Latest and last round of Reaper Bones

Okay, I think I'm done with the Reaper Bones experiement. I either have or don't want any of the other bones that are currently available but will be watching the line as it matures.

I've used most styles of paint that I own here and a few mixes of things. The purple worm for example, Army Painter primer and paint. The Gnoll, Vallejo brush on primer and paint. The Troll, Reaper Heavy Gear paint, no primer. The ghost, Privateer Press Paint, no primer. The werewolf, Vallejo Primer with an army painter dip. Yeah, he was a quick one. The three orc archer, mostly old Games Workshop paint, no primer. I was lazy with them for the most part as it was pretty much just a test run.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with them. Some of them are direct tie in to the Warlord Game like the Ghost, who is a named character for Necropolis, and the Gnoll, who works for the Black Orcs. The others are good all purpose miniatures.

I think the best we can hope for now though, is that they get some compexity down. All of these are very simple miniatures. In some ways, they are perfect starter miniatures. That werewolf expecially is good for people who want to learn either drybrushing or dipping or using a wash. Same for the worm, ghost, or troll. Not a lot of different parts, not a lot of bags, pouches, belts, or other distractions. Allows you to get something painted quickly.

At their price point, I think they'll be a great seller for Reaper.

Bones Worm by Reaper

Okay, this is another one of the Bones figures from Reaper that's inexpensive plastic. I primed it with Alien Purple Army Painter. I then used the same paint name by the Army Painter to cover up a few spots that were missed in my initial spray. Good news? From the brushing on, there is very little difference between the paint and primer so that's a win for me. Another plus in the Army Painter side.

I mixed some flat matt white with the alien purple for the under belly and some demonic yellow for those pustles and some gray or another for the base. I then dipped it and let it sit. No drybrushing, layering, or other bits. I wanted to see how the Army Painter's dip would interact with the material. Worked out pretty good afaic. Total time spent actually painting? Not more than a half hour I'd say. The biggest part was waiting for the dip to dry.

I still have to try out my Privateer Press paints on one of these Bones and I do have a warewolf laying around here somewhere with a ghost...

Reaper Bones: Cave Troll

Reaper has come out with a new line of figures called Bones. I've mentioned them before. These are white plastic figures that are very low in price compared to their other versions.

I say other versions, because take for example this figure here. As a Bones figure, he is $2.29.

As a prepainted from the Legendary Encounters line, he is $4.29

As a metal figure, $6.99.


The figure I painted? I used the Heavy Gear Blitz back with no primer. The initial coat of paint didn't want to take completely. These require very little diluting on the first level. It makes the paint streak a bit. A few base coats took care of that issue.

In terms of handling, its different. The figure is so much lighter than a normal figure of this size should be you'll find yourself overcompensating a little if you're like me.

The detail is good. Mind you, the talons on the toes tend to sink into the base, but I can't tell if that's because of how the figure originally is or just the Bones version.

Me? I'm working on a gnoll right now from the same line and have a few more of the figures on Order directly from Reaper as my FLSG, Games Plus, has sold out of several of the packs and even some of the online vendors like The Miniature Giant have sold out as well.

If they can keep some new figures coming down the pipe, and the new Reaper catalog mentions that they have thirty already even though there are only previews for the two wizards (one male, one female), I'm hoping to see a few more of the Legendary Encounters make their way to Bones including Vampire, Young Dragon, Giant Spider, Bugbear, Female Ranger, and Minotaur of the Maze, all save the Vampire, I don't own in any form from Reaper.

Anyone else using them? Any opinions?

Latest Purchases?

My favorite FLSG, Games Plus, just had its thirty year anniversary. I stopped by for a few moments after a very busy day. I wanted to pick up the Vallejo Brush on primer and some brushes. I'm always messing with a lot of different mediums so keep some brushes to the side deliberately for them. The Okko miniatures were on sale. If you don't know Okko, you're missing out on a great graphic novel. I've mentioned the current graphic novel collectioms from Archaia Entertainment on my blog a few times. Good art, good story. The sale was a few bones off on the miniatures plus buy three get the fourth free. There were some others but I didn't want to go all out as I'm waiting to buy some of the Bones miniatures from Reaper and see what their new paint set looks like. The trick on those bones is only getting miniatures I've never bought before so there were a few and we'll see how that goes.

Anyone else buy anything good lately? Any purchases people waiting to make?

A Matter of Paint

So I just finished my latest batch of ogres. I'll take some pics of them and the giant scorpion that I was working on at the same time.

In between that, I tried to organize my painting area. That did not end well. I did not realize the huge amount of material I was keeping in the window. Probably not the best place for some of it, but the binds were always down.

Anyway, I bought a small shelf and took all of that stuff out of the window. As I organized other stuff that I wanted to move around, I couldn't help but notice that I have a lot of paint.

