Bones 4 Miniatures: Black & White!

What's going on here?  Is it a badass Elven diplomatic visit to the Drow?  Or were these Elves caught snooping around underground, and a Drow matriarch will now decide their fate?  I had these Elves and Drow miniatures in my Bones 4 rewards, and they all fit into a single batch; I expect the stealthy subterranean Drow to wear black, so why not dress the Elves in High Elf white and call this batch Black & White?  Those ebony-skinned Drow were never going to fit into the color wheel, anyway.

These elves are a little rougher & tougher than I'm used to seeing Elves.  I thought it would be boring to just paint them in all white, so I did some pale pastels.  And there are 6 of them, so I did the color wheel in pastel.

These Drow look terrifying and aristocratic, as you would expect.  Again, boring to just paint them black, so I did dark colors.  Again, I had 6 of them, so I tried to do the color wheel in dark colors.  I painted their skin with a dark purplish gray rather than straight-up black, because it looked more naturalistic, and because they would just disappear into silhouette if I painted them flat black. 

The Dark Elf Queen on Throne by Bob Ridolfi sadly isn't poseable, so she can't really get off her throne.  I tried to make the throne look like the basalt I saw on Minnesota's North Shore of Lake Superior; this basalt is extremely hard and semi-crystalline, but very brittle and nearly impossible to carve.  Similarly, the throne is magnificent, but the details are crude; I the seat isn't curved, and there are chips in various places.  I imagine the Drow used various magical abilities to get the normally almost unworkable basalt into this magnificent spider throne, then they quit when they got tired and decided this was 'good enough'.

A word of advice: if you plan to paint this swell Drow Queen miniature, don't glue the Queen to the throne until you're done painting both the queen and the throne.  There is a very visible but difficult-to-paint area between the queen's back and the throne; so I recommend you paint the queen and the throne, THEN glue the queen to the throne.

The Drow worship Lolth, a spider goddess, so spiders are a big thing for Drow elves (note the queen's spider throne).  Big spiders are an even bigger thing for them.  This giant Cave Spider by Kevin Williams is the only spider I got with my Bones 4 Kickstarter rewards.  I was inspired to paint it blue with beige spikes after learning about Cobalt Blue Tarantulas and a newly-discovered electric blue tarantula.

Bones 4 Miniatures: Purple/Violet!

It's another lovely day underground!  Always the same cool temperature, always soothingly dark.  Certainly there is no better day for a clan of Gnomes to explore a treasure- and monster-filled cave.  Of course everything is in various shades of purple and violet, as the dial on the color wheel is pointing to Violet for this batch.

Here is our brave clan of gnomes.  Gnomes are about half as tall as humans and can see twice as far (and in full color!) in dim light.  They can magically speak with burrowing animals once per day and cast little illusion spells to help them survive in a world of big scary monsters.  Of course they make excellent miners and prize gemstones very highly.  As proud, magical beings, these gnomes are attired in purples and violets, with gold accents.

Purple shriekers like these don't attack adventurers per se; but if you get close to them, they emit a piercing scream, which tells any predatory monsters within earshot: dinner has arrived!  Intelligent monsters sometimes deliberately plant shriekers around their lairs to serve as living burglar alarms.

At last we approach priceless cave crystals, guarded by deadly violet fungus.  Those fungi don't look like much, but they can lash out with deadly tentacles, slathering unknowing passersby with a horrible flesh-digesting goo, which eventually reduces their hapless victims to puddles of raw nutrients which the fungi can then feed from and grow spores in.

My Little Pony Miniatures: Glitter!

It's a lovely day for a Pony picnic!

From the left is Alfa with her sister Proxima.

In the center is Dazzle with her sister Razzle.

From the right are Brandy with her sister Meade.

Happy April Fools!

Seriously, these are paint experiments.  I got some glitter paints, I wanted to see how they looked on various materials, and I had all these My Little Pony blind bag miniatures gathering dust.  I picked out several miniatures I didn't like much, and I decided to turn them into custom-painted original characters.

First I wiped the miniatures down with cotton balls soaked in acetone; this removed their cutie marks and (gruesomely) their eyes, and hopefully any mold release and other coatings, as well as fingertip smudges.  Then I soaked them in soapy scalding water just to be on the safe side.  None of this appears to have damaged or marred the ponies' plastic surfaces, unlike what the acetone does to Reaper Black Bones miniatures.

Each My Little Pony blind bag miniature has a little LEGO-like peg hole in one of their feet; I'm not sure why, but it accomodates a 24X machine screw, so I used those instead of glue to attach the ponies to painting pedestals.

The blackish ones were originally opaque pastel colors; I primed them black to see how the glitter would look on black.  The others are all cast in translucent plastic with some glitter inside.  Then I primed all of these with Acrylicos Vallejo spray matte varnish .

