It is important to keep the blade new and sharp and replace often, as dull blades do not cut or clean as well, and can lead to accidents. You don’t want to put any more pressure on these seams than you have to, so be careful while cleaning up the excess glue. This will expose open areas and gaps that need to be filled, I use a tube of the stuff that looks like model cement in the model aisle, contour putty I believe it is called.

Glued, based, filled, and ready to paint

Once the model was completed, I attached it to a huge base I happened to have thanks to the 43 thousand fey crocodiles I have out of the latest miniatures set – blue dragon, hydra, and catapult will be mine if it takes 43 thousand MORE crocodiles to get! Last time I was using a large base, but these fey crocs are easy to cut off their bases and for such a big, heavy miniature, the stability of a huge plastic base is worth the cost of a trashed huge. Then I added some “rubble” from my WW2 diorama supplies – bricks and broken rocks to make it look like the dragon might be standing on a collapsed wall, and painted it all black. I was originally going to go over the rubble with grey, but for now decided to leave it black. Maybe Ydraiggoch lairs in a coal mine, I don’t know!

Has there ever been a pink dragon?

Then it was time to prime, and I chose fuschia. Part of me wanted to call it quits after the prime coat – that is one swank looking pink dragon.

I used a different method of painting this time, I call it the Layer Method. No washes or drybrushing this time, I simply start with the lowest darkest colors first and work my way up to lighter, higher colors until the whole thing is painted. For example, for the dragons golden breast, after the primer, I covered all areas that would be gold with a thin mixture raw umber. Over the umber I painted classic rich gold, a little thicker mix than the umber, and in the corners, and against the edges, I left some umber showing. This is sort of the reverse of doing a wash. Instead of doing a wash after the main coat, I pre-darken the areas with an under-coat. The result is that the main colors are more vibrant in the end. Finally, I took my lighter titanium gold and lightly touched the raised portions and forward edges, highlighting. For a red dragon, I wanted to keep the vibrancy.

I used a dark red for the under-layer of the dragon, and cherry red on top. For his jewelry, I used copper since I was already using a bunch of gold. I added a choker to the dragon to hide the glue line around his neck, and added the blue gems to the jewelry to help set it off. His claws and horns I did in white, and only his tongue I left in the original fuchsia primer.

The Huge Red Dragon Ydraiggoch in all his Glory

This dragon was a great joy to build and paint. The gluing was difficult, and not without its problems, but it can be overcome with patience and gorilla glue. I think I have improved with this dragon and have become somewhat addicted to building and painting dragons.I may need to go online and find another for my next project. I am not sure of the status of Ral Partha, but I have heard some mighty good things about Reaper minis.

Bohemian defends his territory against huge Ydraiggoch

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Miniatures – Building the Bohemian White Dragon

One of my first dragon experiences was in TSR Endless Quest Book #2 the Mountain of Mirrors as a kid. The cover depicts a frost giant and a white dragon. Weaker and not as smart or large as the other dragons, the white makes up for its inadequacies with extreme cunning and savagery. Ive always rooted for the underdog, and I guess that extends to underdragons. (Unterdrakken in german)and so my love of white dragons was sealed. I don’t remember the plot of the book, or even the dragon itself (turns out its name was Fang and it played a fairly minor role) but I added a white dragon soon afterwards to my dungeons and dragons game. The characters killed the dragon of course, in epic fashion.

meow

Many years and many white dragons later, I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a new, sealed official AD&D White Dragon by Ral Partha, manufactured sometime in the late 80’s or very early 90’s. A friend gave me a shoebox full of miniatures that had been collecting dust in his closet for years, and this was one of the highlights. Join me while I build and paint Bohemian the large White Dragon.

I should re-iterate that I make no claims to being a professional miniature artist, or even very good. My focus is on doing things Quick and Easy, and using what little skill I have to best advantage. Thus if it looks like I am taking short cuts, I am! If something looks poor or below average, it probably is! The beauty of this project is that even with inferior skills, little time, and patience, but a lot of fun, I was able to create a fine looking dragon.