But... and here's the weird part, I'm still curious as to what's coming out from some of the companies. Reaper miniatures has a thing going on with Heavy Gear to produce a paint set specific to that miniature game. The Army Painter is coming out with their own line of paints. Well, that's not true. They already have one, but its getting a boxed set and they claim that they use different sources for the washes, metallics, and base colors to insure that its the highest possible quality.

And if you hadn't heard, Games Workshop is also redoing their paint line. This doesn't count minor changes to things like Privateer Press metals where they now have a black lid to indicate that its the new formula or brands that blogs like Four Color Figures use, Foundry, or Coat De Arms, which is the old Citadel range.

In terms of paint being used though, it goes something like, knocking over an open bottle, having paint dry up, having paint chunk up, and finally, all the way at the bottom, actually using the paint. I think Chaos Black and general Black are a few of the paints I regularly use up.

So that's me rambling about paint. What's everyone else's thoughts? Too much paint out there already? Not enough paint? Too much 'official' in the game or ?

Minis In Process

Haven't finished them yet and discovered something 'interesting'. The primer that I initially used was flaky and thirsty. It ate the first three layers of paint I put down. The metallics look like they've only had one layer as opposed to three of them (traditional bolt, chain and silver). Oh well, I'm hoping that after I hit them with the inks it will help flush it out some more.

In the back is that giant scorpion. When I use the brown wash, he'll be getting hit with that, as well as some black in some small areas and then a little bit more of a build up. Also noticed that he's got a few broken spines on him. M'eh? Hated him anyway! Little bastard never fit on his base and was a PIA to put together.

More Terrible Photographs!

That's a group shot. There are two 'true' 25 mm figures there. The snake man on the far left front row and the gladiator on the far right right row.

These three are 'lesser' orcs from the Reven faction in Warlord. Basing is done with Army Painter Black Battlefield with some flock and ash thrown ontop of it.

Reven lesser bulls spearmen. Did them at the same time as the sword wielder.

True 25 mm snakeman priest. Don't even remember the company. He was in a state of 'almost done' for well over a year. Finally finished him off.

Female gladiator from Mega-Minis. Another true 25mm figure. Some great detail on the shield.

Drow warrior from the very short lived Chain Mail line from WoTC. You gotta hand it to WoTC, when the going gets tough, they quit. ;-)

Type 1 demon aka the Vrock from Otherworld miniatures.

As I continue to read Bulkheads and Blasters, a d6 based game that uses # of successes to determine if you make a roll and if you beat opposition who also uses d6, I'm still painting up figures that may be useful for such a setting. Thankfully some of the Superfigs can pull double duty in being useful for Mutants and Masterminds or another, in this case, minis game. As you might be able to tell from the group shot, he's also a rather large bastich!

So still messing around with the camera. If one of these pictures is the least offensive, let me know!

Khador Warjacks and miscellaneous

The warjacks are the plastic/resin from the new set. These are not dipped. The 'interesting' thing is that the initial red primer pokes through here and there. It didn't wear out like some primers do which actually caused a bit of a problem as when handling the model you get 'wear' spots and the red keeps poking through. These figures were much easier to assemble and work with than the classics that I dipped but have some minor flaws of their own. The lack of the Khador symbol for one should've been an easy one for PP to put on the hull of the beast considering some of the details here.

These three... ugh. The first one is something something the White Axe from the Celtos line. The second and third are from Reaper. I'd go into more detail about them but the pics are so hideous I think I'm going to try to take some better ones later and see if I can salvage it. But hey, they're done so that's the important thing.

Khador and More

Sorry for the bad lighting. I'm going to have to play with the camera.

Some Khador metal heavy war machines, a stone giant from reaper an an abomination from magnficient egos, who I believe is no longer in business.

The Khador figs were hit with army primer red primer and given a single coat of their base colors then dipped and touched up where the primer was showing through the base colors.

Painting The Night Away

While I love the funds that working overtime can provide, I found that I put in hundreds of hours of overtime last year and it really didn't improve the quality of my life so this year, instead of going to bed at 9:00 PM every Friday on a regular weekend day or 7:00 PM because I started at 4:30 AM, I figure, I'm going to try to hold down the crazy spending (not all the spending, just the crazy spending) and try to work that overtime only when I have to.

The Khador soldiers in front still just have the basic red Army Painter Primer. The ones in back have got some of the shading I'm working on to try and follow the Khador Army book for getting that 'Khador' red. It's supposed to take something like 14 layers of inking so we'll see how long my patience puts up with that nonsense.

The ones in front will get a quick dip in the Army Painter Strong Tone soon and that will be that for them. Well, I'll throw some basing material on them too and touch up the base, etc... but I don't anticipate any big issues.

