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Based on my joyful experience in going through my shipment of Bones which arrived today, I think Wyrmgear himself confirms that there ARE different types of plastic being used for their various different qualities. It's quite obvious that Wyrmgear's various pieces are made of different plastics, particularly the wings. Based on how different they are, and how good they look, I would say this was a deliberate choice. Which means it's very likely that other models have used slightly different formulations of plastic for various reasons, as Kay indicated. I don't have Kally, so I can't report any more than that. On a related note, as someone who has done technical support for a couple decades now, there is a very important factor that makes it easier for a company to track down a problem more than a mere quantity of complaints will. It is the quality of the data received - "It's broken" is never ever as helpful as "It doesn't work when I do this" is. Comparisons to a known condition is especially helpful, particularly if it can be used to recreate the potential problem. FREX, "it's no more bendy than a skeleton's spear" or "I could use the wing to bend the horns" is a lot better quality data than "it's spongy". Spongy is a perceptive thing that may be different for each person, whereas bending the horns with the wing is something Reaper can reproduce and decide if it is normal, or not. Bottom line - a thousand complaints of "It's spongy" is not going to be as helpful to Reaper as a hundred, or even 50 people reporting back exactly how a specific part responds to a specific stimulus will be. I am not pointing this out to trivialize anyone's complaint, only mentioning it because I can't even count the numbers of times I've had someone chew me out because I can't fix their problem without data they won't provide. A lot of people don't seem to understand that if they take an actual interest in helping to solve the problem they're complaining about, it will almost always be solved faster than if they just sit back and complain.

Here are some Reaper gnolls I painted, I have no luck with varnish, I just go for shiny, these started to come out cloudy. I ordered some blended flock and static grass so I'll throw some on these when it gets here. 5 gnolls here 2 metal archers, 1 metal gnoll w/axe, 2 Bones gnolls w/flails. The scale mail on the Bones gnolls is larger than the others, extremely easy to paint, after painting these I would prefer just Bones versions, the details are excellent. Hard to see the reds, I have a light red on the edges of any red areas. I know on the inside of the shield I got sloppy, I'll pretend a gnoll made the shield. Anyway I was going for a "hyena" type look, if it gives anyone ideas for their gnolls.

Once upon a time - ca. 1979 or so, when I was a Young Grump, I had an adventure where the party thief (not rogue - thief, engaging in the profitable pastime of theft) separated from the party in a quest for, well, unconsidered trifles. While thus engaged the young rogue managed to find a treasure trove, and so eager was he to enrich his personal coffers that he neglected to secure the door behind him - which then shut and vanished from sight, leaving him trapped in a room with no doors. Being not without resources the scallywag put on his ring of wishes and demanded of the ring 'Make me a door!' When later the rest of the party encountered the lost treasure vault and spiked the door to prevent accident, they found, in the center of the room, a freestanding door, with neither threshold nor frame. The magic-user cast the ever helpful spell detect magic. Lo and behold! the door was magic - a transformation spell of some kind. So, with no clue that the door was their erstwhile thief, they placed the magic door in their bag of holding and carried it off with them. To the best of my knowledge they may carry it with them yet.... (The player of the thief started laughing as they were messing around with the door, and never explained what had happened.) Yes, I would like a door like that in Bones... I will name it Nathan, after the player of that long ago thief.... *EDIT* In a similar vein - a vault door, a square filled with spikes (for the bottom of a spiked pit), and other dungeon dressings. The Auld Grump