Out of the Box
The dragon comes in packaging typical of miniatures from that time period: a clear plastic box glued to a cardboard back. A square of gray foam helped protect it and it did its job, 20 years later and it looks as good as new, though the plastic was a little dented and crushed. The dragon came in 4 parts – the body, each wing, and a length of curling tail.

The first step was to rinse it in soap and water. This is one of those tricks I recently learned that never occurred to me back when I was a kid – preparation goes a long way towards making a better final product, and the rinsing helps the glue and paint stick better. After that I spent a bit of time cutting away any flashing or extra metal. I probably could have spent more time doing this and sanding down some seam lines, and other preparatory cleaning. There are a few spots on the dragon that could have used more work, but my laziness and impatience won out, and I did a minimum of cleaning up the metal. Notice the dragons fore-claws for a good example of flashing that should have been removed.

claws

After the prep, it was time to glue. I have sad memories of youthful hours spent in a dizzy haze of model glue as I tried unsuccessfully to glue lead miniatures together, often with thicker and thicker buttresses of model glue and with very little success. Very few of my miniatures that required gluing were ever completed satisfactorily, and usually wound up in the bottom of my mini tackle box, broken apart as they were when I got them. I did not want to make that mistake again, and in the proceeding years I have discovered a substance designed to prevent this unfortunate occurrence. In the civilized world we call it Gorilla Glue. This unearthly adhesive and a bit of super-glue would do what layer after layer of model glue could not.

Gorilla Glue (white) has the advantage of rock-hard adhesion. It however has a few disadvantages such as a 30-60 minute drying time. I overcame this problem by adding a tiny speck of superglue to one area of the surface I planned on gluing, and covering the rest with a thin film of Gorilla Glue. The superglue bonded in a few seconds, and held the dragon parts firm while the Gorilla glue set up. It worked flawlessly, and when the dragon was finally together, the strength of the bond is such that I am not worried about the wings or tail coming loose.

The other possible disadvantage of Gorilla glue is that is expands A LOT as it dries. It can form huge bubbles and if one is not careful in the amount of glue one uses, it can completely distort the angle and precision of the items being glued. Trimming off the excess glue can be done during the drying process and as far as the bubbles go, where they are not on the model (like the base) they can be pressed them down with the flat of a knife or the back of a paintbrush. The bottom line is to use very small amounts for detail areas where the items need to be in a precise position, and monitor the model during the drying process for any adjustments.

The final step to preparing the white dragon is to give it a base. In the old days, the idea of bases other than whatever stub of metal the miniature came attached to was foreign to me. In the days of 3rd edition (and now 4th) the idea of the 1” or larger base has grown to the point where I feel all miniatures should be on a base that is appropriate for the size of miniature. Small and medium miniatures are on 1”square (or round) bases, while large miniatures are on 2” bases, and huge miniatures on 3” bases, etc. When deciding where to get a base, I need look no further than the recent “Essentials” boxed sets, which contain cardboard tokens for use as an alternative to miniatures. Alternative to miniatures? What nonsense is this? I will take a large token from the new Red Box and paste the G-D white dragon miniature to it, how is that for using the new lame gaming fad, tokens? It turns out the box had a perfect large white dragon token to use.

The dragon now stood tall, wings outspread and tail whipped, on its new base, ready to be given the color of life.

The Bohemian White, fiercely savage and cunning in execution

Optimal Prime
Another thing I have learned to do as an adult which I completely disregarded as a youth was the idea of priming. For years I bemoaned certain colors or types of paints going on splotchy, not covering areas evenly, and generally being a pain to get a good coat of paint over an area. Only years later (while modeling plastic tanks) did I make the discovery that putting on a base coat actually alleviates this very real problem! With a good base coat, the miniature becomes easier to see, imperfections and tiny details stand out better for the brush, and the even coating of the primer allows all colors, even the thinnest metallic, to cover beautifully and fully.