If you look to the right of the photo, you'll see I'm still working on that stone giant from my earlier updates this year. He's a pretty good figure and I'm pleased with the way he's turning out so far.

The rest of the stuff is a mismatch of various bits and pieces I'm working on, all at the same time. When it comes to painting I'm afraid I've got really bad ADD because I hate to waste paint and I like the 'shinny'.

As you may be able to tell from my desk, I don't have a single favorite paint but use a lot of varieites. Despite the awesome things I keep hearing about P3, I'll tell you this, I'm using Reaper Master Bronze because my P3 bonze, like the Pig Iron (boltgun metal) I had before it, turned to gunk. Sure, I could post on Privateer Press line and get some more, but it's already the second bottle I've had and to be hoenst, most of the P3 metallics, in my experience, are terrible. Maybe it's because I've gotten bad batches or its old or I need to periodically open them up and check them when I'm not using them all the time but I consider it a lesson learned.

The rest of their paint line is pretty good and for a 'fantasy' range, I like their mercenary colors for 'realistic' style painting.

The Last of the Wine (2011 version)

This year, in many aspects, I cut back on my miniature spending. This doesn't mean it came to a stop or anything like that. I just recently picked up the prepainted Dragons collector set from WoTC and I've had the Paizo prepaints on preorder for two months. I've also bought supplies like Army Painter primer, micro-files, green stuff, and other tools. However, miniature purchases have not been where they were in previous years.  This has been a funds thing in minor aspect but the major aspect has been time. For the last two years, work has been beating my ass with a tire iron so I've taken to a lot of short cuts (hence Army Painter and Vallejo Dips) and not buying as much as I used to since the stuff I've bought in the past I still haven't even primed. While I won't say that in 2012 I vow to improve my painting skills, I will try to paint more. Anyway, onto the last pics I'll post for the year. I hope that next year sees more people posting here. We have some great talent on board here and I'd love to be inspired by more of it.

These may not be the last of my trinity figures that I've had since the game came out, but I ran across them and painted them up. Armor is the iron/silver Army Painter spray followed by Andrea inks; brown, ultra marine blue, black. Skin is Andrea skin tone pack. The base is done up with Happy Suppuku mold that does Hexes. Nifty stuff there.

Reven from Reaper's Warlord game. I didn't do the two beastmen (woodchoopers in Warlord) at the same time, but I like them anyway. The orc is something like an orc sargent but a pig faced one. The green on the orc's skin is Andrea's six pack of green. These guys are pretty standard in basing terms.

Some Menoth figures from Privateer Press. He was a dip. He is part of a pack I'm giving one of my friends for X-Mas. I know it's late as I haven't given it to him but screw him as he didn't get me anything.

Two of GW's figs. The elf is a wood elf from the command group. The pic is so clear I can see a spot I missed on his pants. The gunner is another one I found while cleaning up. And again I gave him the wrong dip. Should have been soft and I used strong. The base on the wood elf is cork. I tried to disguise it a little by clipping it at odd angles.

Two more mega-miniatures. The first is dipped in Vallejo's Sepia. The second in Army Painter Soft. I weep for the crimes I commited against that second figure's eyes but done is done!

Have I mentioned I love Superfigs? Another robot with some paste for the base. Andrea silver set on this one all the way.

I took all these pics at the same time with the same camera and lightning and this is the best of six pics I took of the Black Legion here. The guy on the left with the great sword was my old 4e character, Rus, a fighter from the core I played for a while under a solid GM. The rest I painted later on. The bases are Heresy or I should say, were Heresy. They are cobblestone tabbed that go into the standard 25mm bases. The price of metal has risen so much that Andy at Heresy doesn't even make them anymore and recommended I go to Fenris for some resin versions. I hope they are a good match as I want to buy a few more of these style figs for games like A Song of Blades and Heroes and Havok and others I've heard good things about, not to mention Warlord, by Reaper, itself. I like the simplicity of the figs. I like these guys much more than the halbred ones.

I've already got a lot of figures in various stages of painting right now including a Red Box figure that would go great with the Chaos Mauraders from the north from Warhammer as well as a set of Orcs from Chronpia I think the game was called, as well as many more figs to prep.

I hope 2012 treats everyone better than 2011 did and that the paint flows freely in the new year!

A Few More

Starting with:

Reaper: Winter wolf.

Reaper: Female Pirate

Reaper: Rake

Games Workshop: Shadow Elf

Privater Press: Iron Kingdoms priest of Morrow

Reaper Black Orcs

Three Black Orcs from Reaper. I had to base them on the square bases because I intent to one day, perhaps mind you, use them for the Warlord game and it seems most of the black orcs for that army are actually from the Dark Haven line.

