Reaper Miniatures Mummy - 77144

 

This was fun and another 100% airbrush (except for basing). As I noted on my previous post, airbrush is awesome fun and contagious - once you get started you just start pulling stuff to spray. So I was spraying green land on the hex tokens, which led to using the green on a turtle dragon, which led to using red terracotta on the turtle dragon shell, which led to using that on barbed devils, which needed bonewhite highlighting which led to mummies!

After pushing these off to the side and getting back to my Hexton Hills map project, I eventually came back to the mummies. Now normally this would call for a brush and a wash - this is the perfect model for that - I wonder if I can airbrush a wash - yes, yes, and yes!! I dropped some Vallejo Umber Wash into the airbrush and sprayed, it worked awesome! I could direct the wash to exactly where I wanted it to go, and the air pressure from the airbrush pushes the wash into the grooves and prevents coffee stains, bubbles, and other brush issues when working with washes. Talking about air pressure - I did lower to about 8-10psi vs the normal 18-20psi I regularly shoot with.

Now I'm excited about experimenting with Vallejo's Xpress paints and shooting those out of an airbrush - going to have to give that a test.

One other note, this bones model transferred over from the metal (2156) rather well as the grooves between wraps are quite good. Not bad as you can order the bones model in a three-pack for $6.99 while one metal will set you back the same $6.99. The only problem is bones classic material and the legs are very bendy. If your rpg adventure only has a single mummy as the main antagonist in a dungeon crawl then splurge for the metal; but if you're building an army, then a whole bunch of bones classics and an airbrush is a great way to get lots of models on the table fast. Final thought... Reaper has a bunch of great looking mummy models in its metal Legends and Warlord Nefsokar line that hasn't made it to a bones material as of yet.

Kickstarter paint total 214 + 4 Mummies = 218

Wizkids Barbed Devils - WZK90416

 

Time flies when you're having fun is the saying - I'm surprised that it's been a year since I last opened a Wizkids pre-primed blister pack to paint. Last Wizkids mini was the raging troll from January 2024 when I had the Vallejo Xpress paints vs Testors Dullcote massacre.

So this is, with the exception of the base and the flame, 100% an airbrush painted miniature. With the work I've been doing on the Hexton Hills hex tokens, I'm getting more comfortable using the airbrush in smaller and smaller spaces. I was airbrushing a dragon turtle (coming soon) and using Red Terracotta when I had some extra paint in the pot - so it appears that's my current method to the madness lately - I'm airbrush one model, have extra paint left over, and then find a second or even a third model to airbrush, lol. I think that airbrushing is so much fun and fast - spraying paint is contagious and once I get going with a color I don't want to stop.

I figured the Red Terracotta was the perfect base color for these barbed devils. The packaging has a computer based paint image and uses a bone color as highlights for the chest, stomach, and tail. I did similar getting out the Bonewhite and spraying a highlight all over the model. I didn't exactly like how that turned out so I hit the Bonewhite with Bloody Red everywhere except the chest and stomach. A light spray of the Bloody Red on top of the Bonewhite gave this great highlight. Then I sprayed a splash of Hot Orange on the head.

Another simple technique which I had heard about but never done was masking an area with blue-tac. The flame in one of the hands is a clear piece - I had an idea of using the Xpress color on that but first I wanted to make sure that I didn't get any spray on it. Others said blue-tac was good for that (and I have a bunch of blue-tac as the models are tac'd onto a wooden spindle for painting) - I grabbed a bit of blue-tac - smooshed it flat and then surrounded the clear flame. It worked very well - when finished the blue-tac peeled off and I could use the clump of blue-tac to dab into stuck bits to get them off the clear plastic.

The clear plastic was painted with Xpress colors and I used the inverse layering technique - Xpress colors have to be layered light to dark instead of dark to light. First using Imperial Yellow over the entire flame. Then, Martian Orange from the top to about 2/3rds of the way down. Finally, Plasma Red from the top to about 1/3rd of the way down.

Standard basing on an inverted Reaper base and called it done. Overall a very quick and great way to get a set of miniatures ready for the table. One more point about fun... I noted a year ago how much more fun it was using the drybrush technique using the super soft drybrush brushes from Golden Maple 6 piece drybrush set when I painted the Ar-Grush using their brushes for the first time - I was reminded tonight when drybrushing the base how easy that was versus using the old hard bristled drybrushes. Between the airbrush and the soft drybrushes, getting miniatures off the "to-do" shelf onto the "done" shelf is easy and fun.