There are many opinions about base coats, but because I like to keep it, quick, simple, and easy, I use a base coat that is similar or identical to the final color of the miniature, when I can. In general, the lighter colors are best for priming, and for usual multi-colored miniatures I have developed a light gray base coat I use for most. For this dragon, the choice was obvious: arctic white. The paint was thick and a bit on the chalky side, but even stark white, this dragon was already looking pretty sweet.

Once the dragon was primed I let is set for a few days to insure the paint was completely dry (which should take only a few minutes to a few hours at most) and also because I wanted to look at it for a time while I decided how to go about finishing it up. Oh also, the weekend was over, and it would have to wait until another weekend rolled around before I could spend more than a few minutes admiring it and actually get to work finishing it up.

Painting the Dragon
The painting of the dragon was incredibly quick and easy, and only used about 4 colors, but before I go into this, just a note on paints. In the past, I had numerous tiny glass jars of enamel paints. A trip to the local hobby store was enough to make me realize that I would not be able to invest the many dollars required to get even a small collection started. The tiny bottles each cost over $3, and that would not work, especially since I needed EVERYTHING – brushes, thinner, etc. On the advice of a friend, I moved on to the cheap acrylic section, where I was faced with a wall of colors in larger tubes. These paints were approximately 10 times the amount of paint, for a fraction of the cost. Most of them were under a dollar.

If I had one complaint about the paints, they do not seem to mix as well with each other as my old enamel paints. I don’t know the reason for this, but often times, when mixing, I was left with an unattractive brownish miasma. This led to a second (and third) trip to the hobby store where I picked up more and more variety of color, to reduce the amount of mixing. Luckily there are literally thousands of colors of every tint and hue at the store, so regardless of what color you want, there are at least 5 to choose from.

So far, my methods have been quick and easy. During the gluing process I added simple. Now, with the paint purchase, I am adding one more trait to my list: CHEAP. The whole initial investment for my paint studio was under twenty dollars, as shown in the picture. This included 8-9 paints, 5 brushes, and a pallet. I am not including the Gorilla glue in the cost, and it was actually one of the most costly items. Good glue is not cheap.

I painted a second oat of white over the dragon, then I used three other colors. Periwinkle for the inside wings (I almost went with fuschia, tough call) I thought about making the outside of the wings another color, either periwinkle if I went fuschia on the inside, or light grey to accent the periwinkle, but in the end I left the outer wings white. It is a white dragon after all, and I wanted him to be white on white. The other colors I used were a vibrant blue for its eyes and tongue, and I painted its claws and teeth silver. Thus was the dragon painted, but not yet complete. Another couple of steps remained.

Finishing Up with a Wash and Dry
Let me just say up front here, this is my weakest point. I am not good at it, and after years of trying to get WW2 tank models to have a “weathered” look, I have to say that I am a complete failure. That said, even doing a bad job of weathering looks better than not doing anything, so I wash and drybrush as best I can.

Between the painting and the wash, I let at least a day pass. I know that the paints theoretically dry in minutes, but practice has shown me that when using water, newly applied acrylic is very susceptible to damage. Even a day later, if your brush is wet enough during the wash, some areas can be washed away, especially big protuberances and large flat areas. Here is what I do, I mix black (or occasionally some complimentary dark color) and I dilute it until it is as thin as water. Then I dip the tip of the brush into the paint, dip the tip into a glass of water, and lightly touch the tip of the brush to the area I want shaded. If I have done it right, the paint will flow out of the brush and into the crevices and corners near where I touched, and it will dry giving those areas an outline of black. If the paint is too thick, it will just glob up where you touch the brush to the miniature. If it is too thin, it will dry clear and be a waste of time.

