Bones 3 & Bones 4 Miniatures: Bone White!

White is the color of sugar and cotton and flour and paper after you bleach out all the nutrition, lignin, and other natural goodness out of them.  Similarly, after you remove all the meat and blood and guts and other good things out of a person, you're left with a white, white skeleton (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, by the way).

So for white, inspired by Halloween, I painted skeletons.  Bones 4 only included 6 skeletal creatures, so I included 6 skeletal characters from Bones 3.

In the front, we have the Bones 4 Bog Skeletons and the Maggotcrown Ogre Juggernaut.  Any evil necromancer will tell you that you can never have too many skeletons to do your bidding.

Real bog skeletons turn black from tannins in the bog water,
but that would be hard to see and it would look just plain weird.

In the back, we have the Bones 3 Undying Lords boss skeletons.  I have to wonder if these guys were once an adventuring party.

That's the Grim Reaper in the back, waving.  "I'll be seeing you!"

You might notice that the arms and armor used by these skeletons have a brownish hue.  In D&D 3.5, skeleton monsters are basically mindless automatons which fight until they are destroyed.  I imagine they don't care much about the state of their equipment.  I tried to imagine their metal equipment had a good deal of rust on them, but the rust would wear away at edges, joints that would grind together, and points of impact.  So I tried to put down a rusty steel color, then I would dry-brush the high-wear areas with a bright steely color.  On the Juggernaut, I added extra brown rusty splotches to the rusty base coat.

Drawtober 2019

I haven't been painting lately because my creative time is consumed by Drawtober.  Unfortunately for me, the Drawtober prompts have been arranged a little differently this year: instead of a unique drawing prompt for each day, there are only 6 drawing prompts for the month, and each drawing prompt runs for about 5 days.  I need more direction than this, so I have therefore decided to combine both the Drawtober 2019 drawing prompts and the Inktober 2019 drawing prompts into the same drawings, (although I will still be working in pencil). 

For example, the October 1 prompts for Drawtober and Inktober are "Witch's Garden" and "Ring" respectively, so I have attempted to draw a witch discovering a fairy ring near her garden.  The October 2 prompts are "Witch's Garden" and "Mindless," so I have attempted to draw the same witch defending her garden from mindless zombies.  And so on.

As of this writing, and using my prompt-combination system, I have created a drawing for every day in October 2019.  With the demise of Google+, I have created a Twitter account and posted my drawings there.  I invite you to check them out at: https://twitter.com/antonmarkwart . 

Many thanks to all of my followers!

Bones 2 Miniatures: Violet & Purple!

Scientifically speaking, spectral violet--the violet color wavelength you actually see in the rainbow--is actually one of the hardest colors to see because the rods and cones in your eyes don't respond strongly to the violet color wavelength.  The "blue" and "red" receptors in your eyes both respond to spectral violet, and your brain interprets these signals to mean "violet", which is why you can fool your brain with a mixture of red and blue light into thinking it's seeing "violet."

In color terms, "violet" is more bluish, whereas "purple" leans toward red.

Culturally, violet is the color of magic.  Purple is the color of royalty.  These are traditional fantasy tropes.  Famous violet & purple D&D monsters include the Purple Worm, the Violet Fungus, and the Shrieker.

Violet & purple are also my wife's favorite colors, so I asked her to pick out miniatures for this batch.  She came up with a mixed bag from Bones 2.

I talked about how hard it is to see violet.  Of course violet is a neighbor to the even harder (impossible?) to see ultraviolet (UV).  I decided to play around with UV-sensitive fluorescent and glow-in-the-dark paints, but it was kind of a bust.  Here you can see the same arrangement of miniatures, lit up with a UV LED bulb and a blue compact fluorescent bulb (which also radiates some UV).

Here are our adventurers, all decked out in violet and purple clothing.  In the rear we have a lady cleric and some kind of giant mushroom man.  In the middle there is a flamboyantly-dressed spellcaster, and a halfling rogue or ranger.  In the lead we have a flamboyantly-dressed lady with a staff and longsword.

Here is a giant wolf facing off against a pair of lions; from their violet and purple features we can deduce that they are infused with magic.

Here are some monsters, born into their violet and purple hues.  The turtle warrior and vulture demon guard the periphery.  In the rear is a dracolisk with its baby dragon.  The baby dragon reminded me of "Growf" from "What's New with Phil and Dixie," so I tried to color him appropriately.