The 1st pony of each pair got FolkArt Glitterific Silver acrylic paint, and the 2nd pony of each pair got FolkArt Glitterific Clear Hologram acrylic paint.  Their mane and tails got a second coat of these, but I can't really tell the difference.  The paint is thick, like petroleum jelly, but the glitter is dense enough that it still covers well.  I can only apologize for the photos; they really do not do these glitter paints justice.  However, the multicolor hologram-like sheen of the Clear Hologram paint is really spectacular.  Only the black figures (Alpha and Proxima) hint of the multicolor nature of these glitter paints.

Then they each got a coating of satin polyurethane varnish.  In retrospect, I should have used a gloss varnish; the satin varnish really mutes the colorful holo glitter reflections.

The 1st (black) pair and 3rd (orange & yellow) pair were glossy lacquered with spray lacquer I got at a hardware store.  The 2nd (pink & blue) pair was dull lacquered.

Then I glued on googly eyes.  Googly eyes make everything better.

I looked into tiny stickers to use for cutie marks (my wife calls them tramp stamps), but they would need to be smaller than 1/4" in order to fit on a tiny pony's flank, and I couldn't find any this small; plus I kind of felt like it was cheating.  So their tramp stamps are lame and poorly defined.

Although I am presenting this as an April Fool's joke because I usually paint Fantasy Role-Playing Game (D&D) miniatures from Reaper Miniatures, there are numerous connections between My Little Pony and Dungeons & Dragons; I blogged about this 8 years ago.  Now there is Ponyfinder, a rich collection of fan-published rules for playing various Pony characters, in various Pony races, fighting various Pony monsters, in the D&D-inspired Pathfinder RPG.  You can even buy special Ponyfinder miniatures, but I think it would be cheaper and more fun to get a blind bag My Little Pony miniature and repaint it.

Bones 4 Miniatures: Blue!

I have returned to my color wheel schedule.  It's a new day, and blue is a fine color to reflect the fresh, clean energy of Spring!

It appears an outdoor gathering is in progress, with esteemed community members collecting near a memorial to brave local heroes.  There is the town chaplain (in muted blue vestment) and the town wizard (in mystical blue robes).  The event is catered by the tavern's serving lady carrying a tray, and a milkmaid carrying cow-fresh moolicious milk; both ladies are garbed in shades of blue. 

The statue has cracks and pits in it which clearly suggest weathered stone, but some parts of the statue were too long and thin to survive if they were carved out of stone.  So I imagined the statue was made out of stone and bronze, I tried to make the bronze look like the patina had worn away, but I think I kind of botched it due to haste. 

I hope that wizard has some powerful spells prepared, because whereas you or I have to deal with picnic ants, this garden party is about to be raided by fierce goblins!  Barely attired in blue fabric, these are the last of the organized goblin tribes in the Reaper Bones 4 kickstarter rewards; only straggler goblins remain. 

Again, because of the blue theme, I painted their armor and weapons as bronze with a grayish patina.  The patina is worn away at abrasion points.

Unfortunately, I kind of rushed this batch, and I discovered that I missed some spots, even on those goblins.  You would think that I would have extra time during the COVID19 quarantine, but I've been working from home and I feel like I'm busier than ever. 

Reaper Bushfire Relief & Bones 4 Miniatures: Animals!

Most animals in nature have neutral colors which provide valuable camouflage, but which do not fit my "color wheel" scheduling scheme; accordingly, I put several of these animals in their own batch.  In order to bring attention to the devastating Australian bushfires, I have selected models corresponding (more or less) with Australian wildlife.  Also, if you're looking for a thrilling adventure setting for your fantasy game featuring deadly wildlife, consider that many people describe Australia as a land 'where everything wants to kill you.'  Except the people; the people there are great.

Reaper Miniatures is helping Australian bushfire relief efforts with a fundraiser: for each purchase of Hope the Koala Druid by Jason Wiebe, Courage the Koala by Jason Wiebe, or the Australian Wildlife Pack by Andy Pieper, Reaper will donate $7.50 to the Australian Bushfire Relief Fund.  You can find out more about relief efforts by visiting Reaper or the RSPCA.  Australian legends tell of deadly drop bears, which look like giant koalas; when they hear a person speaking in a non-Australian accent, they drop out of their eucalyptus trees onto the hapless foreigners, viciously mauling and eating them.  Sure, they LOOK cute, but they are anything but cuddly.  Kangaroos will also beat the stuffing out of you, if they are provoked or otherwise in a bad mood.  I should point out that the minis I describe in this paragraph are cast in metal; the other minis I describe in this article are cast in Reaper's "black bones" plastic.

