Unboxing Reaper Bones Kickstarter Part 1

It came! My Reaper Bones Kickstarter pledge came today, and I'm pretty damn happy. I've been painting all these months to get back in the swing of things for these minis... and they're here... and they're awesome! I've taken apart one of my two vampire boxes during breaks from a remarkably successful night of patty-cake with my baby. Which is not off topic! I justified getting all these minis partially because of her! Back in October, back before we knew the sex or were telling anyone about the pregnancy, I thought, "What the hell, get some extra minis for the kid, it'll be a great thing for dad and child to do together!" She can't clap her hands yet, so she probably doesn't have great brush control... Luckily I got a pile of minis big enough to lay that long!

Tonight I unbagged my first Vampire box and laid them out on a printout from the website to take inventory.  Out of 238 in the box I'm missing one, a ghoul. But I got two extra spider swarms! Here's the proof:

Unboxing Descent Labyrinth of Ruin

My painting tonight was in single digit brush strokes, but I did open a package containing the new Descent expansion, Labyrinth of Ruin. The sculpts are excellent all around.  On the hero side we've got a female alchemist who's a gnome-looking dwarf, very cool. But the witch is my favorite, a great design that straddles fantasy and superhero aesthetics.

The monsters give us a crab-spider and a dragon-snake, which are just okay. But we also get four goblin witchers, great looking goblin casters! My brush will first new applied to the Tyranid-like Volcrux Reavers, which look better than the previews. Overall, great set, I wish I could get started tonight!

Paint Club WIPs: Does this look wet to you?

At the end of Paint Club tonight I picked up a paper bag that I brought chips in, and it was heavy with moisture. "Oh," I thought, "that explains it." That's why I was working on 5 projects at once; that's why all of the paint I put down. Would. Not. Dry. You. Guys.
So Yochlol, Dritzzt, and Drizzt's panther Guenhwyvar are all done, and I'm pretty happy with my progress on the Drow Priestess and Athrogate. Progress is good, new minis start arriving in the mail tomorrow!

Monday Night WIPs: Legends of Lankhmar!

Tonight I did Wulfgar from Legends of Drizzt. How great is this as sculpt? I mean, it's not that great, kind of all in one plane, lacking a certain dynamism. But still, it's all fur and flesh, it was a blast to paint.

He's one sword away from being Fafhrd.

Sunday Night WIPS: The Southern Dandy! (and friend)

I was a little down on painting after yesterday's goblins; I think I really savaged those goblin archer faces. I forged ahead, however, into the Legend of Drizzt characters, and I'm glad I did so, because painting these guys was a hoot! Here's Jaraxle the drow and Artemis the human assassin!

Jaxaxle is dressed entirely in cloth, with lots of cool folds. I tried to ink instead of wash, applying thin dark lines to the folds instead of dipping him in a black wash. I needed to reapply the base (I think this is a glaze?) to blend things but it turned out looking like I wanted it to. I was also able to pull an expression off of this facial sculpt even though he's painted in Drow Black... I like the level of purple highlights applied, making features visible while leaving him with black and not purple skin.

Jaraxle has a big feathered hat that the mini doesn't wear. Lamestorm!

I figured Artemis Entreri here was the sidekick to the Drow, but wikipedia tells me it's the other way around. He's an assassin, so I wanted to do more black than not, letting metallics define him like Priest-era Black Panther. I couldn't resist giving a sword-and-dagger rogue type a grey cloak though. I have a problem... still, he and Wulfgar are going to make plausible Leiber-heroes! Hmm, maybe I'll do him next...

Saturday Night WIPS: Goblin Horde

I had enough time today to knock out the ten minis that sat untouched all week while we had houseguests. This is three GW Lizardmen and the goblins from Legend of Drizzt. I really like the headsculpts on the Goblin Cutters and boss, I hope I did them justice. I feel like I punted on the faces of the archers, but that the bow in the middle of the head gave me less to work with than I'd like.

As for the Lizardmen, I'm happy with how they turned out. I think these are from some old Warhammer box set, but I really like them, especially their stomachs. They are missing Aztec swords, though, so I guess I still like the modern Sauruses better.

