NextLevel Miniatures - Acidic Ooze

 

Another miniature out of the NextLevel Miniatures pile - this miniature is rather interesting because I know exactly how I would paint this using standard hobby paint and brushes using a wet palette and blending. However, my goal with theses minis is to use the paint markers and use exaggerated contrasts much like a cartoon or coloring books because the paints are so opaque. This was my first go with this - I first used the AK animal green and followed up with Sharpie's yellow. It'll work on the tabletop.

Converting to A/I artwork didn't really help - probably because it couldn't understand what I was doing and match up an appropriate art style.

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

NextLevel Miniatures - Baleful Wizard

 

This time I was at Dangerous (Target) with my wife and daughter which means that I put my earbuds in and I'm pushing the cart. I wandered off for a bit into the office/craft supply aisle and what goodies do I find - paintmarkers! This time by Sharpie of all the brands. The call it Creative Marker. BUT... there are three different types - Bullet Tip, Fine Tip, and Brush Tip. I picked up Bullet Tip and Brush Tip. The Fine Tip wasn't in stock. 

The Brush Tip are the most like the AK Interactives and work more/less the same. The Bullet Tip is good for bigger spaces like a cloak or big spaces like a horse.

Thoughts...

• Wow! Super awesome and easy to use.
• No priming, no mess - you don't need to use a piece of plastic to catch the drips from priming.
• Limited in colors - there are only 12 - the bullet tip has another pack called Earth Tones which has an additional 12 colors.
• I don't know why, but the bullet tip pens don't need shaking, the brush tips have a shaker ball inside and need to be shaken prior to use.
• No metallics in the line.
• Half the price at less than $2 a pen (12 for $20) - the AK's are about $4+ a pen.
• I found the red to be a little bit muted and a bit toward pink in comparison to the AK.
• Paint dries very flat matte.
• Like the AK's, the paint is opaque and simply draws on top of whatever is underneath.

The mini, yes the mini... this is the Baleful Wizard from NextLevel Miniatures. A fun looking sculpt when you need a menacing wizard to go up against your player's heroes. The price - $1.99 retail price and you can find it for less at Miniature Market for $1.79.

I used a mix of the AK's along with the Sharpie's. Started out by painting the head the hands with dark skin. Then I used Sharpie grey and red for the clothes. Finally, I used AK's gold for some trim work and on the wand. For the base I wasn't initially sure how to go about it - normally I drybrush but you can't really drybrush with these markers. So I used AK's black, and then I used a stippling technique to highlight with the dark grey and finished with the light grey - it's a slightly different look but I think it did the trick without having to get out the paint bottles and brushes.

Now for the fun with A/I part - convert my paintjob into artwork using Google's Gemini...

So awesome!

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

NextLevel Miniatures - Decapus

 

Next visit to Emerald Tavern in Austin, TX to play ShadowDark I picked up some more of the AK Interactive Playmarkers - this time a black and two greys.

Digging back into the NextLevel Miniatures pile I grabbed the Decapus miniature which was a 2nd Edition monster that was the namesake of the infamous drawing in module B3 called The Illusion of the Decapus. I'll let you google that one but that was the dungeon module that was recalled and sent to the garbage dump - actual copies go for thousands of dollars. 2nd Edition version had hair, Pathfinder MM2 made the head alien. 2nd Edition the body was colored green, purple, or even yellow - I heard purple!

Purple is becoming my favorite color of the Playmarkers - it goes on smooth, dries well, has great coverage and looks cool. The red tentacles were for fun. And I used the newly acquired black for the rock. Animal Green on the eyes and then I used the newly acquired light grey on the entire mouth area and finally the white to pick out the individual teeth.

Here's the fun part - I've been playing a lot with Google's Gemini A/I - so I told it to convert one of the above photos into artwork...

Okay, that's pretty cool - but if you use Nano Banana version it comes up with...

That's pretty nuts!

Here's my ShadowDark Monster Index Card...

NextLevel Miniatures - Treasure Mimic

 

More posts about the AK Interactive Playmarkers and once again, another session of ShadowDark at Emerald Tavern in Austin, TX and bringing back home a few more colors - this time I picked up the box set called Full Metal as well as a box called Skin & Flesh Tones along with White and Off-White as individual markers.