Once the wash is done, I move directly to the drybrush. I can see the finish line, and don’t want to wait another day for drying, so I push on through. For a drybrush, I will take a lighter version of the color I want to focus on (this is hard to do on a white dragon, nothing is lighter than white, so I used white.) I get a little paint on the brush, then wipe most of it off on some paper, and lightly hit the raised and flat portions of the model.

When I was planning this paint job, I was intending on drybrushing silver on the rims and edges of the larger armor plates of the dragon hide. But as I started drybrushing, I realized white would be better. I didn’t want to make this dragon look anything like a silver dragon, and the white drybrush helped bring out the dragon darkened by the wash. I think the end results are acceptable, if not perfect. A better ‘finisher’ could have made this miniature really stand out, but I am happy with the results.

Protective Sealant
You thought we were done, but there is always one last step. In this case, it is the varnish, or protective sealant. This paint will not last long on a handled miniature without some sort of coating. They come in all shapes and sizes, from spray on to brush on, from matte, to high gloss. After experimenting with a spray matte, I was also extremely disappointed with the spray finishes. One quick squirt and a tiny miniature would be dripping with the stuff, and it would harden weird and in some cases even cause the paint to run.Im not so sure abou matte, either, it never felt totally dry, and it had no shine at all. I went back to the store and found a brush-on satin finish which I am delighted with. It gives just enough shine without making the dragon look like he is glistening wet.

There you have it, Bohemian the White Dragon from egg to major malevolence in just a few QUICK, EASY, SIMPLE, and CHEAP steps.

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Ral Partha Metal Mini Painting Mayhem Round 2

Based, primed, and ready to slay

The white dragon from the official AD&D line of miniatures is one of the highlights of this painting project. It has always been one of my favorite dragons, and this one is taken, look and pose, straight out of the original Monster Manual. So this is really as much a photo gallery of my work than a blog post, but I am really excited about getting these miniatures painted. Tonight I will describe round 2 of my painting method, which is the bulk of the actual painting. I have selected a dozen or so miniatures out of the pile I was given. See here for a few shots of this batch of miniatures straight out of long term storage, and the steps I took to prep them for the painting. If you want to delve a little deeper, you can go back here to my post where-in I describe my methods used to paint the miniatures from my Castle Ravenloft board game.

see above

Before we get started with that, there was one issue I needed to solve, and that was finding bases for the miniatures. The old metal minis have strange and often small bases which tend to leave the miniatures unstable. This, coupled with the importance of base size in newer editions of D&D, led me to search for a way to get better bases. A few options were available, such as buying plastic 1” bases, using coins (penny was too small, a quarter too expensive, I was eyeing the nickel) or, as one helpful commenter pointed out, by using 1” washers found at any hardware store. Sudden inspiration, however, led me to choose the cardboard tokens I have accumulated through 3 seasons of Encounters. The fancy tokens from Red Box and Monster Vault are too nice to use for this purpose, even though I have no intention of ever using them for their intended purpose. The glossy surface of the fancier tokens also had me worried the glue wouldn’t stick as well.

AD&D White Dragon Unboxed

The tokens also alleviate one of my concerns, which was weight. Now, these babies are going to sit on a shelf somewhere, so there isn’t too much issue with weight, other than a washer or coin, doubling what is already much heavier than their plastic cousins. Whether the cardboard tokens were a good choice or not remains to be seen. Being cardboard, if they get wet they can be damaged, and with a weighty miniature glued to them, I could see the edges getting bent, scuffed, and eventually failing to keep the miniatures standing at attention. If that happens, short work with an X-acto knife, glue, and a new base will solve that problem. One last shot of the white dragon, next to his kin, the large green fro the 4e starter pack, and the large black lurker, from Demonweb if I recall. He stands up well, the rigid lil devil. The stand comes courtesy of the Red Box starter set, which supplied a large white dragon base. I went against my rule of using the dull finished tokens, but the coincidence was too good to pass up.