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Willow Creek

 

The farming and woodcutter communities come together in the town of Willow Creek which sits in the heartland of the Onadbyr Plains and the Willow Creek Plains. While the hex token for Willow Creek sits in the upper corner of this hex, there will be plenty of farmland all around when all the hex pieces come together.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex is going to sit northwest of the mountain Tomb of the Constructor and continues the second hex ring around Onadbyr like so...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - The Mud Funnels

 

We start to head one more hex out in all directions from Onadbyr starting with a continuation of the River Nenock to the northwest.This is an interesting tile as you have the tip of the swamp to the south and to the northeast is the southern tip of the Onadbyr Plains which is like the breadbasket states in the US. The Nenock river divides the two feature sets. Technically the Kings Road runs along the northern side of the river. Due to the scale I'm working at with the limits of the Hexton Hills set (ie - there's no hex token with a river and a road running parallel to the river), I'm going to think about painting in the road at a later date. Also, my players have a map which has the road on it - these tiles provide additional feature/encounter detail and perhaps events that occur which they're not aware.

One of those events is the mud funnels - the title to this post - this event occurs on the very center hex token. As it's an event and not a terrain feature, I didn't paint it in - but I might run another 3D print of the center hex token and paint it up a bit differently. We'll see and I'll decide that later. Since the hex tokens are magnetized being careful of using the same polarity, I can snap another hex right on top and the magnets will hold it into place at the time the event occurs.

There are some new colors added to the palette here...

* the swamp hex token. I'm using the same Ultramarine base color but I'm mottling it with an old Reaper Master Series color called Clouded Sea (technically I think you can still order it but you have to purchase 12 bottles as a special order of 9194). I received this color long ago when I purchased some mini's direct - many times Reaper will throw an extra something in the package and this color quickly became one of my favorites. This hex is again interesting because the river hex token have the Ultramarine base highlighted with Electric blue and gives a very different look than the same Ultramarine base mottled with Clouded Sea which gives off a dark/mysterious atmosphere. 

* the farm fields - looking at overland maps of US agriculture there are golden yellow fields but also green fields and red/orange fields (I have no idea what crop that is but it looks cool). There's so much green already on all the various hex tokens so I wanted to limit the amount of additional green. The bright red is also unique and therefore limited as well. The red/orange is Vallejo's Hot Orange which is brush painted and the field green is Vallejo's Goblin Green base with a light coat of Escorpena Green - the reason for the mix is Goblin Green is too much like the Sick Green base and Escorpena Green is too close to Light Livery Green used as grassland highlights and on the deciduous trees - using Goblin/Escorpena Greens together gives a textured color that's easy to replicate across many hex tokens.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex is going to sit northwest of Onadbyr and part of a second hex ring around Onadbyr like so...

Reaper Miniatures Deathsleet - 77110

 

Wow! What a great dragon by Sandra Garrity - is just too bad they don't make this one in metal or at least bones black. This was an original Kickstarter and according to Reaper's website at the time of this publishing it's still only in "classic" bones. So you lost some details in the eyes and teeth but the real problem is that this model doesn't want to stand in "classic" bones as the pvc material doesn't have enough stability to it. I found I was able to super glue the feet to the base in a bit of a wider stance.

However, that didn't keep the model from wanting to fall backwards to the right - 3D printing to the rescue! I found an appropriate "rock" from the collection which had a groove in it. I then scaled it down to fit right where the tale goes into the groove to keep the model upright and look natural.

This is a "huge" model which is based appropriately on a 3" round base from Reaper. The last couple of pictures show the scale. The sorceress and the cleric are medium size on a 1" base. The Owlbear is considered large on a 2" base. Then there's the dragon which according to Reaper is 6" tall with a 10" wingspan!

A model of this size is perfect for the airbrush and indeed, as this model has been sitting on the shelf for more than a decade, it was airbrushing water hexes for my Hexton Hills project (where I'm always looking for other minis to airbrush when I have extra paint in the pot) that got me to take this "miniature" off the unpainted shelf and into the paintbooth.

With the name Deathsleet and given Reaper's description, this is intended to be more white dragon than blue - but besides color, the main difference according to standard Dungeons & Dragon lore... the main horn is straight up (1-3rd editions) and actually curved slightly forward in 5e whereas with the white dragon the main horn is curved towards the back. My players won't know the difference and I have an encounter in mind for a blue dragon - so blue it is!

