Should old acquaintances be forgotten...

Okay... the ogres, the last of my current batch of Ogre Kingdoms Bulls and Iron Guts from Games Workshop. The little guy on the far side of the Ogres is some nameless lacky from the Mordenheim tabletop game also by Games Workshop. For a buddy so it got one layer and a dip.

Elf with bow from megaminiatures.

Fighter with great sword and plate armor from Reaper miniatures.

Fighter with two blades is from Crocodile Games.

Weird looking machine skeleton is from Magnificent Egoes.

The guy with the big axe is from Privateer Press. Second time I've painted him.

The oozes are from Otherworld Miniatures.

The Hook Horror and Frog Demon are from Otherworld Miniatures as well.

And thus ends the painting of '09.

Or at least the finished painting of '09.

#17 - Wolf of Ouroboros

I was trying to finish my "tweedle dee, tweedle dum" pair, but I really only had the time to get to one. And that's it for the year. At this rate I might hit 34 next year. ;-)

Happy New Year, folks!

#16 - Another Templar

Whew. Took longer than I expected. But I learned a bunch about some colors I'd had trouble with in the past.

crowtales: 50-52 of 52

I feel like I'm phoning in the last three. I had reconciled to not reaching 52 because I'd run out of stuff that I was ready to paint. I have a ton of figs around that are waiting for a paint scheme to be finalized or are really complicated to put together still.

Then I remembered I still had some old Necrons for my now mostly abandoned army, and I decided to put those together and get them painted. Sadly, these are really simple, classic GW style. 3 colors and done. They are done to match the rest of my Necrons though. There's two more sitting on my work table, but I ran out of super glue and they are still not finished.

As a quick preview of what I'm working on next I used a series of Tyranid Spore Mines to start testing some color combinations. The light isn't great, but I've been inspired by a series of phenomenal drybrush and ink mini's I saw done, and I wanted to experiment. So I'm selecting my color palette for the next army to be tackled. These aren't counted towards any totals of mini's painted, but are simply a 3 dimensional color sampler.

All that said, I'm done. I did it. 52 mini's in 52 weeks.

That feels good.

-crowtales

16 Chaos Mauraders. I won't have time to take another photo before I base them for a friend's Chaos army but this is essentially done. 16 including musician, standard bearer and champion.

crowtales: 32-49 of 52 Hordes

TROLLS!!!!!!

This is Hoarluk Doomshaper, Trollkin Whelps (the 5), and nearly a full unit of Trollblood Kriel Warriors. I say nearly because I don't have the 3 Caber Throwers that would complete this, but there is a standard and piper in there.

crowtales: 21-31 of 52 Warmachine

I play Cryx and merc's, so this is Mortenebra and her servitor Deryliss, along with2 Satyxis raiders and a Sea Witch (to max out a unit I already owned). The third shot is of the Nyss Hunters Merc unit.

note, the uploaded in reverse order

crowtales: 20 of 52 - chainmail mini's

This is Abasi, my gnoll fighter. finally got him done. :)

crowtales: 18-19 of 52 Tyranids

I've done alot of painting in the last month, and I owe a ton of pictures, so let's get with it.

I have some Warhammer 40k army stuffs that I rarely play anymore, but these two were waiting to be finished (they'd been put together, but not painted). So I completed them to start the ball rolling this winter.



I love the pink/purple tones of this, but it's not for everyone. :)

What's Next?

Well, at this point I think folks are wrapping up their painting year. I've got a few on the burner but they won't be done for at least a week.

So, what do folks want to do for next year? Continue? Close this down as a nice memory of 2009?

Ding! 52nd mini

A Tech Priest for my Dark Heresy game. He has the "quadroped" augmetic and the model has been slightly converted.

52 minis!

Today, I hit the 52 mark! Here are the six that got me there.

First off are a pair of Reaper skeletal warriors. I like the sculpts on these guys, and I've been slowly building up painted, metal selections of each metal D&D enemy type (orcs, undead, etc.)

From Miniatures

Here's the halfling thief from the D&D Silver Anniversary line. There's a chance that the Silver Anniversary figures might be the first line that I paint in its entirety.

From Miniatures

Here's an orc champion. Not crazy with how he came out, but he'll work well enough as an orc chief or war leader.

From Miniatures

A dwarf cleric, a figure I started months ago and finally got around to finishing.

From Miniatures

And finally, a tiefling paladin. I had a ton of fun with this mini. The rune on his shield is a rune of law in D&D. It took a bit of work, but I managed to track down a useful summary of runes in an old, RPGA exclusive die of all things.

From Miniatures

So, that's 52 in 2009. Of course, that's not stopping me from forging ahead for the rest of the year. I'm thinking of taking on an interesting project for December, maybe a hobgoblin tribe, or perhaps a few demons or other monsters.

Wino Supervillain and an Ork with a Rocket Launcher

Three more. So...close...

A Cyber-mastif and two Junker Interdict Marines. All are slightly converted.

More Iron Guts and a Reshot of the Wraith

The one in the middle is a standard 'bull' while the one on left and right are iron guts. I'm almost sad that I don't have a lot of them left to finish off. They were a nice 'boost' in terms of output.
And someone wanted an alternative shot of the ring wraith. Have to do some touch ups and more sealant already dang nab it.