I tend to think there's a good place for digital sculpts, such as machinery (Bombshell's rocketbike) and Uncanny Valley (Kingdom Death). And certainly other areas, but those two are where I've seen the most successful examples of digital sculpting. Attempts to make "sexy" (KD's pinups, the ladies of Darkmyr) or "heroic" (Raging Heroes) minis has, IMO, had little success so far. The reason equipment works well is that our eyes expect it to have a manufactured appearance. KD's non-pinup stuff (and some pinups) work because we aren't supposed to see individuals in them, we're supposed to see archetypes; or, for the monsters, we're looking at things for which we have no frame of reference. Raging Heroes, I think, fails because we are supposed to see characters and all we see is plastic with facial features. And those are some of the best-quality digital sculpts around. Now, paint can solve a lot of these problems, but a skilled painter doesn't make the sculpt impressive. What I love to see are sculptors like Tre and Julie and Patrick who sculpt characters rather than miniatures. And I haven't yet seen digital sculpts that have the same level of...well, to be honest it's je ne sais quoi, but I think that's a legitimate quality to seek in art-- as hand-sculpted minis. And a lot of this is highly subjective and it's entirely my opinion, but it's why I'd be very sad if the Bones line, or the industry in general, went primarily to digital sculpting in the near future. Edited for typos. Autocorrect doesn't speak French, apparently.

Something like this door: P1000919 by kitchen_wolf, on Flickr It's the ultimate dungeon trope - a closed door. It's free-standing so you can turn it perpendicular to the wall when it's open. They'd probably sell well in 3 packs.

A nice treat from Reaper - a video showing the shipping process of the bones. I would have gone with flight of the bumblebee for the soundtrack, but it still works :)

Absolutely, that. Head swaps are actually pretty easy. You just have to find the right kind of body for your character. The first thing that came to mind for me was using Shad's of Saori's body (although I don't know what type of rogue you're playing). My only experience doing a head swap is creating a Dragonborn Sorcerer using the dragonman conversion kit and putting that on top of a GW Empire Wizard body. I modeled a hood to make the conversion a bit more natural, although I'm not sure if you'd want to do that since that might obscure the ears. ~Muninn

First post here, started painting my new (GW) Tau army while I wait for my bones. Took me a while to figure out a color scheme I liked, sticking to this one, though I might play a little with the color of the backpack. Its tabletop quality :) What do you guys think?

I'll have to take a look at the rules & post a few. Thanks. Continuing with the game I'd been planning, the PCs would finally interpret the key they found around the Mummy's neck, which would lead them to the mysterious temple. The would have to make it through the Ringing Mountains and into the Forest Ridge (fighting through all manner of wildlife, brigands, cannibal halflings, and probably some of the Evil Warlord's thugs no doubt). A helpful halfling would offer to guide them to the temple. It was his tribes duty to safeguard the temple and the priests who lived there, but the priests had long since secluded themselves. They had not been heard of for generations. The PCs would open the temple to find the cloaked monks still maintaining their solemn, silent watch. Beckoning the characters into the temple it is revealed that in order to prolong their lives the priests made a pact with fell powers, and have become hopelessly corrupt. The temple is, in fact, overrun by demons. I figured for a temple full of demons I might as well go big, so I'd bought a fair number of GW Chaos Daemons to populate the halls. The bloodletters would act as 2-hit minions (at the start of combat they would all appear to be cloak-clad monks, once they took a hit their daemonic nature would be revealed). The Flamers would be long-range artillery types. Once the game ended, I was left with a ton of Daemons. As it turns out it was enough to start a warhammer army. So i figured, "why not?" ~Muninn

I apologize for the size of these pics. I started making some buildings out of various wood I got from Michaels. I started by using a glue gun, then switched to using the glue gun a little to hold walls in place, then wood glue for the majority. The picture of the three buildings on their sides drying; the one on the left is the second floor for the finished building (which is the 1st floor), the middle is going to be a one tory building, and you can't tell but the one on the right is a wall section. On the bottom is a small building, an outhouse I'm working on. I use wood and sculpey to make things, also sculpey to make molds and then cast plaster such as barrells and crates. My wife and daughter worked on the barrells and crates some, my wifes idea for colorful barrells. I dry brushed over their work, they couldn't quite get the technique.

