Reaper Miniature's Goblins - 77024

Here's the group of 12 minis together to form the dungeon goblin army for a D&D game.

Painted in three separate groups:

• Goblins with maces
• Goblins with spears
• Goblins with bows

Reaper's Goblins 3 - 77024

The third and final 4 of 12 goblins that came with the Reapers Bones Kickstarter.  These are the bow goblins.  The actual 77024 comes with a total of 6 - 2 each of mace, spear, and bow.  The painting of all three sets of goblins was exactly the same.  As I was painting 12 of them, the point was to create a theme of goblins (as if they were a tribe) with the same color characteristics.  I did this using standard army painting techniques of basecoat, wash, and drybrush.

Painting instructions for Goblins (all three sets):

Step 01: Undercoat model with black paint (not primer - it will eat into the plastic and cause tackiness)
Step 02: Use Blood Red on skin
Step 03: Drybrush Blazing Orange
Step 04: Use Vermin Brown on all leather
Step 05: Use Bleached Bone on bows, spears, club shaft, arrow feathers, coat/boot fur
Step 06: Use Gunmetal on all metal parts, armor, mace head, spear head
Step 07: Wash entire model with watered down Sepia ink
Step 08: Drybrush skin highlights with Fiery Orange
Step 09: Drybrush skin final highlights with Golden Yellow
Step 10: Wash all skin areas with watered down Red ink
Step 11: Use watered down Bleached Bone on bows, spears, club shaft as highlights
Step 12: Drybrush Bleached Bone on arrow feathers and coat/boot fur
Step 13: Drybrush Codex Grey on base
Step 14: Drybrush Fortress Grey on base
Step 15: Drybrush Skull White on base

Kickstarter paint total - 39 + 4 bow goblins = 43

Reaper's Goblins 2 - 77024

Merry Christmas!  A great time to paint and get some more off the workbench.

The second 4 of 12 goblins that came with the Reapers Bones Kickstarter.  These are the spear goblins - I now only have the bow goblins (4 more) to finish.  The actual 77024 comes with a total of 6 - 2 each of mace, spear, and bow.

Kickstarter paint total - 35 + 4 spear goblins = 39

Reaper's Goblins - 77024

The first 4 of 12 goblins that came with the Reapers Bones Kickstarter.  These are the mace goblins - I have the spear goblins and bow goblins (4 each) about half way done.  The actual 77024 comes with a total of 6 - 2 each of mace, spear, and bow.

Kickstarter paint total - 31 + 4 club goblins = 35

Reaper's Eli Quicknight - 2425

 

Welcome to Black Friday!  I did my annual mecca to Best Buy in order to oogle at various electronic devices and to get a feel for the latest trends - I'm really impressed with two - the all-in-one pc is back, but this time it really works as it's a flat touch-screen with wireless keyboard and mouse (I'm not into the metro design or whatever Microsoft is calling it these days, but I think it works well on these new devices) - the second trend that impressed me was the boom to wireless speakers with wifi control (fifteen years ago I had a set of Bose speakers ceiling mounted professionally in the main tv room with wires running to the central controls - an expense no longer necessary).  There's a third trend and I think next year it will really take off, everything attached to wifi with the ability to control all devices via the web or your smartphone.  After a bit of browsing, I picked up a couple cheap movies and then hurried home to paint.

I thought about tackling my prepped Kickstarter goblins, but I decided as I had the afternoon/evening to myself that I'd crank out a complete miniature - so back to the good old metal and the figure Eli Quicknight from Reaper Miniatures.

Painting instructions for Eli Quicknight:

Step 01: Undercoat model with black primer
Step 02: Use Dark Angels Green on shirt and pants
Step 03: Use mix of Chaos Black and Scab Red on cloak
Step 04: Use Bronzed Flesh on face and hands
Step 05: Use Sepia ink watered down on face and hands
Step 06: Highlight face and hands with Bronzed Flesh
Step 07: Use Scorched Brown on leather armor and boots
Step 08: Use Leprous Brown on leather belt straps and rope
Step 09: Use Sepia ink watered down on leather belt straps
Step 10: Further highlight face and hands with Elf Flesh
Step 11: Final highlight of face and hands with Pallid Flesh
Step 12: Use Snot Green as initial highlights on shirt and pants
Step 13: Use Scorpion Green as final highlights on shirt and pants
Step 14: Use Bestial Brown as highlights on leather armor and boots
Step 15: Use Snakebite Leather as final highlights on leather armor and boots
Step 16: Drybrush Bleached Bone on rope
Step 17: Use Enchanted Blue on liquid vial
Step 18: Highlight liquid vial with Lightning Blue
Step 19: Final highlights on liquid vial with Ice Blue
Step 20: Use Scab Red on cloak
Step 21: Use Red Gore on cloak for highlights
Step 22: Use Blood Red on cloak for final highlights
Step 23: Use Bronze on sword handles and cloak pin
Step 24: Use Gunmetal on swords
Step 25: Drybrush Codex Grey on base
Step 26: Drybrush Fortress Grey on base
Step 27: Drybrush Skull White on base
Step 28: Clean up sides of base with Chaos Black

