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!

Opinions on D&D Next and Miniatures?

If I'm way off topic here let me know but as a fan of miniatures and someone whose done repaints on the prepaints I had the following thoughts:


1. No core races that are rare or very rare. Yeah, I'm looking at the Dragonborn here. The only way to get a 'common' one, was to buy the resculpt in the visible packages that was overpriced compared to what had come previously. Why WoTC decided to make a brand new core race and not have a ton of figures out for it right away I'll never know. If there were sculpting problems, get better sculptors. They're out there. I don't need to post to dozens of sites to prove it. What's worse was at the same time we were still getting dwarves and elves that absolutely no one needed.

2. Adventure Support: Call me crazy but having a miniature of some of the big bads come out a year or later after the adventure has been out doesn't strike me as good marketing. Having an adventure come out that has immediate support with miniatures on the other hand? Especially if they are well done and can be used in other venues? Win.

3. Dreamblade. What the hell? Miniatures of a similiar size but with prize money that blew anything the D&D miniatures were hosting out of the water? Well, we all know how that ended but man, talk about trying to have your cake and eat it too. If you're going to make another minaiture game, make sure it either doesn't compete with your other one, or make sure that it it extremely useful to the other miniature game and doesn't require people to clip the miniatures off these massive oversized bases.

4. The China problem. Some people hate the idea of anything being made in China due to the various human rights issues. Some people look at current events and see that American workers appear to be more productive, that there are real savings to be had on transportation costs and that the lead time is cut down by months thanks to that improved transportation time. Might be time to you know, start making things in the US again as labor costs on the overseas markets increase. Be a good PR move as well.

5. Bags of miniatures. There has been a Zombie game out for years that allows you to buy a bag of zombies. They have a few other bits as well. These zombies are cheap. Well, relatively cheap. Why WoTC hasn't been able to make something like this is once again, beyond me.

Anyway, that's some things I'd like to see as there has been some talk of miniatures coming out 'soon'.

Latest Batch and Prep Work

Finished off some miniatures and prepping some more.

The gnoll is a touch up from Wizards of the Coast. The thing was initially almsot all black so while I was painting other figures I would throw some paint on it.

The demon next to him is the Heresy one. I had the red on him done for a while as he was my test figure.

The little dragon didn't initially come with a base but if I wanted to prevent it from chipping and tipping over... that's a creature from the Dragons of the Emerald Idol set in the Fantasy Lords box by Grenadier. The last one is a Games Workshop Armored Archer for the Empire done up in Nordland colors.

Same batch just from a different angle with the camera.

These are the guys I was waiting for the inks to dry on. Lots of inks involved with these Chronopia Black Orcs. They have kind of a middle east thing going on. I made the leader stand out a little by changing his base. The figures are some interesting sculpts but I thought these were bad casts. The bases on the 'grunts' are done using Happy Suppuku and green stuff. The leader's base is done up with some army painter flock and gale force 9 dried grass.

And on the workbench...

Yeah, I still haven't hit the daemon prince yet. The dragon in the middle is the large dragon from the Dragons of the Emerald Idol set. I threw him on the round base that the daemon came with if you use it for 40K. Fits well. Threw some skulls and other debris on the base. The last guy is I believe a Mountain Giant from Ral Partha. The original date on the base is 1977. We've come a long way. Have to at least let these set overnight. There's a ton of green stuff on the dragon and a ton of glue. Messing with it, especially it being all metal and only two pieces, wings and body, made me remember that despite my love of these old figures, they could be a huge pain in the ass if things didn't fit and man, those wings did not fit.