Cthulhu in progress. No glue yet, those wings are a PIA! Lol

Thanks guys. Tonight's work: Highlights: 3:2 Forest Green/Jade Green 3:5 Forest Green/Jade Green Straight Jade Green 2:1 Jade Green/Sun Yellow Eyes: Splattered Crimson 1:1 Splattered Crimson/Sun Yellow Teeth, Handle and Skull: Splattered Bone washed Blackened Brown then Highlighted back with Splintered Bone Chest Strap: 2:1 Oiled Leather/Splintered Bone Gory Red 2:1 Gory Red/Splintered Bone Wash of Blackened Brown Club Spikes and Chainmail: Honed Steel then washed with Blackened Brown Base: Ruddy Leather Stone Grey Wash of Blackened Brown I am going to call this one 90%+ done. I am tempted to be done with it now, but I am sure that someone will point something out that it can use (like the fact that I am not thrilled about the color choice of the loincloth - I am half-tempted to make it some crazy bright color).

Got my shipping notice! Woooooooooooooooooo!!

Hi, I've been working on this for a while and have finally finished him! This is one of the Battling Behemoths from Grenadier Miniatures, and is huge almost a foot high, weighing 14lbs (lead). I took a photo for reference to show the scale with a reaper figure when I was assembling him. I was looking at the wall murals in Knossos Greece as a starting point for some of his body designs, as well as some winged griffons in grecian pottery for the designs on the wings. Hope you guys like him! Also if anyone knows the sculptor's name, I would like to give credit to them too, please let me know, thanks!

Someone mentioned to me at Paint Club that there was a recent thread where people had paint questions for me. I don't have time to look for it so here's your chance--you got a question for the Meep, fire away! Topics I am best at expounding on are paint-related. For those who don't know, I am She Who Makes the Paint at Reaper. I have limited time due to Kickstarter fulfillment entering its final stages, but I will do my best. --Anne

Drybrushed the skin areas. Washed the warts with Carnage Red. Drybrushed warts with Tanned Skin and then highlighted them with a lighter shade of Tanned Skin.

Here's my next Reaper Bones gaming figure, for my friend's Tiefling Beguiler, Thorne In-Yo-Cide (Yeah, that's really his name). The figure is Damien, Hellborn Wizard (03321) by Derek Schubert. It's a beautiful sculpt!

Finished this guy today. Skin could be a little smoother, but otherwise I'm not unhappy with the results for the level of effort I put in. I worked more on him than I would a table-top piece, but less than for my best pieces.

As a tabletop mini this is good, but it wouldn't take a lot for you to step it up a notch. Consider the neck scales and right pec as a start point. On both of these areas you need more mid tone, on the pec the whole top right corner should be lighter, closer to the highlight you have on the pec, with that top edge on the right getting the same final highlight as the main pec. On the neck the brown shadow should only be visible in the deepest recesses, and the bright highlight colour should be on the top edge particularly on the right side where the neck is most exposed to the light. For the leather you have 2 issues, firstly the colour is getting lost against the skin and secondly there is not enough midtone on the quiver. As a suggestion start with your midtone and shine a bright light down on the model from directly above and take a photo. That will give you the highlight and shadow points for midday lighting (the default assumption). Then you can tweak that a little as you paint (after all the sun creates a more omni-directional light) by putting extra highlights and shadows in to give greater definition. Finally with fine details like the scales the best approach is nearly always, midtone, bdrybrush highlight, wash, retouch highlights.

From the cats perspective, it's pretty clear that you're the cats servant and that your wife is simply their pet. Cats ARE the master race. In fact this is why space aliens have not contacted humanity and never will. We are merely the servitors, minions and underlings of our Cat Overlords. Any star faring aliens would have inevitably reached this conclusion after having studied Earth off-and-on for the last 7000 years or so. Consider: There are about 7 Billion humans on Earth. There are somewhere between 200 Million to a Billion Cats. Both species live in houses. The houses (and the occasional miniatures factory) are organized into cities. The ratio of Cats to Humans is at least 1 to 7 maybe as high as 1 to 35. The Cat species is very numerous (compared to other mammalians) most members enjoy the benefits of a low-tech† industrial civilization. Cats do not grow or gather food (though some indulge in hunting for sport), build infrastructure or housing, or work at jobs of any sort. They leave all of that to their more numerous human minions. So the Saucer Pilots, Little Green Men, Space Aliens are not going to contact us. Because clearly ,we are not in charge. Those who do no work for their living clearly are. And they are afraid to contact the Cats... ...Because they wonder: how do the Cats control us? telepathy, mind-control?? would it work on an LGM? †We are low tech compared to anybody/thing controlling a working starship.