As to airbrushing, this model started off with Ultramarine Blue and then Electric Blue. I believe that I used Leather Brown but I didn't note or set aside the color used for highlighighting - I think it was Bonewhite. All out of the airbrush. I also hit it with a highlight drybrush using Vallejo's new Sunrise Blue which is a highlight color for Electric Blue. The underbelly and the horn was done with a paintbrush and that was Plague Brown with a drybrush of Bonewhite. I then picked out the eyes, teeth, talons with a brush as well and called it done. 

Kickstarter paint total 213 + 1 Deathsleet = 214

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Sobruz Quarry and Penitentiary

Nothing like the good old rock quarry for putting away the most hardened criminals - classic! I also was able to break out more of the river terrain with this hex. 

Additionally, I moved to hand painting the deciduous trees with the Light Livery Green. I had been airbrushing those but I realized after airbrushing the full size Hexton Hills hex tokens that I wasn't getting enough paint down on these smaller tokens - the bigger tokens had more "pop" when looking at them. I still did airbrush, but then hit the tops of the trees with hand painted - also, Vallejo Game Color has more saturation then Game Air.

I did the same with all the previous hex tokens with deciduous trees on the hex. The below picture now has much more pop with the forest now having that light, mid, and dark greens.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex is going to sit west of Onadbyr and completes a one hex map around Onadbyr like so...

Hexton Hills Standard Size Hex Tokens

 

Before I jumped into the deep end with two feet I originally downloaded the sample pack from Hexton Hills website and gave it a test run. I had some real concerns about the ability to print on an FDM 3D printer versus a resin 3D printer. 

The first two hex tokens I printed were the fort and the river/lake/sea pieces. I was impressed how well they turned out but I could tell some of the detail was mottled a bit. The forest piece I printed after changing my Bambu Labs A1mini's printhead from .4 nozzle to .2 nozzle. The .2 nozzle is a $12 add on for better detail. I was absolutely amazed and blown away with the detail of the print - sure, it took 3-4x longer than the .4 nozzle to print but the detail is amazing. I then tried shrinking the hex token 50% in the software and using the .2 nozzle the results are my campaign map for our family game. One of the pics has a water hex token printed at 50% for size reference.

The cool thing about the standard size hex tokens is that they'll take tiny 3mm x 2mm magnets which make the hexes snap together and hold well - you just need to make sure you put your north/south polarity in the right spots. The clicking of the hexes together is very ASMR.

Originally I wasn't going to paint these samples as I have no real use for them other than they were tests, but they look so dang good! The standard size was so much easier to airbrush as well in comparison to the half size hex tokens.

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - The Maelstrom

 

Part of the Calhay Sea where it is rumored that the maelstrom will suck you in and spit you out in other realms and dimensions of space-time. This was a pretty simple set of hex tokens to represent the open sea and helps to provide stability to the overall map.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex is going to sit southeast of Onadbyr and its coastline like so...

A couple of interesting details to note...

1. I added a water based scroll token and I learned how to go into the 3D software and add lettering - so that's pretty cool and as Onadbyr sits on the coast and is the primary central point of not only the map but the entire campaign, I thought it was good to give it a named token representation on the map.

2. The picture isn't of these hex tokens sitting on my desk as previously posted photos - it's on a magnetic white board! I picked up a 2' x 3' whiteboard which should give me enough room for the entire first half of the map and easy enough to carry around to/from the gaming table.

3. Magnets - supergluing magnets is a pain! I'm using 5mm x 2mm magnets (the original size hex tokens use 10mm x 2mm) and I think there was more glue on my fingers than the tokens to magnets - but I did manage and it works great - so awesome to hear that resounding thunk as the magnetized token snaps to the whiteboard.

NextLevel Miniatures - Callous Troll

 

This is a new miniature company for me - I found them on sale at Miniature Market awhile back and thought they looked pretty good - they have an old school feel - so I thought I'd pick up a few and give 'em a try. The first one I painted up is titled Callous Troll. It's a pretty good looking miniature with some nice detail but not overly so to make painting tiresome.

I did some digging - NextLevel Miniatures is a US company based in St. Louis and it looks like they formed in 2020 and ran some Kickstarters. It's a shame I didn't know of them before because there's a lot of value in those Kickstarters although the current online retail pricing really isn't bad - particularly through Miniature Market (which is also a St. Louis company so there might be a connection there).