Reaper's Skeletal Archer - 77018

Nothing overly exciting about these skeletons - more cannon fodder for first level characters.  The Kickstarter included two while a package of 77018 will include three.  I didn't invest a lot of time on these - quick sets of drybrushes, a wash, and set into one inch bases from Fortress Figures.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kickstarter painted total - I was at 26 at last count, +1 for the Marsh Troll and +4 skeletals = 31

There's now actually a little bit of space on my desk!

Reaper's Skeletal Swordsman - 77017

Nothing overly exciting about these skeletons - more cannon fodder for first level characters.  The Kickstarter included two while a package of 77017 will include three.  I didn't invest a lot of time on these - quick sets of drybrushes, a wash, and set into one inch bases from Fortress Figures.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Goblins Webcomic...

This weekend I prepped up a dozen goblins from the first Reaper Kickstarter and I jumped on the net for a bit of inspiration.  The Reaper goblins are quite a bit taller than the third edition D&D miniatures put out by Wizards and they have this great elongated face that reminds me of the Green Goblin from the Spiderman comic books and shows.  I did find a fantastic paintjob by a guy called Crowmire located on the Warseer website (see post 11).  I'm going to stick with a more traditional D&D color of a dark red / burnt orange / pale yellow - so look forward to that in a later post.

However... the point of this posting, in my search for goblin color schemes I came across a webcomic called Goblins located at www.goblinscomic.org which I must say is an excellent read.  If you haven't come across this before then start at the beginning of the Goblins story.  I wasn't much into comic books as a kid, but this webcomic puts me back in early high school around 1983/84 - there was a series of what was unique 8-1/2x11 full color comic books called Elfquest (boy would I still like to have my original copies of those books - along with my blue box D&D set, my first edition AD&D hardcovers, and my box of little metal/lead men and monsters).

Shaqtila

Reaper rarely names their monsters - so I left this one on the painting table when I was finished last week and had to come up with a name - I didn't want to put marsh troll on the base.

A lot of early D&D was a bit of tongue in cheek humor and with that in mind I finally decided to name my Reaper Marsh Troll (77152)... SHAQTILA - my unique take on Shaqzilla as this monster looks a bit like a blend between Shaq and Godzilla!

Reaper's Marsh Troll - 77152

Staying with the big stuff but moving back to the pvc plastic - here is the Marsh Troll from the original Reaper Miniature's Kickstarter.  I think this one is unique in that there is not a metal master from which this mini was derived that I can find - I do believe that this sculpt originated as part of the Kickstarter and has only been produced in the new pvc plastic.

I went to town on this Friday night and then finished off some drybrushing on the base after the Monday night football game.  Again, my goal on these products is to produce a fast, efficient, game worthy paintjob and in that light I do no prep work to the model other than to put it on a base.  In this case it's the 2" base from Games Workshop (technically I think it's a 50mm monster base).  That covers the correct basing for a D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder role-playing game.

For the most part the camera shots came out pretty well - I was able to shoot it up using digital macro and the club gets a little blurry in the picks as it has a greater depth of field than the macro focus.

Painting Instructions for Marsh Troll:

A quick note on basecoating - I don't think I've mentioned in my previous posts - but when I used the spray primer there was a bit of tackiness that never went away on the first couple of bones figures that I painted.  While doing some research I came across some articles on the Reaper forums how others experienced the same thing.  The paint characteristics that work really well for metal don't work the same for this pvc material - what happens is that the primer actually eats into the pvc and doesn't completely dry - that's the tackiness.  It's best to use a straight black undercoat from your acrylic paint sets - just slightly watered down (not too much or it won't stick).  I've used that to great effect on my later models using a giant fat brush that I stole from my kids art set - works great.

