It's a Kraken Holiday

 

To get into the spirit of the Holidays I picked up some fairy lights off Amazon and carefully created a light box out of the retail packaging. My original thought was to tangle the fairly lights within the tentacles of the creature but that didn't end up looking quite right. Instead I placed the lights around the edge of the package front and top so that the fairy lights would display and showcase the model. The light chord sneaks out the back of the package to an easy on/off switch. Looks pretty cool.

And for those crazy Magic players - my offer of $200 is still open and now includes fairy lights for free, rofl!

Christmas Minis Arrive from the Goblin King

 

There's a Youtube channel I've been following for years - many years - and is one of my favorites because Michael, aka the Goblin King, promotes and shows that it's okay to paint for the game table instead of a glass enclosed shrine.

He also has a ko-fi channel and sells subscriptions for miniatures - I've been a member for a few years now and I'm on a tier where I receive several monster minis twice a year - a summer release and a winter release. I love receiving these, not just because they're my toys that I look forward to getting into a gaming session, but I like to see how another painter approaches tabletop quality and he bases miniatures very different than mine (I'd say it's a more traditional approach).

Michael's Youtube channel is Michael Mordor.

And here's a link if you want to go straight to the videos. Lots of great older videos in his list. Much of what he paints are Reaper Miniatures and WizKids - mostly what I paint as well.

Here's Michael's ko-fi shop. He has almost a dozen membership tiers you can join to receive minis in your mailbox (and it's quite fun to receive a box with Royal postage from the UK for us living in the US).

Michael also runs a blog on ko-fi that he updates on a regular basis - so check out some of his past posts.

Ruined Manor House

 

I took a risk and bought some things of Temu - picked up a couple t-shirts, some 3d prints, and a 2d metal artwork piece. I definitely will not be buying t-shirts off Temu, I could have guessed those would just be very low quality. The 3d prints are alright - this manor house, a graveyard, and a couple of medieval boats that'll need airbrushing. The 2d metal artwork came bent, I complained and received money back on the item with a keep it message - we'll see what we can do with that - I've started working on it, but unkinking metal is a pain in the ass.

First up, I picked up this ruined manor house. It's scaled at true 28mm - probably really needed to be 32mm to deal with where heroic scale minis have been for the last two to three decades. Original 80's Ral Partha miniatures would be right at home. It also appears to be missing a lower doorway piece on the front side, but that wasn't included (and not included in the seller's image).

I did the majority of this with airbrush. Black base for the brick - brown base for the wooden structures - blue base for the roof tiles. Then drybrushed with a giant Citadel Scenery brush (it's the only Games Workshop brush I own). Neutral Grey and Stonewall Grey for the stone. I think it was Plague Brown for the wood. Then Magic Blue and Lightning Blue on the roof tile.

NextLevel Miniatures - Morlock Wretch

 

More of the same as the last batch of Morlocks. Using AK Interactive Playmarkers I put down a layer of Zombie Skin, then hit the teeth with White and the eyeballs with Light Green. Black on the base with dithering of Dark Grey and Light Grey. These did have some hair which I used the Dirty White - I probably should have highlighted some of the strands with White for more pop.

Google's Gemini A/I got it half right - it found the hair on the right Morlock but not the left.

Image "enhanced"...

See the Morlock Lurker for the ShadowDark stats.

NextLevel Miniatures - Morlock Lurker

 

As easy as it gets with paint markers. Using AK Interactive Playmarkers I put down a layer of Zombie Skin, then hit the teeth with White and the eyeballs with Light Green. Black on the base with dithering of Dark Grey and Light Grey.

Google's Gemini A/I is just so much fun - here's some VTT artwork...

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card. I wanted to give these guys a bit more than just another goblin. They're aggressive subterranean creatures with violent tendencies - they crawl up the cave walls, hide in the shadows, and then jump down on their victims slashing them with a clawed hand and then biting them while wrapped around their victim. I thought about giving them Dodge monster talent - I still might - let's them dodge a successful attack once per day.

NextLevel Miniatures - Bartop

 

A fun miniature to paint by NextLevel Miniatures - later I realized they had a human barkeep - should have picked up that model as well. Again, I'm trying to use more of a coloring book style (at least that's what I'm calling it) with dramatic contrasts while using the AK Interactive Playmarkers. Normally my approach would have been to spray a black basecoat and then drybrush everything else.

I used the Black to paint all the stones. Dark Grey on each individual stone. Then a thick "edge" highlight of each stone on the actual face on the stone. The wood pieces were completed using Leather with highlights of Wood along the grain.

Here's your VTT model using Google Gemini A/I...

Asking Gemini to enhance the artwork is interesting - it used patterns to enhance the woodwork which isn't so dramatic - but the stone it completely revised and added moss, lol...

NextLevel Miniatures - Archway

 

Another fun miniature by NextLevel Miniatures. This is the Archway and unfortunately when I purchased this I missed that there was an Archway with Portal - so I cheated and made my own using a bit of A/I to give me a green portal swirl and printed that out on a color printer - not as good, but it'll do on gameday...

