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I did this over the past few weeks and first real attempt at making a showy base for a big model. I ended up using cork bark and some UV resin but I loved how it all turned out.

Hi everyone, Now that the contest is over, here are more pictures of my converted 77038, Hell Hound. The original sculpt is by Ben Siens. This was my entry in Reaper's Facebook Convert and Paint contest. Khan is my elf riding dog in our D&D campaign. The contest was the perfect pretexte to make this conversion. I first removed all the spikes and flames on the hound's back. I then built the armor and saddle using green stuff and a paperclip. The chest is from Reaper's 02638, adventuring accessories. There were amazing entries in the contest and I managed to get an honorable mention. Thanks to Reaper miniatures and Matthew Clark for organizing this contest.

This is my second entry into the Reaper Facebook Convert and Paint contest. I wanted to do this one because I love doing dragonman (dragonborn) conversions. There just aren't enough kinds of dragonmen to model for various character classes. And I'm glad that the catfolk minis came out within the last year because when I think about dragonmen, I like to see their clawed hands and feet, so it makes them great for such a conversion in my eyes. These were the minis used for parts, including pieces from the dragonman conversion kit: 03457. Poor Shadoweyes got her head and tail cut off. Then I had to do some filing and filling to smooth out the cuts (particularly in the back because the tail was sculpted against the backs of the right leg and sword) and some of the fur pattern on her arms and legs. Also had to create small bit armor at the base of the tail so the pieces flowed together well. All Captain Razig lost was his hat and added a head and tail from the conversion kit. Originally, she was going to be green with dark purple/red armor. But after I got the original base coats on, I felt she looked too much like a lizard and not a dragon, so I switched it up. She ended up being the winner. I was shocked. I figured I might place, but pretty as she is, I didn't think this was one of my better pieces. But she was fun to do and I'm glad the Reaper folks put together this event. And now, because I still feel bad about chopping off Shadoweyes' head, I'm using a portion of the winnings to buy another one to paint!

I sort of fell off the WIP thread because life made this take longer than I had originally intended. The minis are by Bombshell, and I have to say that they were a pleasure to paint. I will be picking up a few more at ReaperCon, for sure. The scenery is by Secret Weapon, Shadow's Edge, and Woodland Scenics. The base is from a cheap 3 pack from Michael's. All paint is from Reaper. I'll probably end up staining or painting the base, but I haven't yet decided which way to go with it. It feels really good to finish something for the MSPOpen. In hindsight, I probably should've started with something smaller, and worked my way up to this, but meh. I'm pretty proud of this.

I put two entries into the recent Reaper Facebook Convert and Paint contest. This first one didn't get many votes, which doesn't surprise me as I think not too many people knew what it was and it was on the weirder side. Plus the paint job itself was kind of bland. But I like the idea of it because of what it is. It is a tikbalang - a malevolent, mythical Filipino creature that leads travelers astray or plays tricks on them. It has a horse's head, a bony body, and long, disproportioned limbs. I used these minis to make it. The wendigo's head was chopped off. Then I took the head of the Silverhorn, removed the horn and did some filing and sculpting to get it to join properly to the body of the wendigo. Very minimal green stuff use outside of filling seams; I filled in the wendigo's hooves, which were cloven, and rebuilt a bit of the mane so it joined smoothly with the rest of the body. And I saved the body of the unicorn. At some point I'll have to convert it into a centaur!

Here's a couple of the dark elves from the Darkreach Expansion of the recent bones kickstarter. These were a lot of fun to slap paint on this afternoon. Looking forward to getting them on the table in the near future.

My take on the Giant Rhinoceros Beatle from KS4

Wish I'd taken more in-progress pics here, but when the muse strikes... Anyway, I got my hands on some figures from Bombshell's Counterblast, specifically the Edofleini faction. Could be described as BRAIN SQUIDS FROM SPAAAAAAACE!! (I assume you read that with the reverb turned up.) Decided to use the color scheme from this lovely shot of a coconut octopus: These were the paints used for the bodies; AP Toxic Mist plus some turquoisish Reaper sample paint was used for the suckers, and AP Greedy Gold for the jewelry and weaponry. Also used AP Kraken Skin for the leader's mini-cape. Seemed appropriate. Blue-black tentacles, eventually shading up to the rusty Astorath Red. A touch of color for the accessories and suckers: Then a great amount of drybrushing in shades of orange and yellow. I wanted the siphons to be the brightest points. I feel like they are close to done--should I add another coat of red wash, or use something darker?

The mind boggles.