Hi there! We're shipping out your Kickstarter stuff! You're getting: Griffon x1 Deep Dwellers x1 IMEF Paint Set x1 Starter Set 2 x1 Mind your Manors x1 Undead Paint Set x1 Spider Centaurs x1 Kaladrax Reborn x1 Storm Giants x2 Hydra x1 Nethyrmaul x1 Frost Wyrm x1 Fire Giant Warriors x1 Forces of Nature x1 Red Dragon x1 Clockwork Dragon x1 Undead Giant x1 Deathsleet x1 There Be Dragons x1 Frost Giants x1 Ebonwrath x1 Fire Giants x1 vampire x1 Your shipment was postmarked on 07-05-2013 and is being shipped UPS Ground. 13 pounds of miniatures on their way to Buckeye, AZ! *chuckles* A friend asked me what kind of miniatures were in the box. I said, "Oh, a bunch in different sizes ranging from wee to not so wee to "Sweet Mother of Monkey Milk, we're fighting WHAT???"

So they haven't sent us our Bones yet, but they have NO problem sending Texas temperatures up here... I am not made for this kind of weather. I need to go find a hockey rink to hang out in or something.

I did a round of highlights on the browns: 4:2 Ruddy Leather/Burnt Orange 4:4 Ruddy Leather/Burnt Orange Finally just Burnt Orange After taking the pics I noticed that I forgot to highlight the javelins. I decided to try out a twisting pattern.

This is a Bones figure I painted in about 2 hours for a D&D character. My goal was to get a decent-looking job done, and that's it. Nothing special. It is marketed in the Reaper Kickstarter as a "new Bones" figure. It looks just like Kellen, Nobleman Adventurer, but with a hood. I couldn't find an SKU for this exact figure, though, since it's not available yet.

Here is a mini from Mordheim. I decided to paint him up as my character for the Iron Kingdoms RPG (I'm playing him as a knight/aristocrat that is clearly past his prime and often confused).

In the last weeks I was working on this box, to make it easier to transport my paints and utils. The first picture shows the box from the backside, but it looks the same from the front. I made it possible to put the removable cover at the backside. I hated it always to have not the cover on a fixed place.

My scalp is sunburned. And I even have hair! Tricksey nasty suns, always hurtsing me. <Gollum Gollum>

What's the over/under on who gets finished shipping first, RoW or Canada? USPS vs. UPS? UPS hates Canada (to be fair, the feeling is mutual). It will definitely be the Rest of the World first. If they had to, Reaper could rent a truck on their own and dump the RoW boxes on the post office steps. Meanwhile, in Canada, UPS actually recalled packages that were en route. Hurray for the few brave bones boxes that dodged the Elmer Fudds trying to drag them back to Texas.

I had been painting for about 8 months or so and I did up a Female Pirate Cat from Dark Sword and posted her on my blog. She was adorable and a bunch of my wargamer friends challenged me to paint up a female pirate for them. So I did up one of the female pirates from Dark Sword. Then someone asked me if I would paint up a crew of female pirates. I had no idea where to look and these guys, being wargamers sent me to Black Scorpion. Well those females were hideous. Somehow I found my way onto the Reaper site on my own and found Patrick Keith. Oh and they were gorgeous. I painted three of them and my painting ability increased immediately. I had figures that just felt "right" to me. Now I'm Reaperized. Now here's the sad part of my story. When the BONES Kickstarter came out, I was dead broke. I mean seriously broke as in we could only afford to eat one meal a day and that was usually a peanut butter sandwich or on a good day a can of those spaghetti rings. That has now passed however and I'm waiting for the BONES to come out in the retail store so I can buy the ones I want. I did get some from a wargamer in England as she sent them to me. She's just fabulous and I'm happily painting those up now.

http://youtu.be/kk5xfK0ovrk We just have the standards, really. Dice tower, DM screen, grid map. I'm hoping that we'll be fully equipped with Bones and Dwarven Forge by the end of the year though! On second thought... my girlfriend does have a big pair of horns she wears to slip into her Tiefling role. :P

This is the reply I got to my inquiry about possibly switching to a US address via the Kickstarter message system: So, I guess we'll all just have to sit back and be patient for just a little longer. (Patience is a virtue after all).