Using most of the same techniques as the Runed Gateway, I painted using the AK Interactive Playmarkers all the grooves in the stone and sockets in the skulls with Black. I also completely did the stepped base in Black. Then I used Dark Grey for the stones and Light Grey for "edge" highlights - and I use the term "edge" loosely because it's really a thick line along the edge but on the flat to give an interpretation of depth. For the steps of the base I did something a little bit different, I wiped off the excess paint on the Dark Grey and dabbed using the side of the brush onto the black steps and it gave me that mottled granite look I was hoping to get and then did the same with the Light Grey as a highlight/color variation.

The skulls were painted with Dirty White and then a bit of White for the highlight. Finally, the vertical plates on the column were painted with Copper - the idea of that detail being a copper plate versus carved stone appealed to me.

Here's some great artwork for your VTT session using Google Gemini...

And how about a portal for your VTT session as well...

One more - I asked Gemini to make the runes glow with the portal...

NextLevel Miniatures - Runed Gateway

 

This is an awesome miniature and a blast to paint. Again, I used the AK Interactive Playmarkers for this and I was quite pleased with how it turned out - mostly because it's a paint style I'm learning.

I started off with Light Green on the outer part of the magical portal and I wasn't particularly careful because of the opacity of the paint, any mistakes would just be painted over. I grabbed Black and ran that through all the stone lines throughout the entire model including a thin line between the stone and the Light Green of the magical portal - except for the line break between stone and portal I again wasn't particularly careful. Then I used Medium Blue on the inner part of the magical portal edging along the Light Green. Finally, I used Dark Grey on all the stones being careful not to go into the black grooves.

That setup all the base colors. I think used Light Green and carefully dripped paint into the runes. Next I took Light Grey and did a bold "edge" highlighting on every stone including the lines on the base stones. That took care of the stonework. Next was Light Blue giving the magical portal depth. The last step was a Dirty White on top of all the energy bolts and within the Light Blue lines to give it more depth.

Wasn't sure that I wanted to base the item, but I think it was a good choice for stability purposes - particularly during the game when everyone is knocking stuff all over the table.

Taking that into Google's Gemini to get some artwork for your VTT sessions...

For giggles I asked Gemini to enhance the artwork - not sure if it's "enhanced" or not - up to y'all to decide - it's interesting...

NextLevel Miniatures - Nosferatu

 

A classic vampire from the folks at NextLevel Miniatures. I thought about switching back to brush and bottle paint but I've been in a groove with the AK Interactive Playmarkers as well as the Sharpie brush tip markers so I thought I'd give it the ol' college try on some of the details.

Zombie Skin for the head. White on the teeth. Yellow Sharpie on the eyes. Then there's an inner collar of Purple and an outer collar of Red. The, and I had to google this one one, jabot collar was done in Dirty White with a Gold brooch The protective jacket Black sitting on a shirt of Red and finishing into a cloak of Purple. Pants were Red with Black boots. Then I fought with the gold marker on trimmings.

So here's my first real negative of the Playmarkers - I had the Gold brush split - so instead of a single point I now have two and I don't know what to do about it. I tried using water to rinse the brush and then a paper towel to wipe it clean before re-priming. Didn't work - a little bit better, but not what it needs to be. Which is a real shame because I was having great success with Gold on previous models.

Into the Google Gemini A/I blender and that's exactly how I was intending to paint the model...

No ShadowDark card on this one - just use the Vampire straight out of the book on p.260 - he's a badass as is.

NextLevel Miniatures - Cultist (B)

 

This was just all around fun to paint with the AK Interactive Playmarkers. Of course the cultist is going to have purple robes with gold.

Started off with Dark Skin. Then used Purple followed by Gold for the trim as well as the bracelet and the bowl. The sacrificial dagger was painted with Gunmetal. I used Black on the fanny pack and for the decorative insignia on the shoulder I chose that to be some sort of rank marking and I painted that Red to give her a "blood" ranking. The base was completed using the dithering technique with Dark Grey and Light Grey.

Fun with Google Gemini A/I to convert into artwork and it did a great job on this one...

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

NextLevel Miniatures - Keeper of the Fire

The previous miniature I just started using the AK Interactive Playmarkers Medium Blue for some small details around the neck/shoulder - this time I went blue wild using it on the entire robe. This blue was silky smooth to paint on - I had great control of the color and flow of the paint.

Besides the blue, I started out with the Dark Skin on the face and hands, Wood on the hair, Dirty White on the scarf and the robe belt. Finally, I couldn't figure out what the ball was - it looked like a metal object to me - the miniature's title is Keeper of the Fire but I'm guessing that's more metaphorical, not an actual flame like this Barbed Devil. It kinda reminds me of Critical Role's dodecahedrons which held magical energy and different functionality depending upon who had them (honestly still confused about what exactly occurred with those objects). All that to say I chose Copper for it's redness but still metallic and that had very good paint characteristics as well.

The base I stayed with the Playmarkers and used a dithering technique of Dark Grey and then Light Grey on top of a Black base.

Fun time with Google's Gemini A/I gives me the following conversion into artwork...

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

I had to make a ShadowDark magical item - Jar of the Fire...