Monday Night WIPs: That Ol' Green and Brown

I wasn't able to paint on Sunday but I got a half hour tonight to start new projects. These Lizardmen are a gift from Matt, they came with a Citadel paint starter that he got years ago, and he gave me their three sprues on the first night of Paint Club. The goblins are from Legend of Drizzt, my next D&D set, and I've got the basecoats at various stages of completion.

Ashardalon and Practice Bones Done!

Today I finished Ashardalon, Ancient Red Dragon, the last piece in my Wrath of Ashardalon set. I've still got the whole set out, so here's their yearbook photo.

Ashardalon himself came out okay but looked dodgy during the process, I thought the wash was too heavy and would make the whole thing muddy. But my highlights worked to bring out the colors I wanted. I'm starting to blend a little with a watery midpoint when the shades and highlights get too dramatic, and it's a good technique. So he's ready to set fire to all adventurers within two tiles.

On Friday I didn't have much time but I did finish that young Green Dragon. Here's all my practice Bones together... except for three goblins that are already downstairs filed under G for Goblin.  I love these Bones.

Thursday Night WIPs: Wet Dragons

That's the Bones Young Fire Dragon on the right and Ashardalon on the left, both having received washes. Big A is dripping and pooling. My Reaper dragon is almost dry, I can just see one or two wet spots that will fuck up a drybrush if I start it. So tomorrow night both of these guys get the Finishing Moves.

In the foreground is the Rage Drake from the Ashardalon set. He's not wet, he's done. He came out looking a lot like my prepainted drake... so mission accomplished!  Now in an encounter I can field two of them!

Wednesday Night WIPs: Rev. Shiny and the Spider

Tonight I knew I could finish my Bones Giant Spider, but I'd only get through the Ashardalon Human Cleric if I was lucky. Which I was, although I'm also up late. So Spider here is a simple drybrush job, lots of chitinous surfaces to catch four ascending shades of blue. I did the mandible in transparent blue to suggest that they were dripping with venom.

The cleric looks pretty good for how fast he came together.  You'll just have to trust me, though, because he's designed to photograph well on the shield and the cloak and nothing else. I had to hold his plastic arm down while I did the face. I guess you don't enjoy photos of minis; that the actual use case is the physical mini that you turn around and look at, but this sculpt blocks you at literally every turn. It is dynamic, I'll give them that. The armor had lots of big interesting blocks, and this would be a good candidate for NMM, but instead I just went all metallic or white. In sharp light it gives the effect I was after: the White Cleric to go with my Red Fighter, Blue Paladin, Green Wizard, and Yellow Rogue.

Paint Club WIPs

Gibbering Mouthers! Cultists! 6 down...

Monday Night WIPs: Don't Panic

I finished one of these guys yesterday, but my baby had a five hour meltdown and there was never time for a blog picture. So! Two from Ashardalon: the Half-Orc Rogue and the Otyugh! Accompanying them is the star of yesterday's WIP pic, the Bones Minotaur!

This rogue is a badass, a really expressive sculpt. He may be getting sneak attacks because the monsters are afraid to admit they spotted him. I love how he's a rogue and... how to put this... not a halfling.

I wanted to do the minotaur in white, so I started with yellow and worked up. White bulls are more likely to have grey skin folds, but I know I've seen animals like him somewhere. I may end up with one or two more of these guys to do different hides and colors.

The otyugh turned into the Hitchhiker's Guide Guy, but in my defense not until the very end of my paint job!  The traditional colors are brown or orange, but I got a nice dinosaur look out of this green and yellow; it grounds him in reality even though he had three legs and two hairbrush tentacles.

Tomorrow is Paint Club! I've got nine more minis in this set, and I might knock out between four and six of them!

Sunday Night WIPs: Yellow Bull

Saturday Night WIPs: Big Blank Shields

Good day of painting! I finished the three Duergar Guards, three Legion Devils, the Duergar Captain, and even put a couple of minutes into the Half-Orc Rogue. Most of these minis were of a theme: they were all wearing lots of armor, and they all got the same metallic-black-to-silver stuff people have been doing since the 80s.

I've never fielded Duergar against a party in a D&D game, but I might start. They're like a race of evil Papa Smurfs... the way painted them anyway.