Sorry, the figure is caller in darkness, here's a picture: http://www.runelordsminis.com/images/Dnd_Unh_CallerinDarkness_rside.jpg

Mine is on the way. Vampire + 23 items, 12.2 pounds. :)

Got some more done on the priest. Some finishing highlights left to go, weapon and bottles need attention and the boots n eed highlighting and the highlights on the robe toned down (I think, still unsure looks good t table top distance with brighter highlights.)

Here's my wraith:

I've done a bit of work since last time. Some of it involves interference pigments, which like metallic paints are microscopic films of titanium dioxide on mica flakes. The iridescence of the titanium (which is a white pigment on the macro scale) acts like oil on a puddle to produce a rainbow of colors when used this way. There is no colored pigment in these paints. All the color is an optical effect. From some angles interference paint is nearly invisible; from others its color shines vividly. It works most dramatically over black and is weakest in effect over white. It is a bit difficult to photograph to good effect. By way of demonstration, here's a trump card I once made for a PC in an Amber game, a character from the Courts of Chaos. I painted his portrait in black and white, then glazed over various parts with different interference colors. From certain angles the painting looks black and white. From others the colors pop out. I decided to paint a rainbow on the cabin roof. I started in the middle, with green, figuring it would be easier to start at the middle and work out than to start at one edge and go to the other. I finished the rainbow, but decided it was too big and looked too cartoony. So I painted over its edges in black and redid it smaller. Next I started adding some more creatures to the hull and painting some gems on the balustrades. This is a quick and easy way to paint gem effects. I began with simple black circles on the balustrades. I painted white dots in them at a slight angle, to indicate the direction of light. Those on the port side were mirror reversed to those on the starboard side. I added just a wash of white to indicate the light that comes through a gem into its shadow. They are below and to the right of the black circles here. Then I glazed bright transarent colors over the entire contents of the black circle and the little washes of light. I didn't take separate pictures of that step before I dotted little white highlights on each gem.

I tend to have three to four projects on the painting table at the same time, so I thought I'd keep all my ongoing Reaper projects in one place. Some may be large projects and some may just be single figures. Prior to this figure, I've painted only four non-human figures and those were the Little Dudes from Dark Sword Miniatures. So this Cave Troll is an important piece for me. It is also my first Bones figure. This is Cave Troll #77004 and I realize loads of people are painting him right now. I was working on him outside today and took a quick pic of him in my garden just to see how far from being done I really am. I know I'm only supposed to photograph against a neutral grey background, but this is just a WIP and it's fun. I based him in Reaper Pale Green then applied a green wash from Secret Weapon. I then layered up the highlights by adding successively larger amounts of Reaper Saffron Yellow to the Pale green. I applying the green wash to blend and to provide depth of colour. The pustules were done with Reaper Phoenix Red and lined with Secret Weapon Amethyst Wash. Highlighting was done by adding Reaper White to the Phoenix Red. I then added some Vallejo Black Ink to the green wash to go back and deepen the shadows in the musculature. The loin cloth has only had a base coat of Reaper Dessert Tan and a Face Wash from Secret Weapon. I have not begun to highlight it yet. I used Citadel Mechrite Red for the boils on his back and washed with a Secret Weapon's Blood Red mixed with a small amount of black ink. Highlights were achieved by adding successively large amounts of Saffron Yellow. i don't drybrush my figures, I just work up using a damp brush. He's going to put on a larger base with Fulumbar, Dwarf Warrior #77011 as a small battle vignette and I'll give it as a gift to one of my Historical Wargaming buddies in the UK. Because I have no one to game with I always make up stories to go with my figures and post them on my blog. I have no Fantasy friends so it's fun to expose the Wargamers to my side of the hobby and try to subvert them.