Reaper, Grenadier, Ral Partha

First up is a four pack from Reaper miniatures featuring the Black Legion. I hate brocoli bases so trimmed them off. Huge pain in the ass here. I have a new product called Instant Mold that I snagged from Coolminornot. You can use it to make impressions of surface details pretty easily so I had a resin table from Dwarven Forged laying around and used that to make the floor that the Legion members stand on. It's still a new process for me so the thickness of the wood planking varies from figure to figure.

I painted these the super lazy way. An 'iron' spray from Army Painter. A medium black for the tunics and gloves. Some brown for the hafts and floor and a dip in Dark Toner. Shake 'em off and let 'em sit. While I was bumming I did do a few touch ups of GW Mithril Silver though. But seriously, outside of some pooling on the floor, super quick job that I'm okay with.

Next up... The minotaur is a Ral Partha. The two in front of it are old school Grenadier figures. I've had them for many years and like many other things lately, decided to just finish the damn things.

Alternative shot.

Next Round of Updates

Work has been very busy. And there has been bad things on the home life side of things too. I've still managed to get some painting in, but it's been pretty slow still.

Onto the finished works. My apologies on the lack of quality on the camera shots. Still can't take a photo to save my life.

I think the one on the left is a wood elf from Games Workshop. It's a metal figure. Had it laying around for a long long time. The one on the right is a steam golem from Mage Knight that I gave a repaint to. The main purpose there was to test some liquetext sand on the base. M'eh.

Okay... left side is a wood chooper from Reaper's Warlord for their first orc faction. Second one is a cultist from the Superfigs line. I had others and painted them up in red to represent monks from the Scarlet Brotherhood. The third figure is the Queen's Assassin from some company that's out of business I believe. The fourth is easter mouse for the g/f. He is on a wooden disk I bought from Michael's when I bought the liqutex.

Guy on the left is an Empire Plastic Gunner. I gave him a dip of Army Painter Strong tone. Don't know why as almost all the others I gave a Soft Tone due to the yellow. Ah well. The guy on the right is a metal armored archer, also for the Empire, but I don't think they've made any of him for a long time.

The classic lizard man pack from Reaper. I gave it a spray with some Flames of War color, some quick paint and slapped it into the Army Painter Strong tone. Base had some of that tuft Army Painter stuff on it. Simple but I think effective. I can see how people can quickly pump some armies out with fair detail with this method.

This is from Fantasy Flight Games. The base I think is Micro Art Studio. They do some good work. The tuffs are once again Army Painter.

This is an ogress. First done by Crocodile Games and then by Reaper. Given base tones and brush on with the Army Painter Strong Tone. I have two of 'em so I figured I'd paint one the quick way just so I can put it on the table.

13 figs this go around with the previous 29 bring's me on up to 42.

Hope to see some more postings from the other bloggers here. Some great talent out there I need to steal... I mean, be inspired by...

Reaper Orc Reven and Mega Mini Cleric

Another batch of Reaper Orc Reven.  This time I tested out some Penzer Acer colors I recently got from Miniature Market. They had the whole line of 48 for $62.

The little guy on the left is another Mega Miniature. I painted him up in the colors of the Monks of War off the cover with the black and white going on.

Total: 29

Reaper Orcs and one Grenadier Pig

The orcs are from Reaper's Warlord line for their Reven faction. The pigs are from some old Grenaider boxed set I have. The orcs were done up first in Army Painter green primer which you can see here:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5099/5452433816_0d3505a85b_b.jpg

So that brings me up to 23 minis. Now to find some more orcs or something else easy to keep the numbers going.

Reaper, Heresy, Rafm, Mega, Ral Partha, and WoTC

Okay, the cyclops is from heresy.

The guy in purple is an old storm giant from Ral Partha.

The minotaur next to him is a Reaper.

The minotaur in front of the first row is from WoTC (I believe) from their 25th anniversery set.

The three ladies are from Mega Minis.

The two serpent people are from Rafm from the CoC line.

Alternative take here: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/5440047725_329b19c935_b.jpg
Total: 18

Reaper and Rackham

The fellow on the left is a fighter from Reaper miniatures with scale mail armor and a huge sword in one hand. The one on the right is the second of a three man knight set for Rackham Templars that I have. Still have one more to paint up. The Rackham dude is so old that they don't even make him anymore. Heck, they haven't made him in metal in a while and now the plastic versions are gone too.

While the knight may look slightly taller, note that he's on an actual base that gives him a height advantage eh?

Reaper: 1
Rackham: 1
Total: 9

The Scribbler by Crocodille Miniatures

This is the Scribbler, a villain in the first advneture path by Paizo, Rise of the Runelords. It was originally created by Crodille Games. I went with my own paint scheme based slightly off of the art. Looking at the official figure paint job, I can see I missed several things but oh well, ain't going back now. I have another one so I'll do that one up in the 'studio' colors.

Privateer Press: 1
Crocodile Games: 1
Total: 2