In this case I actually did what Reaper recommends or at least states - that you can paint straight on the figure - while I found this true that you can, I really had to give it two coats to get the initial coverage that I wanted.  I used a double-coating of Reaper's Clouded Sea for the skin, Vallejo's Game Color Heavy Red for the plating, and Vallejo's version of Scorched Brown for the leather, fur, and cloth bits.

The paintjob is a combination of layering, drybrushing, and blending techniques...

I continued adding Skull White to the Clouded Sea and added a couple of layers to the skin until I ended up with the highlighting that I wanted.

The belly was carefully blended using Clouded Sea and Rotting Flesh - drawing the Clouded Sea color into the Rotting Flesh so that the highlight of the sagging belly was pure Rotting Flesh.

Next I used a combination of drybrushing on the plates which stick up starting with Blazing Orange, Golden Yellow, and then Skull White.

On the scales across the back, arms, and legs I used a drybrushing of Fiery Orange to which I then proceeded to add Skull White layer after layer - this gave me a cool orangey/pink/white highlight effect.

The fur was drybrushed Vermin Brown and Leprous Brown.

The leather was painted up with Snakebite Leather and Bubonic Brown highlights.

The club was Bestial Brown with highlights of Bubonic Brown and washed with Sepia ink.

The club spikes and finger/toe nails were done up with Bubonic Brown, Bleached Bone, then washed with Sepia ink, then highlighted with Bleached Bone and then a mix with Skull White.

The cloth was a layer of Dark Angels Green and then Snot Green for highlights followed with a final highlight of Scorpion Green.

The front loincloth was Bad Moon Yellow followed by a heavy wash of Sepia ink.

The final touch to the model was to drybrush the base - Codex Grey, Fortress Grey, and then a touch of Skull White.

Reaper's Skeletal Dragon - 2705

Back to the metal!  While the plastics are a great choice for inexpensive miniatures, there's just nothing like pulling out the heavy metal and rocking the gaming board.  This is Reaper Miniatures' Skeletal Dragon sculpted by Bob Olley.  A fantastic sculpt and a dragon that I just can't wait to animate on a group of "up to no good" heroes.

Painting instructions for Skeletal Dragon (Draco Osseus):

Step 01: Undercoat model with black primer
Step 02: Use Vomit Brown on all the bones
Step 03: Wash with Sepia ink (from Vallejo)
Step 04: Drybrush bones with Vomit Brown
Step 05: Drybrush bones with Bleached Bone
Step 06: Drybrush bones with Skull White hightlights
Step 07: Use Desert Yellow on wings
Step 08: Wash wings with watered down Graveyard Earth
Step 09: Drybrush wings with Rotting Flesh
Step 10: Drybrush base with Codex Grey
Step 11: Drybrush base with Fortress Grey
Step 12: Drybrush base with Skull White highlights

Larry Leadhead

Larry Leadhead was one of my favorite running series of gaming cartoons by Doug Hamm & Eric Hotz.  Several years there was a link on this site as the top most blog post (I changed the date to Dec. 31st each year) to their larryleadhead.org website which had an on-line cartoon that the cartoonists would automatically shuffle.  Then for a long time it was the same cartoon and several months ago the website seized to exist and nothing would post on this blogpost.  I don't know what happened but I suppose all good things must come to an end.

So, in memory of Larry Leahead, I've taken a picture of two strips which I've had taped appropriately to my "to be painted" shelf.

The first strip is actually dated the later of the two (September 3rd, 2010) and depicts Larry purchasing a castle, then the castle guard, and then an army before announcing that his workbench should be cleared right after the funeral.

The second printout is a very early strip (January 30th, 2001) which shows what happens if you actually paint all your figures - and between Reaper's Kickstarter and Kickstarter II, like the cartoon, I too should get to 147 years old.

Reaper Re-Basing Project

Over the weekend I did a quick re-basing and touch-up project - the above three miniatures were originally painted back in November of 2000 for the Jason Moses Chick Challenge.  They've each gone through a number of Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and on their original Reaper "cauliflower" base were prone to tipping over and getting badly nicked up (I didn't start basing on Reaper's one inch base until April 2003 with Kang which was done for a D&D 3.0 campaign I was playing as a half-orc rogue).

I touched up the chips and based them on one inch bases.  Additionally, those early paints weren't sprayed with any type of protection.  Since then, all gaming models get a hit of Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch matte clear (found at Home Depot) which puts a nice protective layer over the model.  When that dries I hit it with a coat of GW's matte varnish as that provides a much better flat/matte finish (but doesn't protect as well as the Painter's Touch).