White pigment has the largest particulate size, has the highest coverage of any pigment, and is also the heaviest pigment. These qualities mean that there is a fine line between thinning enough to gain the translucent quality needed to glaze, and going too far--essentially "breaking" the paint by adding too much water. Rule of thumb is that a color must be thinned more to layer well the closer it gets to pure white, but be cautious. Also, thin with water, not flow improver. Though flow improver helps up to a certain point, adding extra does actually start to work against you when your paint becomes very watery. You may see the midtone or highlight from the Cold Greys return (or something close, perhaps as an HD), but the triad sold much more poorly than the warm Stone Greys and neutral Greys so we are not planning to bring it back. --Anne

So, I guess we'll all just have to sit back and be patient for just a little longer. (Patience is a virtue after all).

These guys were speed painted (ignoring the long periods with no brush work ;)) and are the canon crew and 1 more spearman from the 6th Ed WHFB starter.

a;ldkfal;[email protected]#@#~!~~~~!!!!!! Sometimes it's very hard to remember that I do actually like to draw. Usually these times coincide when the art is important (in this case, a birthday gift for my best friend) and/or when I am ill. I've already tossed two sketches and have been staring at the current one for hours trying to make it magically complete itself. It's very rare that art completes itself, so I don't know why I am wasting my time. :c

A Male Halfling Fighter from Otherworld Miniatures Dungeon Adventures series.

Since it got deleted in the last thread, I'd actually really love to see some historically-accurate Romani minis. It would also be a great opportunity to add some mounted figures to the line.

Have to agree with that. Until it was brought up I didn't even notice the plain bases. I like them because it leaves all the focus on the mask! If you really wanted to get funky with it, you could do bases of glowing coals or something.

Took a quick photo from the front to show where the bends are. It appears I have bent the attachment points slightly away from vertical, but there's a bend in the wing itself slightly above that. Also, you can see how the front foot is off angle again.

Yeah, I hate onions.

I've been avoiding most show off and WIP because it makes me feel guilty. Also jealous.

You need to think outside the box. Find a girlfriend who also likes to paint, and suddenly you are both painting a much more reasonable 120 minis.

Anhurian is done. Painted the buckles and the base. Went back and did the eyes again as some of the washes ran into the eye sockets. May go back and try and clean up the eyes but for the most part I'm finished with it.

Thanks that's what I was going for. Back when I was just learning D&D I was introduced to Athas by a friend, and Brom's artwork really piqued my interest. The idea of Mantis-men, tall desert-dwelling elves, sturdy bald dwarves, and Sorcerer King's all resonated with me, and this was a chance to bring that to my friends. Plus the setting shrugs away preconceived notions of how to react to things. In Greyhawk, or any other vanilla setting, you know how to respond to most monsters, but in Dark Sun a lot of the old standbys, like Goblinoids, are missing. How would the PC's react to Aarokocra (generally peaceful bird-men) as opposed to a tribe of halflings (typically savage cannibals)? Sadly, my game ended before I could explore these situations. After their successful stint at the well their benefactor sent them back into the dessert to find out why one of his quarries had missed several shipments. He expected that his quarry boss had decided to wrest control of the mine for himself, however this theory was shot down after the boss' body was found hanging at the crossroad leading to the work-camp as a warning. The quarry had been taken by a warlord named Sarnoff, and was now sending its materials to support his campaign. While he was not present at the camp, he had left a group of soldiers, as well as a number of stone golems. The golems are Skorne Immortals from Warmachine Hordes by Privateer Press. They were easy to paint and looked excellent on the table top. The creatures left controlling the camp were a pair of Pterran brothers. Pterrans are essentially humanoid dinosaurs (pterodactyls in particular) so there weren't a lot of options for minis. Fortunately I found these in my local game store. After painting these up I did a little research, and it turns out they're T'Skraang from a line of old Earthdawn miniatures created by the now-defunct Heartbreaker miniatures. It's almost a shame that they weren't used for their intended purpose, but they worked so nicely I can't feel too bad. ~Muninn