Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Ronul's End

 

Now that I've completed a couple more minis and projects off my desk it is back to the Hexton Hills project with Ronul's End. This extends the North Bay into the main continental land mass with the town of Ronul's End as the showcase of the area. This also will complete the peninsula of the North Bay Lighthouse.

The only bit missing for Ronul's End is a ship - I think the rumor is that Ronul was a pirate that retired in Aglarion and married a mermaid. His own ship was run aground at the end of the pier so that half of it is in the water in order for his wife to have a method of discreetly socializing with her mermaid relatives. I'm going to need to fire up the 3D printer and see how tiny of a ship I can create.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex completes the northern gap in the second ring around the city of Onadbyr - it's just to the north of the city in the North Bay just past the Tomb of the Constructor and its southeast hex token completes the Lighthouse...

Obelisk

 

One of the more interesting and intriguing ideas Wizards of the Coast did in their 5e adventures was to place a mysterious obelisk within the adventure. Individually they're just an interesting location with some having more powerful attributes than others but not key to the singular plot of that adventure. However, taken together over time there is potentially a plot that these are the artifacts holding back vast evil. I think the Witcher books, video games, and Netflix film series had a similar somewhat magical obelisk like monoliths that controlled magical power and teleportation. One of the obelisks located in the adventure Out of the Abyss has teleportation powers as well.

I came across these while perusing Makerworld for D&D type of items and figured I'd print these off as they can be used in all sorts of tabletop terrain from D&D to Warhammer battles.

The shorter version is actually the original. Then I did some experimenting where I kept the X and Y dimensions of the base the same but then extruded upwards the Z axis within the software. Overall, there is something else interesting, well a bit of a problem actually and I couldn't figure it out. It's hard to tell because of the flat black (which is purposeful), but one side of the inner panels has a glitch which is almost scarlike. I printed the original version first and thought huh. Then I printed the modified version and that ended up with the same scarlike glitch but on the opposite panel. That makes no sense. 

I airbrushed a flat black and then brush painted the runes using Reaper's Retro Emerald #09694 I picked up several years ago at the Reapercon event.

Wizkids Murder Hornets - WZK90592

 

Living in Texas, I'd say these minis from Wizkids are 1:1 scale. These were a basic paint with the brushes (no airbrush). The pair of hornets weren't bad to paint as the miniature comes separate from the stand. The queen hornet is a bit of a pain - I wish they elevated her a bit with a stand - is was super difficult to try and paint the bottom side of the mini.

I have to go back a ways since the last time I painted something straight up that wasn't airbrushed or hanging around the desk for awhile.

Painting instructions for Murder Hornets (used Vallejo paints)...

Step 1: Used Earth on the bases
Step 2: Used Sun Yellow on the entire hornet
Step 3: Used a very watered down wash of Sun Yellow on the clear plastic wings to stain them
Step 4: Used Black on hornet bodies
Step 5: Used Black Wash over everything but the wings
Step 6: wasn't happy with the Black Wash on the yellow so re-touched the yellow with Sun Yellow

These were from the Deepcuts line.

Reaper Miniatures Foo Dog - 77410

 

I needed a test figure for a 3D printed item that is going to be airbrushed in gold. Looking at my unpainted Bones shelf, this mini stood out as the perfect set piece to be a golden statue.

So this was pretty easy - airbrush with Glorious Gold, then airbrush with Umber Wash, then drybrush with Polished Gold. Pretty happy with the way this turned out and I'll follow those steps on my 3D printed item.

Kickstarter paint total 227 + 1 Foo Dog = 228

Reaper Miniatures Honaire, Spirit - 60199

 

I did a no-no, sort of - I experimented on a metal mini vs. a plastic mini - again, a victim of having blue paint in the airbrush, lol.

This metal miniature was sculpted by Bobby Jackson - his sculpts are always great - for the Pathfinder product line and I think in the Pathfinder lore this particular ghost is full green. I've already done that with Reaper's Cairn Wraith.

Instead I hit this with various shades of blue as I was airbrushing my Hexton Hills project (after a prime coat of white as this is a metal model). I only did the swirly bits with the blue and then I gave it a wash with Vallejo Blue Wash. I used Vallejo Silver on the upper portions. 

Then, I've had this fun paint color from Reaper called Retro Frost Satin which is a bit of a metallic silverish light blue. I placed that on my palette and watered it down to almost a wash - then I hit the silver on the model hard like a wash and blended down into the blue just a bit to bring the blue and silver together.  On the face I used Vallejo's Pale Flesh with highlights of Dead White.

NextLevel Miniatures - Callous Troll Alternative Paint

 

Wow - March 1st already - two months gone in 2025.

When I purchased a group of NextLevel Miniatures from Miniature Market I picked up two of the Callous Troll models because I thought it was an interesting model and I'd try to give each a different paint jobs. I didn't realize at the time exactly how that was going to occur, but like the original Callous Troll, this was a result of what was leftover in the airbrush pot. As I've been painting my Hexton Hills project, I just completed a very large section of water and there was plenty of opportunity to spray various shades of blue.

I like the look of these guys - looking forward to using them on the table in an upcoming D&D session.