I understand that Australia's 'razorback' feral pigs are descended from domesticated farm animals and, although they will attack humans with deadly ferocity, they do not resemble the Dire Boar above.  The big lizard above is a Dire Crocodile, and I have painted it to honor the Australian saltwater crocodile.

For this Gulper catfish by Jason Wiebe, I was inspired by the beautiful colors of the blue salmon catfish (Neoarius graeffei), which actually has a slightly different fin configuration. If a giant catfish doesn't seem very scary, you should know that there are some Australian catfish who won't wait for prey to enter the water before they attack.

You will notice some colored orbs in this scene; these are sculpted as decorative carved pillar tops, but I have repurposed them as color-coded magical dungeon elements (like crystal balls and so forth).  As with my miniature painting scheme, I have used the color wheel as a motif in adventures ("use this ruby to activate the red portal, and this emerald to activate the green portal," for example), because I hope it's less frustrating for players if dungeon stuff has memorable colors, a distinctive appearance, and logical clues.  Plus, Bones 4 included 6 of these orbs, and the 6-spoked color wheel seemed a natural fit.

Bones 4 Miniatures: Green!

Because my color wheel clock points to green, this batch is all green monsters from the Reaper Bones 4 Kickstarter rewards.

I've still got plenty of goblins left to paint; here are 7 of them, decked out in dark green clothes.  I thought these goblins would get easier to paint, but I still miss areas on them; I think I'm finishing them more quickly, though.  In this scene, the goblins are the protagonists, using a mossy, algae-laden raft to salvage a wrecked ship.

Unfortunately for the goblins, the wreck is infested with malevolent pirate ghosts!

The North Shore of Lake Superior is a 3-hour drive from here, so I had an idea to adapt the Gordon Lightfoot song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" to describe the shipwreck inhabited by these pirate ghosts, but the more I read about the song and the original tragedy, the more I felt that joking about it was in poor taste.

These pirate ghosts are cast in translucent fluorescent green plastic, so I wanted to paint them in a way which preserves this translucent vibrant quality.  Accordingly, I could not prime them with my usual white primer.  I found a recommendation to prime translucent minis with Testor's Dullcote before painting, but I took a chance on Acrylicos Vallejos spray matte varnish.  This varnish looks a little foamy when it goes on, but as it dries the foam disappears and the varnish preserves reasonable detail.  The dull nature of the finish and the translucent green material reminded me (perhaps appropriately for shipwreck ghosts) of beach glass.  I discovered that my acrylic model paint adhered very well to the Acrylic varnish, as I expected.

I wanted to paint these with something vibrant yet eerie that would highlight details.  I first laid on a wash of fluorescent chartreuse and fluorescent green, but the result turned too transparent upon drying, and basically disappeared.  Next, I tried a wash with non-fluorescent chartreuse and fluorescent green.  The paints become opaque when the figures are backlit, but I don't mind the ugliness; they're hideous terrifying ghosts, after all.

I put a GrimLight in one of these pirates, hoping the entire figure would glow like a lava lamp, but the material is cloudy enough and the shapes have so many twists and turns that they don't provide for much internal reflection nor allow direct illumination.  As a result, the point source of the GrimLight brightens up the immediate vicinity of the light element, but does not infuse the entire miniature.

However, the fluorescent effect is quite powerful, if you can light your game table with a UV lamp.

Bones 4 Miniatures: Yellow!

The color wheel rolls on, and this batch's color is yellow.  Except for the last (extra special guest) mini in the batch, these miniatures are all rewards for backing the Reaper Bones 4 Kickstarter.

We start with some commoners in yellow: Nemesra the belly dancer, a cooper toting a barrel, and an agitated lady brandishing a torch and a rolling pin.  We can easily imagine these disparate characters as part of a caravan, traveling from town to town; offering services, trade goods, and novelties.

This caravan is guarded by an adventurer-type character: a golden dragon man.  And it's a good thing, too, because...

Here comes a tribe of yellow-garbed goblins.  This tribe has some extra goblins: an armored goblin and a goblin hero.

Maybe those goblins are not so much attacking as they are fleeing our extra-special guest miniature: Reaper's faceless horror!  From what I can tell, this monster is basically a blob with many toothy mouths and eyes, like a large gibbering mouther.  I purchased this to entice my wife into painting miniatures with me; my wife likes horror, and with a giant blob you don't really need to worry that it 'looks wrong,' so I figured it might be an interesting low-stress mini to start with.  But she soon tired of it, and she let me paint it.  To be fair, there are a lot of tedious areas on this model (is this the inside, or the outside?  Where do these mouths end?), and THEN I noticed all those EYES...

Hidden inside the faceless horror, there is a skeleton; presumably the remains of someone eaten by this monster.