Bones 4 Miniatures: Kobold Blue!

I felt like painting an army of something, and my Reaper Miniatures Bones 4 Kickstarter rewards include 12 kobolds.  Cobalt blue is a marvelous deep blue pigment made from cobalt, aluminum, and oxygen.  The metal cobalt is named after Kobolds, who (according to recent editions of D&D) are distantly related to dragons.  There are blue dragons, why not blue kobolds?  Kobolds are also smaller than most people, so these miniatures are smaller than my usual miniatures. 

Wow!  That was a stretch for a dumb 'Kobold Blue' pun, wasn't it?  But did you know that Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons (and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) used to work in the insurance industry?  And did you know that D&D (and AD&D) were already common insurance industry terms for Death and Dismemberment/Disability (and Accidental Death and Dismemberment/Disability)?  And did you know that Gary Gygax was known to have a sense of humor?  My point is that the name of the game was probably always intended as a darkly humorous pun, inspired by the mayhem and gruesomeness of the typical dungeon crawl. 

On our left, we have Kobold Mooks. 

On our right, we have Kobold Leaders.

Bones 4 Miniatures: Green!

Green may be the color of growth, fertile crops, and wealth; but in the world of fantasy, green can also have darker connotations.  Green all around you means that you have left civilization and you are deep in the woods or swamp; danger can come from all sides, and help will be a long time coming.  Green is the color of nature reclaiming the ruins.  Green is the color of moldy rations, putrefying flesh, a sickly pallor, and corroded bronze.  Green is the color of orcs, goblins, frogs, and other reptiles.  Green is the color of untrustable magic.

For my adventurers this time, I chose the bad and the ugly: desperate, bitter mercenaries and amoral thugs little better than murderers and grave robbers.  Four of these seemed to have a family resemblance, so I decided to emphasize that with similar coloring.  I figured the woman (Fruella by Bob Ridolfi) would be directing the mayhem from the back, her 3 brothers (Dreadmere Mercenaries by Bob Ridolfi) would carry out most of the dirty work, and a pair of hired thugs (Hans The Brains and Karl The Killer) would do most of the heavy lifting and smashing.

The first monsters are a pair of Giant Frogs (by Jason Wiebe), followed by a pair of creepy Giant Leeches (by Enos Kline).  I used a glossy lacquer on these four, to make them look wet and gross.

Behold the beautiful but deadly Peryton (Spirit Beast by Julie Guthrie).

And the boss monster is the majestic Griffon; a symbol of divine power, half lion, half eagle.  This miniature was problematic because it's held upright on one (thin) leg and its tail.  It kept bending and flopping over at those 2 points, so I "pinned" it with a solid copper rod.  The rod kept it from bending, but then I noticed that the outstretched wing caused the entire model to fall over.  I might glue lead to the bottom at some point.

Bones 4 Miniatures in Yellow

Yellow can be one of the loudest colors, but also very soothing in the form of beiges and earth tones.  Yellow is also a fragile color, in that it can very easily veer into green or orange, or otherwise get dirty or turn gray. 

The Dungeon Aplhabet reports that yellow can be a bizarre, unearthly color, and that finding yellow creatures or features in a dungeon denotes something unsettlingly weird. 

Stephen King's "Hearts in Atlantis" describes unearthly secret agents with psychic powers disguised as human "Low Men in Yellow Coats."  Do these 'yellow coats' refer to khaki trenchcoats?  Or are they some poor cartoonish alien attempt to duplicate khaki, which appears yellow to human eyes? 

On to the miniatures.  These are all rewards from the Reaper Miniatures Bones 4 Kickstarter.

Bringing up the rear, we have a wizard, clad in arcane and mystical greenish yellow; and a witch or druid (Andowyn Thrushmoor by Bobby Jackson) in a more naturalistic yellowish green.  I don't play with the shapes of these models much, but I CAN choose what colors they are, and I want to improve the ethnic diversity of my miniatures.  When I saw the marvelous cloud of curly hair around Andowyn Thrushmoor's head, I decided to recognize it as African hair, like she's Whitney Houston as a witch.  I was hit hard by the vibrant and talented Whitney Houston's passing.  What a tragedy that we will never get to see Whitney Houston play a witch in a fantasy movie. 