But first, let's discuss the mini - so this is the treasure mimic from NextLevel Miniatures. One of a big batch of minis I purchased. They're at a great price point and made in St. Louis. According to their website they're made in thermoplastic resin and don't need to primered. So I'm not priming but using the paint straight off the marker and onto the model. I don't know exactly what "thermoplastic resin" is but it's a bit harder than the original Bones white from Reaper Miniatures but a bit softer than Reaper's Bones Black. The detail is better than Reaper's white but not as crisp as Reaper's black. But for the price, these just can't be beat. This miniature retails for $3.99 but can be purchased from Miniature Market for $3.59. I think I picked it up on a sale price for even better than that. And it's a great miniature for gaming - not for sticking in a display case. After describing treasure in my recent ShadowDark game, the thief practically threw himself in the pile - guess what, out came the mimic mini - munch munch! - rofl!! Everyone loved it.

More fun with red and purple - those appear to be my go-to colors. I used Animal Green on the gums of the monster mimic and the whites on the teeth. Then I used the gold on the gold and was extremely pleased at how well the entire model came together - and it was EASY!! I painted it in spare time of fifteen minutes here and fifteen minutes there - then brought it to game night.

I'm going to keep posting by copying the previous post and seeing if I modify my position over time. Here goes (see my previous posts to review the build-up)...

• It's contagious fun! 
• Easy to use - a brush-like tip - it comes down to a point of about a 1 brush, maybe a 2.
• After 2 models, I'd say this is a great way to introduce newbies to the painting hobby - I'll qualify that with having the "right" model - something that's smooth, easy access, with broad swath of space to color - monsters, a wizard with a robe, a woman in a dress, a knight in armor - a model with lots of tiny details would most likely be frustration.
• Using a marker to color in a model is much easier than using a brush - I'm just finding it easier to do what I've done all my life - pick up a pencil, pen, marker and draw - it's that easy!
• They're very opaque - there's no bleed through so you can't really blend or build up layers - this remains true - so I've used this to my advantage - don't worry about "coloring in the lines" as it's very easy to "clean-up" once the original color is dry - just paint over the mistake with the appropriate color - the opaqueness of the paint wipes away the mistake.
• Dry time on these is very fast - which for the style of painting I think is a good attribute - vs. say Reaper Master Series paints which I believe has some dry retardant in it so it makes the paint easy to blend and layer.
• The paint dries to solid - I haven't noticed any paintbrush streaks once dry - the sheen on it is about at an eggshell - definitely more towards the flat/matte side of the spectrum than the satin but there is a slight sheen - red more so than the purple.
• The push to prime is a bit of a pain - so there's a button on the bottom of the marker that primes the paint into the brush - the paint doesn't come out a true 360 around the brush, it typically squirts out an area and leaks into the brush but also on the desk - I found the best practice was to have a plastic baggy on the desk under me - prime a bit and then soak the brush in the drippings.

More models coming using these PlayMarkers from AK Interactive.

Wizkids Reservoir Kraken - WZK90563

 

Okay - soapbox moment/rant... I don't know if WizKids thinks they're selling gold, but the latest pricing for this UNPAINTED miniature is $44.99 at Miniature Market with a retail price of $49.99. Since when did unpainted miniatures climb that much in price. Freaking ridiculous! I'm sure I picked this up a few years ago for like $15 and probably thought that was outrageous because large minis from the WizKids line were like $8.

Maybe because it's "Magic the Gathering" and Wizards/WizKids love screwing the Magic players - stamp Magic the Gathering on it and jack up the price 5x what it's worth. Any Magic players reading this, I'll sell it to you in-box for $200, rofl!

=== rant over ===

This post isn't really about the miniature, although it's a fun miniature, instead I'm back on the bandwagon about AK Interactive PlayMarkers. After I picked up the Tools & Weapons pack, I was back at my local friendly hobby store Emerald Tavern in Austin, TX running some ShadowDark RPG and this time picked up the Viscera pack. This one had Purple, Pink, and Red.

Looking around my shelf, bags, and boxes of unpainted miniatures; the Reservoir Kraken box art was the perfect model for purple, red, and pink. Again, I had an absolute blast painting with the PlayMarkers. The best part is the ability to stop and start. Give it a go for an hour in the evening then cap the marker - come back to it two days later and "paint" some more for an hour or so. There's no prep or trying to preserve a wet palette - no getting the paints out, getting the water, trying to find the correct color consistency, cleaning brushes, etc. - this is as simple as grabbing your pen and writing - instead it's a paint marker on a 3d object. These markers completely lower the barrier to "hobby time". Have ten minutes before dinnertime, pop the cap and start painting.

I'm going to continue putting together some thoughts...