Between the proper basing and the double-layer of varnish they should be ready to go for many more campaigns!

Original posts...
Brianna of the Blade - Reaper 2267
Liarra Silverrain - Reaper 2155
Shaedra, Heroine - Reaper 2393

Reaper's Rats - 77016

Well rats!  Just like the kobolds - I'll apologize for the pictures up front - I took about two dozen and just haven't figured out how to get the best lighting and macro pictures for a group this size.  Above are the best 2 picks of the bunch and hopefully between the two you get the idea.

Updated picture 11/08/2013 - much clearer...

The Reaper Kickstarter came with a dozen rats - four each of three different poses - I based them up each a bit different to hopefully look like there's a bit more variety.  You can currently order a set of bones for $3.49 and you'll get six.  The pre-painted Legendary Encounters comes in a pack of three - so six will run you $11.98.  The original metals are in the Legends line and there's actually a fourth sculpt in the package (with the rat's head down on the ground) - the price of the package of four is $6.99 - or about $10.50 if extrapolating out to six minis for comparison.

I also based these and the kobolds on the smaller Games Workshop Warhammer bases - they're about the right size for this sort of model - I thought about putting them on a one inch base and the miniature gets lost in the basing.

Talking about bases... a shout out to all the Creative Memories scrapbookers out there - two years ago I started putting names on the miniature base.  On my first miniatures the names were put on painstakingly with paint and a really tiny brush - then, with all those kobolds last month, I stole my wife's Creative Memories fine tip pen and that worked well (much, much easier than paint) - last week I happened to be at a craft store and thought it would be nice to give my wife back her pen; so I picked up a Marvy Le Pen fine tip and the ink bled when spraying the matte varnish - guess my wife isn't getting her Creative Memories pen back (sorry honey).

Painting these was a straight forward endeavor - grey, brown, white - wash - drybrush - done.  12 rats to devour a first level party of adventurers - I can see it now - you hear scratching and squeaking coming from a crack in the wall - roll for intiative...

round 1 - three rats
round 2 - three rats (expected)
round 3 - three more rats (unexpected)
round 4 - just in case the party didn't get enough - 3 more rats

Should be able to get at least one dead party member out of that encounter.  Who needs encounter tables - every good DM should take the opportunity to use every miniature in the box :-)

2 skels + 12 kobolds + 12 rats = 26!

Reaper's Kobolds - 77010

Sorry about the picture - trying to capture 12 kobolds at the macro level with the right lighting and all in focus is darn near impossible - but I gave it my best shot and maybe I'll play with the camera and lighting some more another day - this is the best of about two dozen shots.

This group of a dozen kobolds along with the 5 from the raiders set gives me a total of 17 kobolds to drop on an unsuspecting party - can we say TPK?

2 skeletons and 12 kobolds = 14 from the Kickstarter - still hundreds more to go, but that's at least a dent.

Reaper's Kobold Raiders - 2470

I purchased the Kobold Raiders quite awhile back and they've been sitting on my "too be painted" shelf - a dozen other brothers in the Kickstarter has me blowing the dust off this set.  I really dig the these little guys and they're the first miniatures I've painted sculpted by Ben Siens.  I actually have quite a few of his sculpts sitting around and look forward to getting them painted (there were quite a number of his in the Kickstarter) - he sculpts a lot of classic monsters for Reaper - lizardmen, bugbears, trolls, golems, goblins, ghouls, and ghasts.

I pulled these down because the Kickstarter included 12 kobolds based off of three of his sculpts (4 of each).  With the four standard sized kobolds and the mighty kobold, I can put 17 of those little guys on the board.  There's also another four pack (Reaper 3064) with some different poses and a leader & sorcerer pack (Reaper 3024) - might need to get my hands on those and I'll have a proper grouping to complete a nice entry level dungeon scenario.

Here's a good opportunity to make a quick note on the metal versus bones pvc in regards to detail.  On the standard size and especially the larger size monsters, the bones pvc product does a great job of presenting detail that's certainly acceptable for tabletop gaming.  I have a number of duplicates of medium and large sizes where I had the metal version and the same figure was part of the bones Kickstarter - they're really quite comparable.  As the figure size decreases, and these kobolds are small, you can really see the difference in the detail - the metal versions of these kobolds are much sharper than the bones pvc counterparts.

In my case I don't care about the differences - when painted up and looked at on the gaming table the players aren't going to notice which are pvc and which are metal.  They're just going to say !*&^%$ when I drop 17 kobolds on their first level ass and run for the hills.