Moving on, we have a whip-wielding rogue or cleric (Amrielle); and a grizzled veteran ranger (Jakob Knochengard by Bobby Jackson), both in muted naturalistic yellows.  Now that I think of it, Kevin Costner is good at playing grizzled veterans, and he did a movie with Whitney Houston... 

But leading the charge is a heavily-armored lady (Ava Justinia) with a proud yellow shield; and a heavily-muscled barbarian with what appears to be a golden fleece.  I almost feel sorry for the monsters. 

Maggots used to creep me out as a kid, especially when I saw their wet translucent wriggling bodies gorging on scraps of rotting meat in our poorly-sealed trash cans.  And the stench!  Yech!  I guess they still creep me out; I don't regret going vegetarian right now.  Anyway, here are 2 giant maggots, ready to eat some adventurers, and then grow into some even more terrifying bugs. 

Or maybe those larvae can be used as bait to hook these terrifying fish.  The yellowy fish (Razormouth by Chris Lewis) reminded me of a piranha, and the greenish fish (Terror Fish by Chris Lewis) reminded me of a "Green Terror" aquarium fish.

The 6-legged wolf sculpted by Sandra Garrity is called a "Bloodwolf," or maybe that's just the name for this particular 6-legged wolf.  I don't know where this creature comes from; I can't find it in any of my D&D books.  I imagined a wolf spattered with blood, with blood pouring out of its mouth, and scary glowing red eyes; or maybe its just a blood-like liquid, like betel nut juice. 

The Displacer (Phase Cat by Geoff Valley) is a classic D&D monster; this was cast in translucent purple to allude to its hard-to-visually-pin-down nature.  I decided to leave it mostly translucent, except for its eyes, mouth, and claws.  I was somewhat inspired by the Cheshire Cat,

I painted some Bones 3 miniatures

Although I did recently get my shipment of Bones 4 miniatures, these are from the Bones 3 Kickstarter, which I pledged for back in 2015. 

I kind of accidentally painted a lot of guys red last time, so I decided to just do batches with predominant colors.  This time it's orange's turn; maybe yellow in the next batch.  I figure I can gradually cycle through the color wheel and beyond.

Orange can be a noisy, jarring color, but it can also be the color of some marvelous beers.  I couldn't resist drafting (sorry) this orange-garbed dwarven brewmaster civilian into an orange-themed adventuring party.  Or maybe he's hauling a keg of healing potion.

Orange is a great color for fire, and what wizard doesn't know about throwing fire at enemies.  So why not dress this wizard in a stately fire-inspired orange robe, with a glowing orange gem on his staff.
Once you get to front-line fighters, you want to dress to distract, and this orange-garbed sorceror seems to be enchanting a blade with an arc of magical flames.

Up next is a dashing halfling rogue, charismatically dressed in more orange.

And leading the pack is a woman wielding dual swords, grabbing our attention with more orange.
Not too much orange on the monsters, certainly not on the giant ticks pestering our adventurers.  I've never met a giant tick, but I can tell you that I already hate it more than almost any other monster.

Once we get past the ticks, we have some serious monsters.  The whitish column is an air elemental.  The photo doesn't do it justice, but it's actually translucent.  I used dullcote for a primer, and laid down some washes to hopefully simulate smoke and dust picked up by this creature of solid air as it moves around; I was inspired by images of LA smog.  According to the monster books, air elementals are actually invisible, but that makes for a boring paint job.  This air elemental seems to have a head in its shape, so I decided to paint on some glowing eyes.  Artistic license; and hopefully it makes this air elemental more memorable as a monster than a mere description of an invisible pain cloud.

Continuing with the theme of air, we have a blue dragon.  Blue dragons hang out in high places and breathe lightning at their victims.  Notice that this dragon is perched on a broken statue; I imagine a temple high on a mountain, and then this blue dragon decided to show the humans how feeble their gods are by destroying the temple and scaring off the human attendants, before moving in.

Last but certainly not least we have a beautiful lady sphinx.  This sphinx has nice clothing and jewelry; I imagine that this sphinx may be less of a "monster" and more of a "large esteemed citizen."  I gave her tan skin to make her look somewhat Egyptian (as Egypt is known for its sphinxes), and dressed her in royal purple.  I was also inspired by the friendly sphinx in the webcomic Subnormality.