lil Bohemian on a play date

Glue consisted of Gorilla Glue (white) whih can be seen to excess on the bases. It really bubble up. There is no better glue I have found however, and I used it on the white dragon, whom I named Bohemian, in my honor, to good affect. I used it with superglue in a two-part process, since it takes gorilla glue 30-60 minutes to dry. A dab of superglue will hold it while the other sets. And really, it does expand, so be prepared to trim away huge bubbling sections. For careful gluing, like the dragons wings and tail, it was important to get it right. I had to do the tail twice.

the rogues gallery

Here we have the bulk of the first set all primed, using a white/black mix of all purpose acrylics. I like the lighter color, and tending closer to just using pure white, or some type of off white for a primer. I should look into finding a good premix. The lighter shade helps bring out subtle details and the consistency is good too. It seems to really give a good grip for future layers of paint, even the flimsiest thin metallics. When applying the coats of paint, I would go though an assembly line method. I would pick my color, and the brush I planned to use, then go through the miniatures one by one, applying that color where needed. If I was on a roll, I might have a spread of shades of that color, and just dab amongst them as I was going, doing a quick mix on the tip of my brush. It can get muddy with too much mixing.

my four dwarves, the Bronzebottom Bros.

My four dwarves, these chaps are a favorite. Sorry about the terrible focus. I will get better for their final shots, I promise. And that is only a few steps away. The drummer is great, a whole character concept. I am going to use these four dwarves as the Bronzebottom Brothers, a family of dwarven merchants known to the heroes of my campaign game, D Erte. They were ripped from a podcast game with Chris Perkins, and from a Dragon article about a similar set of dwarven brothers. I dont know where these miniatures came from. They were a very dull gray, almost like they were pre-primed. They have great details, and I love the non-traditional use of spears, it gives them an old-school wargame look, like they are a unit of dwarven spearmen, with drummer.

Ladies in Lead

The ladies. The hair looks pretty bad now, but I am hoping with a good wash and some highlights, it will really draw the color out, nothing I can do about the style though. I think I am going to give the red head on the left a crimson unitard. There is a propensity to show plenty of midriff in these and mot minis. I have found, through play, that it is often the male players drawn to the bare-assed midriff showing harlots for their player characters rather than the women role players. For this reason, I try to show to paint the women in as appropriate attire as possible. To be fair, when I am reaching for a lady villain miniature, my fingers are drawn to the same bare-assed harlots. And as a dm with more ladies at the table than men, I can attest that this kind of stuff can become important. Bottom line: provide mix of slatern doxies and noble dames, and my own favorite mix, the slummin’ princess.

Steadfast warriors of legend lore

Here we have a few mighty heroes of the set, a brawny warrior, a wily magic user, and the lone member of the light elf infantry. I love conan, he is perfect in every way except that he does not wield or carry a broadsword. I must somehow rectify this, perhaps Gorilla glue willhelp me out here too. The wizard spell is my favorite. I intend to shade and highlight the hell out of that demonic summoning. Im mixed about the elf. He looks blah, I wonder about metallizing the green armour. Maybe I am metallic-crazy. The green armor seem rather heavy and yet weak, He needs work. perhaps the miracles of dry rushing will bring his inner infantryman to the fore. But dont expect miracles, as Im really not very good. See above, or below for proof of that.

leaping dragonborn, is that a bohemian ear spoon he wields?

Blazing skeletons, no, the bohemian halbardier wields a halberd, or possibly a voulge-guisarme. Here are a few loose ends. Two of which come from Ravenloft, finally got around to painting them. I am really happy with the dragonborn, although I cant say I really get the pose. Mid leap, perhaps. I am also happy with the flaming skeleton. Finding some way to keep the blue translucence was a challenge, and I think it does well.

