I Painted Some More Bones 4 Miniatures

Hey, I painted some more Bones 4 miniatures.

From left to right:

I'm not fond of vampires, but I do like Goths.  I was finally inspired to paint the Vampire bride like a seductive Marceline the Vampire Queen.  Unfortunately, the lacquer on her went haywire and I caused a disaster while trying to fix it; I will explain this below.

The big bug man is a Burrowing Behemoth (by Kevin Williams) inspired by the classic D&D Umber Hulk monster.  Accordingly, I painted this guy in shades of Raw Umber and Burnt Umber.  Sometimes it's convenient to get color hints from source material.

These snake people are Nagendra, inspired by D&D Yuan-Ti monstrous humanoids.  I wanted these characters to look like they had an exotic and developed culture, so I painted them flamboyantly with lots of scarlet and bronze, and purple leather.  More about this red later.

The pointy character with tentacles is a Stone Lurker (by Jason Wiebe), inspired by the D&D Roper monster.  This monster pulls its tentacles inside and pretends to be a cave stalagmite, sometimes whispering beckoning words in an echoey cave to an unsuspecting human ("Hello?  Is someone there?  Please help me!"), until the poor guy gets within tentacle range.

Lukesia D'Vandra (by Bobby Jackson) is a vision in blue (denim?).  I suspect that she shovels really well.

Juliana the Herbalist (by Bobby Jackson) has 2 hedgehogs for familiars.  I asked my wife: what color should I paint the hedgehogs?  "Blue!"

And finally there is a wizard with an orb.  I recall that I mixed up some red paint for his wizard's robe, and then I had all this red paint left over, so I put it on the Vampire bride ('Why not red?  Marceline loves red!'), and then the snake people ('Why not red?  It looks expensive and exotic!'), and the herbalist ('Why not red?  Seriously, why not?')...

Not-So Protective Lacquer

I used Games Workshop's "Purity Seal" protective lacquer on this batch of miniatures on a rainy rainy day, and half of the miniatures got exhibited the "frosted" effect.  I think this happens because the "Purity Seal" lacquer isn't sticking to the mini so well, and the gap between the lacquer and the model creates a cloudy appearance.

I got some acetone nail polish remover, cotton swabs, and cotton balls.  This was kind of a mistake.

My best results came from using cotton balls, by gently dabbing and saturating the surface of the mini with the acetone, apparently re-dissolving the Purity Seal lacquer, and allowing it to re-adhere to the surface of the mini.  This worked for several of the snake people.

My big mistake came from using cotton swabs to try to "brush" the mini.  The acetone is a much more powerful solvent than I expected; it dissolved the lacquer, the polyurethane varnish, the paint, the primer, and it made the plastic gummy; the swab scrubbed my painting efforts right off and mushed the plastic model, as a result.  I severely compromised the details of my vampire bride model.  I tried to (gently) wipe the remaining paint off the model with cotton swabs and the acetone, but there was a lot of paint left in wrinkles and tight corners, obscuring detail.  Her nose is severely flattened, and the headstone's carvings are eroded away.  I tried to repaint it.  The resulting mini is smoothed out as a result, like a rough wall that's got several coats of paint on it.  I probably should have soaked it in "Simple Green" overnight, and started over from scratch, but I thought I could wipe off the lacquer and leave the paint behind.  Live and learn!

Nonetheless, it's very frustrating.  Many other users have complained about "Purity Seal," and one theory is that this "frosted" effect is caused by high humidity; another theory is that the spray just goes bad in the can with age.  It was certainly humid when I used it, but the can is old, too.  I assume the matte surface is generated by microscopic particles which deform the surface of the drying lacquer; maybe these particles get concentrated if the user doesn't shake the spray can long enough prior to use, and you wind up with the wrong proportions of particles-to-lacquer.  Whatever the case, I plan to switch to other sprays with future models.