Reaper Miniatures Dragon Tortoise - 77334

 

This model was actually finished exactly a year ago when I did the Spikeshell Warriors and it's been sitting on my desk because I just wasn't sure how I was going to handle the basing. After spraying up the Water Weird I had a good idea of how to use the airbrush to represent the idea of this dragon tortoise coming out of a marsh or the ocean using the airbrush to blend in some blue, green, and white to give the base some color and have the idea of stomping motion.

Alrighty - the trip with Google's Gemini to create artwork based upon my painting of the model was interesting.  Here's the first attempt...

Well that's interesting - it went for a very solid grey base and what's up with the additional hole that isn't there. So I told Gemini to remove the hole - and not only did it do so - but it killed the stomp of the dragon tortoise's foot...

Okay, well, next I told gemini to add more blue to the base and have the water splash from the monster's foot - it did both and then some - holy heck!...

That's a bit dramatic - kinda like purposely stomping on a puddle to soak a friend standing next to you while in the rain. And the blue - okay - I said add more blue, not turn it blue. This time I told Gemini to tone it down by adding some light blue - some blue-green - and a little less splash. Alrighty, this I can live with...

Notice that secondary puddle is in the same location as the first image - maybe it's having difficulties interpreting the claw's relationship with the base? What's also interesting is that the background became a little bit more off-white with each request/change of Google Gemini - a bit of strange behavior of the A/I.

Thinking in terms of ShadowDark - I didn't want to make this a "true" dragon - their naming of "dragon" has been misnomered because of their size which has been magically derived from the great tortoises of the world. Therefore there's no range attack with a dragon's breath and it doesn't have quite the same level/hit points - but, it's shell armor makes it a force to be reckoned with as does it's bite, claws, and tail. My imagination goes to a dragon tortoise keeps safe a wizard's tower on an island not too far offshore but far enough that ships know to stay clear, else the dragon charges to sink the boat.

Finally we do get to deduct another model from the Kickstarter Bones pile...

Kickstarter paint total 231 + 1 Dragon Tortoise = 232

Reaper Miniatures - Eldritch Demon - 77113

 

This model expanded my Sharpie experiment - just like Sir Conlan, I decided to use the Sharpie Creative Markers with the paint brush tip. It's an interesting pack / marketing decision made by the Sharpie folks. The nub tips actually have the same 12 and then another 12 more colors in what I think they call earthen colors. However the paint brush tip has only the primary colors with the exception of green.  Picking up the pack of Sharpie's gets you 12 colors to play with...

1. Blue
2. Purple
3. Pink
4. Red
5. Orange
6. Yellow
7. Black
8. Grey
9. White

and then I left the greens for the end - instead of primary green you get...

10. Blue-Green
11. Cool Green
12. Yellow Green

A minor pain from my perspective is that Sharpie doesn't actually name the colors - however, they do have a nice cap system with the color but if they ever do expand the line, it would be nice to have color names.

This model had been sitting on the bench for quite awhile - I originally had it painted a goblin green body with medium brown wings - the paint was airbrushed on with extra paint remaining in the pot from other painting projects. It wasn't really doing much for me and this Sharpie set has a bunch of greens so I figured this was the perfect experiment.

The three greens were used as follows... blue-green on the body and the wing structures - cool-green on the wing membranes - yellow-green to pick out the details around the body and the belly. Mentioned previously but it's easy to see, the paint is very opaque which was great to cover the airbrushed paint. However, sometimes it would be nice if just a bit of bleed/transparency was there to blend - the AK's are similarly very opaque.

A bit of Google Gemini magic and we have a Eldritch Demon for a VTT session...

What do we do with what is essentially the aspect of an elder god making its way to the material plane through space and time (tampered just a bit because I do have Reaper's C'Thulhu which is twice the size - a true LV20 beast). How about a large bit of demon, some dragon, a bit of brain eater, and finally some gibbering mouther (elevated) for anyone near the beast.

Finally we do get to deduct another model from the Kickstarter Bones pile...

Kickstarter paint total 230 + 1 Eldritch Demon = 231

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 Spikeshell Warriors - 77270

 

When you're airbrushing a lot of green with the Hexton Hills project, you're always looking where else to spray green because the airbrush is so much fun. So these guys were sprayed with the Sick Green and highlights of Light Livery Green. The spikes on the shell were Red Terracotta as leftover paint from a turtle dragon (coming soon). The brown was sprayed Earth which is the basecoat used on the hex tiles.

The hand painting was some quick Bonewhite on the club teeth, a bit of Plague Brown on the beak and then I did more of a sandy base with Earth, Desert Yellow, and Khaki.

I love using the airbrush and just finding ways to quickly paint monsters - I'm still trying to figure out ways to get tight - using a super fine needle - playing with different psi - and using various combination of paint with thinner and flow. All the details can't get airbrushed - still need a brush but I'm pushing for more and more airbrush. I need to get a Warhammer army painted soon and I'm thinking the airbrush is going to help tremendously. Any other airbrushers out there, please hit me up with your techniques and tips.

