Bones Miniatures: Embrace the Rainbow

There's no color scheme this time.  I'm embracing the rainbow and loving it!

At the left, we have a large adventure group:

Viola, the Aracokra Bard (Reaper's "Kobzar Soloveiko, Nightingale Bard," Sculpted by Jason Wiebe, #30167);

Carmela, the Human Fighter (Reaper's "Finari, Female Paladin," Sculpted by Werner Klocke, #77077, in Bones 1);

Himberra, the Elf Sorceress (Reaper's "Juliette, Female Sorceress, Human Sorcerer," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #77057, in Bones 1);

Jam, the Wolf animal companion (Reaper's "Familiars," Sculpted by Various, #77176; in Bones 1);

Margarina, the Human Monk (Reaper's "Xiao Liu, Female Half-Elf Monk," Sculpted by James Van Schaik, #77418; Bones 3 #124);

Espressa, the Tiefling Rogue (Reaper's "Fillyjonk, Hellborn Rogue," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #30009); and 

Flapjackie, the Dwarf Cleric (Reaper's "Dwarf Forge Priestess, Dwarf Cleric," Sculpted by Jason Wiebe, #77571; Bones 3 #548).

I'll write more about these brave heroes later.  They're just here to clean up in case a smaller adventuring group doesn't make it...

This is the smaller adventuring group:

Bluebell the Halfling cleric (Bones 4 #144, "Enora, Iconic Arcanist, Halfling Wizard," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #60178");

Molotov the Wizard (Bones 4 #11; "Kelainen Darkmantle," Human Evil Wizard, Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #03847);

Hunkendor the Ranger (Bones 4 #9; "Aravir, Elf Ranger," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #03763); and

Brandon the Rogue (Reaper's "Damiel, Iconic Alchemist," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #60044).

A fish monger (Reaper's "Dreadmere Townsfolk: Fishwife," Sculpted by Bob Ridolfi, #44033; Bones 4 #409 & #410) first spotted the this giant terrifying monster creeping around.  She told this story until finally some adventurer groups looking for action decided to investigate.  

The tentacle brain ("Hivewarden," Sculpted by C. Lewis, #44023; Bones 4 #425) is the boss monster for this scene; I don't know what the ecology of this thing is, but I decided to make it glossy, because the thought of a dry brain just makes me feel gross.  Just imagine getting eczema on your brain; EWWW!  I assume this is a relative of a monster called a "Grell", but a Grell has a beak, and this monster does NOT; so if you tell me that Grells are SUPPOSED TO BE purple, I can tell you that this is NOT a Grell, and it is supposed to be this pinky color.

And the tentacle brain has a pet Dire Skunk.  I was running Goodman Games' D&D module "Dungeon Crawl Classics #0: Legends are Made, not Born" and (SPOILER ALERT!) there's a Dire Skunk in it.  I couldn't find a decent Dire Skunk miniature anywhere at a reasonable price, so I made this one out of polymer clay (it has glow-in-the-dark eyes!). It's a Medium animal, so as a mini it's about 1" long.  Of course it has a Musk spray attack, but it can also bite, so I gave it prominent teeth.  I made all my miniatures out of polymer clay before the Bones Kickstarters gave me enough minis to paint for the rest of my life... but no Dire Skunks.  

My big plan was to paint the large adventure group at the left.  The other miniatures just kind of came along for the ride.  While painting these, the improved detail was obvious between the old "Bones white" miniatures and the new "Bones black" miniatures; I don't know if the Bones white molds were based on cruder models, or the transfer wasn't so precise, but Reaper claims the harder Bones black material holds fine detail better.

Some of these miniatures are from the ORIGINAL Reaper Bones Kickstarter, which ran back in 2012 (over 12 years ago!).  I'm ashamed to admit I still have many of these miniatures left to paint, especially because I have participated in many Bones Kickstarters since, and the miniatures are really piling up.  It's a common problem among miniatures painters, but I have been revitalized by my absence, and I plan to prioritize my Bones (2012) minis until I have painted through all of them.

Bones Miniatures: Resurrection in Red

Hey, I'm painting miniatures again!  I gave up on painting miniatures shortly after COVID-19 quarantine lockdown.    

But now I'm back.  Sadly, I gave up painting WHILE several miniatures were half-painted.  "Red" was the theme.  First step was to sponge 4 years of dust off my batch of red minis, repair any damage, and finish the paint job.  It wasn't that onerous!

Here we see a landscape with some civilians and (anti-)heroes, some thugs, and a red dragon.  All of these miniatures were rewards from Reaper's "Bones" Kickstarter campaigns.  If you want a big pile of miniatures, these Kickstarters will deliver--eventually.

A close-up on the left,  shows Reaper mascot Sophie working hard as a waitress (Bones 4 #160); yes, she has devilish wings, but unless she's tempting us with Gluttony, she doesn't seem TOO scary.  Because of the season as I write this, I can only think of her as "Oktoberfest Sophie."  

Next to Sophie is an elegant lady (Bones 4 #146).  Is she hiring our adventurers to loot a dungeon for her?

And next, we see the adventurers: a troop of somewhat comical subterranean "Bloodstone Gnomes" (Bones 4 #505~).  I don't know what the inspiration for these was, nor what their deal is.  I tried to paint their armor like green bronze with bright red ("bloodstone") insets; I MAY have been channeling my desire for pimiento-stuffed olives.  

In the dungeon, we encounter some dangerous characters, like a Gladiatrix (Bones 4 #92), a Bandit (Bones 4 #102), and Vatanis the charismatic Tiefling (Bones 4 #424).  Are they working together to defeat that evil female Efreeti (Bones 4 #735)?

Finally, plotting evil deep in the dungeon is a Red (fire-breathing) Dragon (Bones 1 "Here there be dragons" option).

You'd think I would be painting dragons all the time, for the Dungeons & DRAGONS game, but dragons are TOUGH for players to fight, and tough for game masters to play--most of them are pretty smart.  I don't know how to make them interesting or fun.  So I tend to NOT use them in the game; and because I don't need them, I don't paint them.  But this was bugging me; the dragons were piling up, so I decided to bite the bullet and paint a dragon.  And why not the classic fire-breathing red dragon?

But after finishing them, I remembered that I have a Linguist friend who is hard at work studying Welsh right now.  So I was inspired to recreate the Welsh flag with this scene.

All this is an attempt to "clear the pipeline" so I can paint OTHER miniatures in the immediate future.