Unknown dragon

I will end this post with a mystery. I am unable to tell what type of dragon this is supposed to represent. I am almost convinced its a gold or platinum, except for the evil glare. Maybe it actually is meant to be blue, though it is missing the distinctive snout-horn. If I had to guess, I would go with a black, with non-traditional backwards-pointing horns. They might be tied-back.

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A treasure trove of old time lead miniatures to paint

The big and unassembled

A friend of mine gave me this great box of miniatures. JW, whose occasional appearances in my campaign have led to such memorable characters as Bull the minotaur bailiff and The Naked Priest, had these from back when he was more into the game. All of them date from the 80′s-90′s and it looks like most are Ral Partha. One dragon miniature is still in its AD&D box. He looks pretty cool!

The larger miniatures, and even some of the smaller miniatures will need gluing. I can remember very well the hassles of gluing lead miniatures together, having myself begun gaming in the very early 80′s. They can be difficult to keep together. Two things should help me this time around. I have learned an advanced engineering method of drilling little pin-holes to add a support toothpick, strengthening the bond. Also, I have discovered Gorilla Glue, which is my new favorite glue, and able to create these thick foamy bonds that are nearly unbreakable.I might skip the toothpcik thing and go just with gorilla glue. I will try it that way on the first one I do, the six-armed lizard man, which I am going to pains white so he can pass as a barsoomian ape.

four dwarves

These four dwarves are my favorite set.  Dwarves are rare in my games for some reason, at least as characters.  In th elast campaign, playing in 3rd edition, our friend Wil played Gul the dwarven cleric, then his brother Lug the dwarven cleric.  There have been some great dwarf NPCs in the 4th edition campaign, such as the merchant Bronzebottom Brothers.  These dwarves, and maybe a third or so of all of the miniatures are a very dull gray, and almost seem pre-primed.  Even the bottoms of the bases as the same dull ship-steel color.  I cant tell if it is a primer coat or not but my first action will be to prime the entire set in my own mixed gray.

the rogues gallery

There are some really awesome miniatures in the collection.  A Wulfgar like blonde barbarian is one suh that stands out, possibly because he is painted.  Much of the paint is chipped, an he too, along with all the painted miniatures in the group will get a fresh primer coat.  I like to begin from square one with the painting, and have found that a good primer is the most important part of getting a good paint job.  It would be wise to go to the extra work of completely removing the previous paint, but that would be too much work. I did however, wash them in soapy water, before rinsing them really well and setting them up to dry.

a throng of new miniatures

One concern I have is that these old miniatures have small oddly shaped bases.  Coming u;p with a bae to glue them to (with Gorilla Glue) is another maor objective.  In the past I have used a quarter (too expensive!) and a penny (too small!) so I need tofind a source of 1″ bases that are less than 25 cents (wheres the cents key?) ¢  (found it)  I am considering the nickel, but didnt have one in my pocket at the time of consideration, so that idea is currently shelved.  I am also going to look online for ordering miniature bases for games like Warhammer.

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Simple Plastic Mini painting guide and gallery

A Rogues Gallery of Painted Ravenloft Boardgame minis

This is a gallery of how I spent my winter weekend. I have a pile of duplicate miniatures, and a box full of brand new Ravenloft Boardgame miniatures that I put off painting for a long time now. After a shopping trip to the local crafts store (Hobby Lobby) where I picked up the entirety of my supplies for under twenty – and that includes a mechanical pencil and some fabric for the kids – I was ready to begin.

In brief, I had a four step process: prime, paint, blackwash, drybrush. There are tons better web sites for painting like a pro, or an artist, and they are all much better than what can be found in this guide, with one exception: this method works no matter how lazy, busy, or lacking in skill or ability one might be. In other words, any fool can achieve passable results on the gaming table, as can be observed by the multitude of enclosed pics. This is intentional, because these cheap blobs of plastic deserve little in the way of respect or attention. There are exceptions to this rule, because many of the best plastic minis Wizards of the Coast produced in its 8 year run rival any miniature I ever owned in metal, but the ones we are painting today, mostly commons, are not generally the highly detailed molds of the best. Some of the Ravenloft minis are actually of the rare or coveted very rare variety, and my painting skills break down a bit on those, but with a little more effort I think I can improve those with a few extra steps, perhaps in Part 2: junky paint jobs get touched up.

