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!

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.

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!

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!