GW, GW and something Wyrd

Fist up is an iron guts for my Ogre Kingdoms army. I have a few more of these suckers left then I can start to work on the gnoblars. This female is from Wyrd. I've essentially had her done all year and couldn't figure out what more I wanted to do with her. The hair has a gloss coat on it.

And... one of the Nazgul. I hope to buy all of them one day. There's just something about the way Games Workshop did these guys up that's awesome. Don't get me wrong, they're muy expensive but it's a rare treat for me to splurge on a GW figure as opposed to say, a weird Avatar of War figure or an Andreas figure that I'll be too nervous too paint.

Another Miscellania from Ral Partha to GW

These two are classic Ral Partha figures. The first is stage three of the old three stage cleric, the second is stage three of the old three stage magic user. I went for a lot of different whites on the wizard as its always reminded me of good old Gandalf. The cleric on the other hand, I painted to go with the old Crusaders from Reaper's Warlords game.
I mentioned before that I've done the block work on a lot of my ogres. Here's four more. I've got several more still in the pipeline in various stages, hopefully to be finished soon.

This guy looks goofy. He's actually quite huge though. Larger than the ogres above. He's glossy because I had to throw a coat or protection on him because the fur on the head keep coming off so I gave him a quick gloss coat. I'll spray him down latter though. I used a saw to take him off the original base and threw some cork under his foot and put him on a 'premium' rounded base.

Okay, dude on the far left is a Lance and Laser bandit I believe. Next up Kobold King I've had since that old Paizo adventure came out and finally decided to finish him. Next up some Dream Blade mini that I'm going to call a decadent naga, a creature whose flesh and bones warp due to the perversion of cannablism. Great loss of almost all magical ability but the creatures become brutes in combat! Lastly, another goat man, the one missing from my last batch. A ton more to go and lately I'm just trying to 'finish' em to get them off the painting table.

#15: Who?

Right about now, you're going "Who the heck is that?" Santa Claus, bitches. Now shut up, the S-man has some work to do.

I've been too quiet of late

Apologies for dropping off the map, folks.

I started off well, and then knew that the summer would see me with no time for painting. Given that, I wasn't worried when my pace dropped at first. At the tail end of summer/early autumn though, Georgia got some good solid rain and flooding. This ended up affecting my home, and resulted in my being tied up with home repair for the last 2+ months or so.

I've now finally got the house pretty well put back together and can start looking at mini's again. It's a real joy to have the luxury of painting for fun again, but I have to be realistic that I'm unlikely to reach my goal of 52 mini's in the year. Possible, but unlikely.

That said, tonight I sat down and finished 5 mini's that have been languishing for months. I'll try to get some pictures up shortly.

- crowtales

November

We're done! J/K. :)

Hey look, it's the holiday season, I'm sure folks will have a lot of interesting holiday inspired minis, ... right? Right?

Anyways, the totals for November are:
joegkushner: 11
gospog: 3
joe: 3

Which brings the totals to:
joegkushner: 175
mike mearls: 46
gospog: 46
crowtales: 17
joe: 14
Dom C: 3
Kuni: 2
microserf: 1

#14: Alaine

Hmm, two in one month. What is my world coming to. I started her at the in-laws over Thanksgiving. Again, she spoke to more much more than any of the others I've -already- started. So I finished her.

Three new Orks. Hur! Hur! Hur!

More Lootas and Burnas from the excellent boxed set of the same name.

#13: Juron

I thought I'd finish a different mini first, but this one kept pulling me. I actually want to use him for D&D so I think that might have been a factor.

Variety is the Spice!

I've had this one in various stages of competion for many a moon. Probably since last year honestly. It's just another one I kept wondering, "why don't I just finish him." He's from Dark Sword Miniatures and they have some fantastic sculpts.

This is a Griffin Templar I believe. It's from Rakcham when they used to do metal. It's one of three. The other two are essentially done, but I can't find their shields. The shields by the way, are terrible in that the contact point is minimal and prone to falling off. I'll probably blue tack it next time it comes off.

Looks like one of the Games Workshop ogres right? Color selection might have a little to do with that in terms of skin tone, but this fellow is from Heresy miniatures. The arms were a huge pia as even after throwing in the green stuff, there were still semi-visible wedges.

This is a goblin chief from Crocodille games for the Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. A ton of 'fiddy' bits on it and it's been in various stages of completion since it first game out. I just got tired of it and finished it off and gave it a quick seal. No point in prolonging the pain. It's a great fig but I'm realizing as I get older that my patience level for fiddy bits is wanning quick.
This skeleton warrior didn't want to be photo shot. I tried like six times before I gave up the ghost. So you get blurry skeleton warrior from Rafm. He's part of a three pack and I've got the other two in various stages of completion as well. Maybe they'll take.

This top row is a group of six 'bulls' from Games Workshop. They are part of an Ogre Kingdom army I've had in storeage for a long time and finally decided to paint. Expect to see many more of these puppies as all the 'block' painting of flesh, cloth and metal is done and the touch ups are happening now.

This is another chaos dwarf from Hasslefree Miniatures. I love the simplicity of it. It's a nice touch without being over complicated by thousands of pouches, bags, miselaneous weapons, etc...

#12: Sir Brannor

Finished one finally. I got this one started back in May, and he's finally done. Well, as done as I'm taking him to. I also have a comparison of him against another crusader I did. While it isn't great, I did do a very smooth blend on the cloak and armor. I think I need work on my highlighting skillz but this was so much smooth a blend than the first one.