Eladrin blade mistress, wierd stab-hands guy, henchmen 2, 3

One mistake I made was to not prime the pre-painted minis, which resulted in the paint not going on as even. I think think this was due to the difference between the paint on the pre-painted, and the type of paint I was using. One might even find a way to strip the paint from the pre-painted minis, but then we are veering into non-lazy territory, and nobody wants that. For the unpainted minis, a mixed gray was the standard primer coat I applied, unless it was going to be dominated by a specific color, like green for the hag or white for the skeletons, then I would use that color for the primer coat. Saves time!

The paints I used came in 6 ounce plastic tubes and were generally under one dollar apiece. These are general acrylic crafting paints that come in a million colors, and I chose them on advice from a friend – especially after seeing how expensive were the tiny half ounce acrylic bottles in the plastic model section, four or five times the cost. The brushes came in a pack of five, and the little mixing pallet was under two dollars. I did splurge and buy the slightly more expensive silver and bronze metallic colors, and was disappointed not to see a steel or any darker metal, but no matter. For colors there was a rainbows breadth of choice, but I was going simple and economical so I got the five most basic: red, yellow, blue, green and brown. Also black and white are critical.

One thing I might do change in the future is to add to the variety of basic colors. It is much easier to mix a color when you are starting with something closer to the desired result. Also, it may have been my choice of reds, but it did a poor job of mixing, turning either to light or dark pink and muddying up any blue or yellow I added. The green and brown, while not primary colors were some of the most used, and mixed well, as did the cobalt blue. The yellow was better than the red, but not a good mixer. Having some oranges, some darker earth tones, and some more shades of the basics would help achieve better coloration.

Custom bog hag versus typical blue hag

The original might look better, but they all have their own unique look. This will be helpful when using multiple minis in the same encounter, or alternatively could be painted to add distinction to an npc or monster. After the main coat has dried, or after a few hours, the mini should be painted, using as many colors as needed. Some monsters can be done in just a few different colors, like the wolves who were black, white, and gray. Others could use more varied color, usually determined by the subject.

They do the monster stomp

After the first coat, I waited until the next day to apply the blackwash. Essentially, this step involves getting some black and diluting it, and then really diluting it, then dunking your brush in the water before lightly applying it over the mini. Start in a place that is less visible, as it is easy to get some splotches of black if its not well diluted. The black can then be brushed into the corners and details, picking them out like outlining. If an area is too black, water and brushing can help spread it around, but even after a full day, the water was in danger of washing off yesterdays paint if applied too liberally.

Another amount of hours later, it was time for the final step, dry brushing. Basically what I understand this to mean is that I take paint on the tip of a very fine brush and highlight with bright or light paint, certain details and lines and edges, cuffs, claws, teeth and blades. This to me, is the opposite of the blackwash. Where a wash creates shadows in all the grooves and corners, the brushing brings out crisp edges and flashing details.

One, two, three little gargoyles

One thing I have noticed is they look a little chalky, and I think I will need to add a final step of some kind of permanent sealant. See Part 2: Ive got paintflakes on my fingers.

Its Salt n Peppa the vampire lords, with their wolves Smoke and Frost

The vampire could use a little more work. What I think would help it would be to pick out some highlights with paint, but then sometimes it means another blackwash, or it looks too garish.

So thats it. My next batch will be done in six steps: prime, paint, blackwash, drybrush, light blackwash, sealant – either matte, or semi-gloss, probably of the brush on variety, rather than spry, due to the tiny size of the minis.

I love me some Skelelingtons

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