Kickstarter paint total 219 + 2 Spikeshell Warriors = 221

Goodman Games Otyugh

 

This model has a bit of history to it - I had to go look at some old gaming pictures and figured that this was painted back in July of 2005. 

Otyugh is one of my favorite monsters for low level characters and I'm constantly pulling this miniature off the shelf for my Dungeons and Dragons games. I noticed a few little dings and chips so this last time instead of putting it back on the shelf I placed it on the painting desk for a little bit of touch-up. Now, a big reason why I post these blogs is so I can always go back and find what colors I used for a particular miniature in case I want to replicate that paint job on another mini or if I need to fix a mini which has a few chips. I realized that I never posted this miniature to the blog. So tonight I threw some paint on a few dings/chips, took some pictures, and I'm now posting. 

Here's some history to this miniature sculpt - it was originally sold by Goodman Games under their Dungeon Crawl Classics branding. Somehow it went to a company called Center Stage Miniatures in about 2010. Next it was acquired by Pacesetter Games. Finally it was bought by the gentleman that put together and hosts one of my favorite websites called DnDLead.com which catalogs old Dungeon and Dragon miniatures from Minifigs, Grenadier, TSR, Citadel, Ral Partha, etc.

So the long story short is that you can still purchase this awesome figure on rpgelements.com including all the other miniatures in the original DCC line.

Links...
All about Center Stage Miniatures from the owner of DndLead along with original pictures with the paintjobs done for marketing purposes.

All about the owner Ernst Wilhelm.

Purchase this awesome miniature on RPG Elements and support keeping alive this and other older miniatures.

In addition to all that, this miniature was sculpted by Jason Wiebe, one of my favorite sculptors who sculpts quite a bit for Reaper Miniatures. All of my painted miniatures sculpted by Jason Wiebe.

Reaper Miniatures Owlbear - 77156 and More with Contrast Paints

 

This owlbear has been sitting on my desk based for quite awhile and I had the perfect experiment for it - some more playing around with Contrast Paints - I'm using Vallejo's version called Xpress Color. They're hard to find in stock and therefore I have a limited pallet of Brown, Blue, Green, and Grey. Which is fine as I don't want to go crazy in investing in a new paint line without doing some more testing. The first was the freebie woodland fey creature which was a 3d printed model.

This is my first attempt at trying it on a Bones model - this is the original white bones which came from one of the early kickstarters. I didn't do anything special to it - no primer, nothing - I just wanted to see what would happen if I started slathering this new paint directly over a bones model.

The end result is okay. The paint pools into the depths leaving it light on top and dark in the recesses. The painting was quick and what I learned from the first model is I had to be careful painting within the lines. So with that level of care I literally slapped paint on as quickly as possible to see what I could get - sort of the situation every DM gets into - the game's tonight and you just thought of this great idea and you need to grab that non-painted mini off the shelf and get it ready for tonight's game. Certainly within 30 minutes you can have a respectable mini to game with.

Kickstarter paint total 180 + 1 Owlbear = 181

Reaper Miniatures Wererat Matriarch - 77296

 

The fourth Wererat that was part of the Bones Kickstarter - painted using the same schema as the other Wererats. 

Kickstarter paint total: 161 + 1 Wererat Matriarch = 162

Reaper Miniatures Wererats - 77293, 77294, 77295

 

Although they each have separate SKU numbers - these minis came in a set as part of one of the Bones Kickstarters - so I worked on them together and differed them by the color of the cloak.

• 77293 - the middle pics with the pickaxe is the Wererat Berserker
• 77294 - the top pics with the two blades is the Wererat Stalker
• 77295 - the bottom pics with the single blade is the Wererat Assassin

For the next couple of weeks you can see the painting of these minis on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1155675662

Painting instructions for Peryton (used my Vallejo Game Color)...

Step 1: I'm using Stynylrez primer on the bones models - just slop it on and cover everything - it works great!

Step 2: Use Terracotta on fur

Step 3: Drybrush Parasite Brown on fur

Step 4: Drybrush Scrofulous Brown on fur

Step 5: Use Hexed Lichen or Dark Green or Night Blue on cloak

Step 6: Highlight with Warlord Purple, Sick Green, or Magic Blue on cloak

Step 7: Make wash of base color and wash cloak

Step 8: Use Sombre Grey on pants

Step 9: Use Black on teeth and eye sockets

Step 10: Use Bloody Red on eyeball

Step 11: Use Bonewhite on teeth and rolled up map

Step 12: Use Gunmetal on blades

Step 13: Use Chainmail Silver as highlight on blades

Step 14: Use Bright Bronze on rings/bracelets

Step 15: Use Leather Brown on backpack, pouch, bag

Step 16: Highlight with Plague Brown on backpack, pouch, bag

Step 17: Final Highlight with Filthy Brown on backpack, pouch, bag

Step 18: Use Black on base

Step 19: Drybrush Cold Grey on base

Step 20: Drybrush Stonewall Grey on base

Kickstarter paint total: 158 + 3 Wererats = 161