Reaper Miniatures Bone Fiend - 91007

 

Some more fun with leftover green in the airbrush paint pot. This model was first sprayed with Dark Green, then highlights of Sick Green, and finally Light Livery Green. Once that was completed I went back in with a drybrush (the Golden Maple soft round brushes - described in earlier posts) of Bonewhite leaving the green inside to represent the energy empowering this fiendish collection of bones.

This is another miniature that gets brutalized in its conversion from metal to the Bones material. As a DM that's okay as it's just another monster in the way of my player's goals which they'll quickly dispose of within a few rounds. Bones is $2.99 while the metal is $6.99 as of this posting.

Kickstarter paint total 226 + 1 Bone Fiend = 227

Reaper Miniatures Arran Rabin, Human Wizard - 77209

 

These two models were quite a few years in the making. They're the same Bones model and both have been used for experimental purposes. This model is made from the Bones material and it really lost some fidelity from the original metal model - for a DM to use as a NPC, this is good enough - if I was going to use the model as a player then I'd recommend ponying up the few extra dollars for the metal model - also, lol, the metal model is named Arran Rabin, Half-Elf Rogue - so human or half-elf, wizard or rogue - your choice!

The version with the square base started out in 2017 at ReaperCon where I participated in a class on utilizing the stippling techniques. Two different methods - one method is to use the tip of the brush to generate dots - a highlight and shadow effect could be done be stippling the dots closer together or more spread out. The second method is to use small stripes - again, more stripes for highlights. Each gives a different type of fur effect when complete. While the results are rather interesting, it's quite a manual process and not one that I've repeated to any great extent.

The version with the round base started about a year ago simply as an experiment in airbrushing - I wanted to see if I could spray various layers on the cloak from a dark red to a light red - essentially the same process as using a paintbrush. This was my first utilization of the Badger Super Fine Detail needle in the airbrush - the one with a black ball on the end. For the most part it was a successful test - there's a couple areas where the air blows out the paint into almost a bubble or lake effect. It's a bit of art and science - turning down the air pressure helps but that requires thinner paint (using Vallejo's thinner and flow) but too thin and the paint will have a spider effect on the model. It's definitely possible - I think cloaks this size are about the limit on the small size for an airbrush. The airbrush is really good for base layers of miniature models. I've been looking at other airbrushes that might change my opinion later as I get more experience under my belt.

As to the remainder of the models - these both sat on my desk and whenever I had some additional paint remaining I would throw it on one model or the other. You always need a few in-process NPC models to throw extra paint at - I feel like I might have a few too many as 8 years is a long time.

One more lol, the square base was printed on my first 3D printer from several years ago - at the time I thought that was pretty good - now looking at it, ugh - 3D printing has come a long way.

 Kickstarter paint total 224 + 2 Arran Rabin, Human Wizard = 226

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Eastern Length

 

The eastern length of the map uses individual pieces of border which is perhaps my only unfavorite/disappointment to date with the Hexton Hills hex tokens. Each bit of border and each half-hex are unique. Ideally, you'd want a single piece that incorporates 2 or 3 combinations of the border piece with the half-hex. The individual pieces are not only more difficult to work with but they aren't as sturdy when snapped together - they really just want to fall apart - if it wasn't for the magnets on the magnetic whiteboard it would just fall apart.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then the combination of these hex tokens generate the eastern border of the map from the corner up to the North Bay...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Point of No Return

Let's all sing together - how long to the point of no return! We finally got there - the southeast corner of the map.  I wanted to have a bit of fun here and mimic the idea of many historical mapmakers (and the Kansas album I grew up with as a kid) when the world was thought to be flat and make the edge a ship falling off. I found a really well done 3D print of a ship that is supposed to be a game token and scaled it down to fit on a hex.

The falling off was the hard part as the water token is the lowest point of all the hex tokens so it's not possible to physically change the hex tokens. Using some blu-tac I set the ship at about a 35 degree angle. I need to think more about it before permanently using superglue to lock it in place. Maybe painting a bit of a white water edge where the ship is angled and then using a dark blue on the other side of that edge to represent the ship falling into the abyss? I can come back to this at a later date.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this set of hex tokens represents the southeast corner of the map...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Sea Horse Cove

 

Fun with a seahorse! The seahorse represents a section of the map called Sea Horse Cove - a bit of a play on words with it representing a difference from the Calhay Sea. This tile is actually a tile and a half-tile along with the first piece of border on the map.

The borders were airbrushed Black and then, maybe regretfully because it's a lot of work to handpaint and then fix any mistakes, I decided to paint Vallejo's new Stonewall Grey on the indentions (I mention  "new" because the latest version of Stonewall Grey is more grey than the old version which matched up with Games Workshop's Fortress Grey which had more white in it). Each bump and each indention represents individually approximately 2 miles of scale on the map.

The width borders from Hexton Hills are actually quite nice. Not only do they have longer pieces but those pieces include the top piece of hex integrated into the 3D print making a really tight and nice solid piece to interlock the other hex tokens together. The length tokens, that's another subject coming up in another post - let's just say they're a real pain.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex starts the completion of the sea to the borders. I want to get all the sea complete as it represents the southeast corner of the map and then I can use that point as the starting point on the magnetic whiteboard and work in the -x and -y directions...