• It's contagious fun! 
• Still really easy to use - they have a brush-like tip - it comes down to a point of about a 1 brush, maybe a 2.
• After 2 models, I'd say this is a great way to introduce newbies to the painting hobby - I'll qualify that with having the "right" model - something that's smooth, easy access, with broad swath of space to color - monsters, a wizard with a robe, a woman in a dress, a knight in armor - a model with lots of tiny details would most likely be frustration.
• Using a marker to color in a model is much easier than using a brush - mostly true, with this model there were some areas that the thickness of the model made it difficult to attack because of the tentacles in crazy directions.
• They're very opaque - there's no bleed through so you can't really blend or build up layers - this remains true - so I've used this to my advantage - don't worry about "coloring in the lines" as it's very easy to "clean-up" once the original color is dry - just paint over the mistake with the appropriate color - the opaqueness of the paint wipes away the mistake.
• That leads to a new point - the dry time on these is very fast - which for the style of painting I think is a good attribute - vs. say Reaper Pro paints which I believe has some dry retardant in it so it makes the paint easy to blend and layer.
• The paint dries to solid - I haven't noticed any paintbrush streaks once dry - the sheen on it is about at an eggshell - definitely more towards the flat/matte side of the spectrum than the satin bu there is a slight sheen - red more so than the purple.

More models coming using these PlayMarkers from AK Interactive.

Reaper Miniatures Animal Companions (5) - Wolf - 77216

 

12/07/2025 - Updated with corrected title and added Julie Guthrie as the sculptor (Reaper's website was down last night when I originally posted)

This posting isn't so much about the miniature, it's about the paint. But first, this is the dog/wolf of the Companion Animals pack from my kickstarter bones stash. Looks like there are five minis in the pack to include a bear, a cougar, a bird, and what looks like a lynx.

What this post is actually about are PaintMarkers from AK Interactive - they call them PlayMarkers. I'd seen a quick youtube video a few months back but didn't really think much about them. However, my local gaming store (Emerald Tavern in Austin, TX) started to carry them so I thought that I would give them a try. I picked up a small pack called Tools & Weapons - the pack had three PlayMarkers - Gun Metal, Wood, and Leather.

Looking around for something I had this dog/wolf primered in black sitting on the shelf - so okay, I thought that's the perfect opportunity. I used the darker brown called Leather on the body avoiding the eyes and the snout. Then I used the lighter brown called Wood on the top of the fur as a bit of highlighting on the model.

Some thoughts...

• It's fun! 
• The markers are really easy to use - they have a brush-like tip.
• Using a marker to color in a model is much easier than using a brush.
• They're very opaque - there's no bleed through so you can't really blend or build up layers.
• I used the Gun Metal on some GW Brettonian helmets - worked really well - post those later.

Lots more models coming using these PlayMarkers from AK Interactive.

Kickstarter paint total 228 + 1 Animal Companion - Wolf = 229

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Ulden Mountains

 

It's been awhile since posting as the end of spring led into all sorts of activities from my youngest son's high school graduation to our Aglarion campaign slowly getting put on ice and myself getting more and more into the ShadowDark RPG (which is fantastic). However, I did have one more post to make on the Kingdom of Aglarion map - the Ulden Mountains which make up the edge of the map to the south at the edge of the Ulden Forest.

These were a blast to not only print but also to paint with the airbrush. These were completed back at the end of March so the details may be a bit foggy but I believe that the mountains introduced a new color schema to the board of Vallejo Sombre Grey, followed by Wolf Grey and capped off in Dead White.

At the time I took some additional photos comparing the 50% reduction of the mountains to the original sample trial at 100% scale.

Here's a look at the backside with the individual magnets on each hex - which then lock together and onto the whiteboard.

Final view here of bringing the camera in for a birds eye view of the place.

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Ulden Forest

 

I printed off bunches of forest hex tokens - so this hex was pretty easy to get painted up and ready to go on the board. I actually expanded a bit more southwest than originally planned as that hex is the Ulden Forest and didn't need anything more than trees.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex starts the fourth ring around the city of Onadbyr to the southwest...

Hexton Hills - Kingdom of Aglarion - Vaddon's Abode

 

On the edge of the swamp is Vaddon's Abode. A rumored hermit living at the edge of the Ulden Swamps who talks to and understand plants and swamp creatures better than people. This was a fun hex to build as it transitions from the swamp to the forest and there was a perfect Hexton Hills hex token with a little cabin on the edge of the swamp but also embedded in the forest.

If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex starts the third ring around the city of Onadbyr to the southwest...