Oh, and I freehanded the shields on the three guards. They turned out better than I expected! If I had known that the skulls would look like this I wouldn't have done that red Chaos arrow thing, I would have aimed higher.

These guys put me well over the halfway point on Ashardalon. I'll definitely finish before my Bones Kickstarter comes in the mail. Reaper's got a countdown going (like everyone else, I watch it a fair deal hoping to see my hometown) but I don't think my package will be here until at least July 15th. I've got some Games Workshop miniatures and the Sedition Wars box, but I don't think I want to inflict my old paints on them (a paint refresh is planned, facilitated by the Kickstarter). So I guess I'll move on to Legends of Drizzt.

Tomorrow I want to finish the rogue and tuck into my Bones Minotaur.

Friday Night WIPs

And that's the Bones Ogre, done. I'd been envisioning him in more of a red scheme but that's not how he worked out... funny how unless you work with a strict plan, these things kind of choose themselves.

I also started on my Duergar. The three Duergar Guards have a wash applied, but their Captain's only two colors into his basecoat. I get to paint all tomorrow morning, so he'll shake out quickly!

Thursday Night WIPs

Tonight I finished off my Dragonborn Wizard (I think they meant sorcerer....) and put down a wash on the Bones Ogre. I like the way the dragonborn came out, there is a lot of detail in the robes that's lost in the prepaint version. I did that as a gold filigree. Also his orb in metallic black is really working for me. The ogre is a great sculpt full of humorous details, I can't wait to finish him!

Snakeday Night WIPs!

These three Ashardalon snakes were done mostly in a grayscale drybrush, then painted with transparent red and yellow. The one on the right is my first attempt: I thought it looked okay but the overall effect was too dark.  I added a light yellow on the belly and more white overall for the one on the right, but I didn't like the resultant colors as much. The middle was my final snake, lighter belly with dark hide.

Saturday Night WIPs

We did a lot of baby playing and baby training today, so there wasn't much time for painting! Otherwise these Descent manticores and hellhounds would be done instead of awaiting highlighting. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to them... but tomorrow my in-laws arrive, and the day after that I go back to work. So it's been fun, Painting Vacation! Time for a work slow-down!

Finally Night WIPs!

Oh thank fuckall god I finally got to paint tonight. I had an hour tonight and I put it to good use, finishing off my Descent Manticores and Hellhounds. I'm happy with both: the Manticores have some good cat eyes going, the Hellhounds have some quality flames. We'll see about tomorrow, but jesus I loved holding a brush again.

Sunday Night WIPs

I got a late-ish today and didn't really paint after 4:00, but the bulk of my Sunday was spent on babies and painting! I started with my Descent minion Demon and finished him around noon... then I worked through my minion Crypt Dragon.

The demon is purple, giving room for a red Master demon. I played around with the luminosity of the fireball, like everyone does, like you pretty much have to. The dragon is red, which in Descent means I'll need to work hard to distinguish it from the Master miniature. But in D&D, red is what you want, they're the best dragons, the only ones with fire breath. And the morphology of this sculpt was closest to red out of all the WOTC designs. So I'll deal with that challenge when I get to the Master dragon; next weekend maybe! Seven more minis, Descent!

Saturday Night WIPs

Big day of painting: my mother-in-law flew out this morning after two weeks here, and I think I had my paints out before she got to the airport. I finished 12 figures today, all from Descent v1. I did two minion ogres, six minion Bane Spiders, and then four minis that were waiting on more Tamiya Transparent Red to come in the mail: two master Sorcerers and two master Hellhounds. My Transparent Red replaced an exhausted pot, but I also got a Transparent Orange, a new color in my collection. An orange band between reds and yellows in a fire is the secret sauce, it's amazing how much better it looks.

So, tomorrow I want to keep painting. (And I'm sure as hell not leaving the house; thank you baby daughter!) I'm going to have to spray-basecoat more. I'm going to declare painting goals for the month of June, and I hope to declare them on the Reaper Miniatures "Speed/Army/Tabletop Techniques" board as soon as they make a June 2013 thread. My goal boils down to one a day, which is ridiculous; I never have two dedicated hours each and every day, but it's balanced by days like today when I knock out 12. Here's my Goal Pledge text:

For the month of June I want to finish my Descent monsters. I started painting Descent to get ready for the Bones kickstarter, and I feel pretty much warmed up! I've got 21 monsters left: 2 Ogres, 2 Sorcerers, 2 Hellhounds, 9 Bane Spiders, 2 Demons, 2 Dragons. The only thing making that level of production possible will be the fact that the list is 42 percent spiders, and those spiders are going to drybrush up very quickly!