However, if you're going to spend 50 hours on that award winning paint job - start off using a metal mini.

Reaper's Skeletal Spearmen - 77001

   

Nothing overly exciting about these skeletons other than they're officially numbered as the first of the Reaper Bones miniature line (fitting - skeletons - bones) at 77001.  They're also the first miniatures I've painted from the Kickstarter - so two down and hundreds more to go!  The Kickstarter included two while a package of 77001 will include three.  I didn't invest a lot of time on these - quick sets of drybrushes, a wash, and set into one inch bases from Fortress Figures.

Again, I can't say enough about the value of these new Bones - a three pack will cost the gamer $4.99 - whereas the pre-painted Legendary Encounters will go for $8.49 - and if you want them in the Legends metal line it will set you back $10.35.

Being a bit critical here - the long shafts of the spear on these Bones lines just won't get and stay straight.  Even after using the boil and ice method I still can't get the spears to be the way I want them - which is quite possible with metal.  However, these guys are going to be cannon fodder to all but the lowliest first level adventurers - they're designed to be placed on the mat and swept off.

Game's Workshop's Wraith 3

I absolutely love some of Game Workshop's older skeletons and wraiths that were sculpted pre-2000.  The old Vampire Counts models were a mixed bag in my opinion.  There were some models like the wights, necromancers, and banshees that just looked ridiculous - kinda like skeletons going to a Mardi-Gras.  There were other sculpts during the same time period that were just fantastic and I've wanted to pull into a Dungeons & Dragons game.

I have the Citadel Miniatures 2000 Annual that had all the GW miniatures in production at the time.  The Armoured Skeletons on the bottom of pages 336 are awesome and I've painted up skeleton 3 and skeleton 5.  Would love to get my hands on a few more such as sculpts 1, 2, and 4 and make a proper five piece unit out of them that I can drop on adventurers - they all have a bit of heavy armour (british spelling) and a bad-ass halberd to give out some damage.

In that same book a few pages later - page 343 to be exact - is a set of wraiths with a killer scythe.  My favorite of these has been wraith 3 and I picked him up as GW blister pack 8572G for $5.49 over a decade ago and he's been sitting on my shelf (last time I saw this figure at the GW store it was in the high teens - crazy prices for a single figure).  I love the flowing robes and the way the sculpt floats above the base - I've kinda had this Scooby-Doo vision in my mind of a ghostly wraith floating down the castle halls chasing intrepid adventurers to their doom.

Therefore, unlike similar Reaper models (skeleton/ghost with sword, skeleton ghost) I painted this up as vision of a blue ghost including the robes, head, and weapon.  I started with enchanted blue as the base color and kept adding skull white with each layer until I was satisfied that I had captured the right look.  I also tossed out the tiny base and put him on a GW one inch base with my standard dungeon look and the name "Harvester".

The Citadel book says the miniatures on page 343 were designed by Michael Perry and Trish Morrison - doesn't specify who did wraith 3.

Reaper's Dwarf Warrior - 77011

Another Reaper Bones model - sculpting was done by Werner Klocke  - and he's a pretty good size for a dwarf - definitely fills the role as the big time warrior or even the king.  This is a model was pre-Kickstarter and I purchased new in package at my local gaming store for $1.99.  It's the same model as the Legendary Encounters pre-painted figure 20034 sold for $4.99 and matches up with the Warlord model 14146 for $6.49 in metal.

This figure does very well in its Bones incarnation - the detail works quite well all the way around - about the only area of issue was the little bit of mail on the front.  I based him on a plastic base from Fortress Figures - see my other post on square 1" plastic bases from Fortress Figures - they're really going to be useful when I get through my Kickstarter models.

The miniature was painted from a black undercoat.  Unfortunately I didn't really keep track of the painting process on this one as it's a Bones model and now that there's a few hundred minis sitting on my desk... I've been trying to paint to a really good tabletop standard, but at the same time be quick (quick for me anyways).  I used the layering techniques - so the red beard was done red gore, blood red, blazing orange - the coat was scorched brown, bestial brown, vermin brown, and then bleached bone.

Minions - Miniatures of Another Sort

While not exactly miniature painting, they are miniatures of another sort...  we'll call it miniature baking!

My daughter baked Despicable Me Minions for my youngest son's birthday - he turned 7.  I thought they were awesome enough to throw up here on my miniature painting page to share with everyone.  And yes, those were real twinkies!  Most likely one of the first batches after the great twinkie shutdown.

Enjoy!