They ran four Kickstarters and the first two were built around miniatures featuring the mega dungeon Rappan Athuk which I recently ran through as a player during a multi-year campaign. They then completed two additional Kickstarters to expand their miniature offering and it looks like they're soon going to launch a dice campaign. NextLevel Miniatures Kickstarter profile page.

As to the miniatures - they say that they are cast in a thermoplastic resin - they appear to me to be similar to Reaper Miniature's Bones Black line. The details are pretty good, the models I have appear to have enough rigidity that they won't fall over or have bendy parts yet flexible enough to take a tumble off the tabletop and not break. The casting comes in a light grey, much like the Wizkids unpainted line - and while they don't come pre-primed, they claim that their "resin naturally takes acrylic paint exceptionally well" and this first model I did airbrush without a primer. Finally, they note the miniatures are sculpted by Punga Miniatures which is a Russian company that provides 3D models for wargames. I like to give sculptor credit but it appears that like Wizkids, the sculpting is going to a "studio" vs individual credit like you see with Reaper Miniatures.

One final note, talking about feeling old school, my miniatures came from Miniature Market in plastic sandwich baggies instead of fancy blister packs to tear open. If that's what it takes to keep miniature prices down then keep sending the baggies! Most of their small/medium sized minis are a $1-$2 and this large model is currently $4.49 online.

Painting this miniature was a lot of fun and I painted him primarily as a discard of paint left in the airbrush pot and the details were done when I had paint on the wet palette leftover from other models I was painting (particularly from the Hexton Hills hex tokens). Also, as this model was painted as a paint discard the following are my best guesses...

Unless noted the paint was Vallejo Air/Game. The base is Sick Green and then highlights with Light Livery Green. I then went back and did some airbrush shading with Dark Green and then another light airbrushing of Light Livery Green. Then I moved him onto the workbench and filled in some details. Scarlet Red for finger and toe nails. I think I used Reaper's Dirty Grey as highlights on top of Black hair and then on the loincloth with a Black Wash. The axe was Reaper's Nightsky Blue with Reaper's Concrete Grey highlights. The spots I believe were done with Sun Yellow. The bits of leather here and there was Reaper's Rich Leather. The base was my standard Black with a drybrush of Neutral Grey and Fortress Grey.

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Coastline of the Calhay Sea

 

This hex isn't very exciting on its own, but it fits a crucial structure of the eastern coastline for the Calhay Sea and it solidifies the game map a bit. I might see if I can find a 3D wooden ship marker that can be scaled down so I at least have something interesting visibly on one of the water tokens. There is a land hex token that fits neatly on the coastline between the windmills and the ziggurat.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex is going to sit southeast of the windmills, northeast of the ziggurat and south of Onadbyr like so...

Reaper Miniatures Tiik Baron - 77212

 

This was a bit of a fun experiment of layering a completely different color over another using an airbrush. I had a thought that it would be really cool to layer this four armed sea creature with a blue and green to give it this underwater sea look.

All paints are Vallejo - Game Air and Game Color.

Using the airbrush I started off with prime layer of ultramarine. Then switched to electric blue and gave it all a heavy highlight from all angles and then did a final highlight using light livery green from a 12 o'clock angle with extra focus on the scales. It's interesting because the light livery green gives a completely different end result on top of the blue base than over a darker green base. I think it gives the model a very out of the sea look to it.

I then touched up the model with a brush using scarlet blood on the claws, dark gunmetal on the weapon, a mix of tentacle pink and bonewhite for the seashell armor which I washed with a drop of the electric blue from the airbrush paint. Foul green was used for the clothes and straps which was washed with black wash.

I have quite a few of these tiik models from the bones kickstarters so I'll be using a similar paint scheme on them as well.

Kickstarter paint total 212 + 1 Tiik Baron = 213

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Ziggurat of the New Moon

So many great Hexton Hills hex tokens built so far - the castle for Onadbyr, the monster fish, the windmills representing the Old Grinder, and the dungeon mountain but this one is my favorite hex tile so far because I scaled down a 3D print and used a flat tile to create a token Hexton Hills doesn't have - that of a ziggurat. 

I've added Dark Green to my land paint schema in order to provide a bit more depth in the grasslands and to distinguish the evergreen trees in the forest tiles.The ziggurat was airbrushed black, hexed lichen, and then just a fine highlight of warlord purple.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex is going to sit south of the windmills like so...

Also, to give a sense of scale - here's a quarter next to some of the hex tokens.