There's a chance I can finish this Descent project, and then I'll move on to the non-Kickstarter Bones I ordered. I want to squeeze the Gnoll and the Ogre into June if I can.

And Wrath of Ashardalon stuff after that... I can be dipping into Ashardalon by the end of June if I make 30 minis; especially if I'm starting 11 minis in the black.

Tuesday Night WIPs

I finally got my baby to sleep and got to work on the orc shaman... I like him, he's got a real crazed look about him. I mixed up some brown highlight that went wrong and turned into fleshtone, and I had a lot of it, so I started on the Bones Ogre earlier than I'd planned. Finally, I did one snake in my experimental method of transparent paint over grayscale. I'm going to see how it dries, I might want to go brighter on the next one.

Monday Night WIPs

Orc Shaman with wash, trio of snakes drybrushed in grayscale. The shaman is a typical orc green-and-brown production, while the snakes are an experiment. More on them tomorrow!

Sunday Night WIPs

Orc archers! I was much happier with these guys on Friday during the basecoat and wash than I was after the highlights. Oh well, ever forward.

Friday Night WIPs

I completed the Bones Bugbear, and took three orc archers to the wash. I really like the bugbear's face, the tusks were built up in layers likeI would do bone, and it turned out well.

Thursday Night WIPs

This Gauth is done, and he turned out pretty well. It's a smooth fleshy sculpt, without hard surfaces for drybrushing, so I tried to get as rich a color as I could with just washes.

The Paladin is done and I hate her. Seriously, WOTC, how old was that mold, and what happened to her face in the intervening years?

The Bones Bugbear just got a heavy wash, so he's still in progress. Like the gnoll, he's been a joy to paint.

Wednesday Night WIPs

Paladin and Gauth, more later.

Paint Club WIP

Orcs and Grells!

Monday Night WIPs

Tonight I concentrated on my Bones Gnoll. Somewhere in the intersection of sculpt and material is the perfect painting experience; I absolutely loved making this guy. I want to run out, get a D&D game going, and then kill everybody with gnolls in a "random encounter."

His armor is Tamiya Titanium Silver, nice and dull compared to Chrome. His shirt is another attempt at fishscale, a mix of Titanium, Chrome, and mettalic blue. It doesn't evoke fishscale but it's more interesting than one metallic.

Okay, pal, until the Kickstarter gets here, you're King Gnoll.

Sunday Night WIPs

I'm ankle-deep into Wrath of Ashardalon, so signified by the fact that my ankle-biting kobolds are all done. Also the bears (drybrushing fur is low-hanging fruit). Also the dwarf fighter... lady dwarf fighter. This is a mini I had in pre-paint and could not give two shits about, but once I started painting her, I found a really awesome sculpt. I'm happy with how her paints turned out: I tried to do a Simonson-era Sif thing with her.

Also pictured is my Bones Gnoll, who got a wash five minutes ago. I'll finish him next time and speak more on him then, but what a joy to paint! That sculpt is a blast and I can't wait for the Kickstarter to come!

Bath Time!

The subject is miniatures that don't need undercoats, the problem is mold release chemical, and the solution is soapy water.

Tonight I filled a big tupperware full of Reaper Bones and the contents of Wrath of Ashardalon. The Bones shouldn't be primed, according to Reaper; you're supposed to apply the base coat right on the plastic. I've heard similar things about the D&D minis, although not from WOTC. But my last round of D&D stuff (from Ravenloft) was sprayed with three different types of paints, and they all came out tacky. But I've heard that the minis have mold release left on them from the casting, which can repel paint. This kind of dunking is standard practice in the world of customizing action figures, and there's little reason not to apply it here.

This will be my project for the next month. 6 Bones, 40 D&Ds... maybe a little more than a month, we'll see!