I know, I know, that's the wrong movie for my idea, but since I'm doing a mousling, I needed a catch phrase! Actually, I could use some help with that! The plan is to take: ...Mr. Wizard there, and have him summon... er, well, a terrible monster from the depths of space and time! Ah hah ha! So, I want to take the phrase "cthulhu r'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" and cheesify it. Any thoughts? Cheddar riccota? Cthulhu r'lyeh havarti feta? Hmmmn... While y'all are percolating, how about a WIP? I realized I needed a project for open. Open is my favorite category because I get to sculpt a bit and still spend a good bit of time on the painting. It allows me to be creative in chopping up miniatures and making monsters. Yay monsters! I decided I wanted a bunch of eyes. And tentacles. I raided my beading supplies for the eyeballs and the kraken for tentacles. I also stole the teeth from the carrion worm. (Mr Bones is a stand-in for Mr Wizard, who is perched high on his cork right now.) Here's Mr. Wizard in progress: I took the "eyes" off their sculpey perch to move them around the teeth, and was left with a really fun shape: I leave it here because I'm going to keep it for another project and I thought it was pretty. Anyway, here we go! When I sculpt, I tend to try for an organic balanced shape, but mostly, I just squash sculpey until I'm happy with it. Ok, so I finished the sculpey section. Then I baked it. I left on the tentacles and the eyes for the bake. Bones melts at something >500 degrees, so while they got a bit soft at 275, they're fine. If you ever build something, you can in fact bake the bones! Now I'm getting the eyelids attached. I used green stuff because I can roll it thin and it holds better detail than my sculpey. I played with a bunch of textures for this. Last reapercon I bought a bunch of tools, so I decided I'd test a few of them out. One can never have too many randomly shaped pointy things. And then I basecoated my little baby. Awww! Isn't he just the cutest? I left off one tentacle as it will seriously be in the way for painting. I'll add it towards the end. Next, colors: Also, while I'm at it, my brush set up. I use the tissue to wipe the brushes. It gradually absorbs water, stays wet, and can double as a quick mini-rinse for the brush if I'm blending. Next, the nebular plan. I want the monster coming from space. I know Cthulhu comes from under the sea, but space seems scarier. I like nebulas. They're just gorgeous. I start by working out where I want the clouds of stars to go. They need to match up with Mr Monster, but still seem natural. I changed the colors from the picture to match the colors I want to use on the piece. I decided to go with a red-green complementary scheme. I may need to repaint Mr Wizard to match. I put in a few stars to test it. I'll add more later, but I wanted to get started on the eyes. Animal eyes! Whew, ok, have to go hang out with my family. more soon! If you have questions, let me know!

Hey Folks, I'm new to the hobby and so this is only my 11th mini I've painted. He's not quite done, I'm going to make a transfer of his name on the green area of the larger base. It's for a Robin Hood diorama, obviously. I bought a bunch of Bones to practice on. Anyway, any criticism is totally appreciated! Keep paintin'. ~Sean

Same with my dad, he made my mom eat tapioca and brewers yeast. But she stopped breast feeding us when we started biting her, nothing my dad could do to change her mind there. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought Dr Spock was Mr Spock

He is the logical choice.

I prefer Mister Spock.

https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/86590-40mm-french-revolutionary-wars-british/ As described above, finished up today... Now on to the next unit...

Well it is here in Japan finally and looks really good. I have the paint problem, but the rest looks good on a quick look. I am not going to nitpick every tiny thing so i sent the paint request to Reaper already. I am going to enjoy playing with all this stuff come summer, not a lot of time till then

Occasionally: Done with the sponge method that has been mentioned elsewhere. To anyone interested in all aspects of these methods I would recommend "Weathering" magazine: https://www.migjimenez.com/en/70-the-weathering-magazine Although looking at their pictures always makes me want to break my brushes.

For figures, all I have is this guy, with snow on his cloak: And I did rust up my pumpkin house's roof. It's not done, but here's part of it: I just used normal paint, no special effects paint here.

Hello all, decided to let my poor tired eyes have a bit of rest and opted to start to paint a little bust...ahahah poor, deluded Cicciopiu! It turned out to be even harder to paint a bust than a mini Well, since this is my first time painting something different than a mini (a part of 2d art) I didn't know what to expect. First of all painting the base coat was pretty hard, don't know why, but I had bad time contouring the skin from the tunic, from the dragon, from the hair and viceversa. Once based, I've started painting the skin, and this was... incredibly funny! Yes it is hard to smooth bland the different tones, to glaze the shadows etc. But the time passed pleasantly painting it and I'm pretty satisfied with it. Then started with the reds on the tunic: I don't want it to come out over exposed, and I'm trying to simply use different types of red to get the highlight, and use different purples to the shadows, instead of the greens, like I always usually do. But enough talking let me show you the actual pictures: Next will star with the hair: I'm aiming to get a veeery bright purple, sort of bleached lavanda. Once the hairwill be almost done I'll sure get back to the tunic to add more highlight to match the rest of the model. Still deciding if the hatchling will be green or maybe tourquoise... Let me know what you ppl think about it, criticism and advise welcome as always.

I took a bit of a hiatus (about 4 weeks). Here is my first guy since coming back.

I think every child around at the time had images in their heads of Leonard Nimoy as a doctor.... (And, yeah, me too.) *** Megan and Brigid are going to the last Old Port Festival, while I win our daily bread. Kind of sad to the Festival packing it in, they have been happening since before Megan was born. Paper mache floats, puppet shows, fried dough, fighter demonstrations by the local SCA chapter - and for three years I did The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch (making me Professor Grump) with hand made puppets. (Putting the A in the SCA. That's the way to do it!) The Auld Grump - for those that have never experienced a Punch & Judy show... Mr. Punch is pretty danged loathsome.

Second session! Painted the base of the bracers; added some highlight to the hair and on the dragon, and pushed the red shadows and highlight. Also painted the eyes and the diadem. Today the light is terrible, usually my pictures sucs, but today can't get good photos at all! Anyway... Every impression and advise is welcome, please don't esitate!

The kit Grump posted is not that type. MDF is not involved in this kit. It is cardstock. Grump listed the materials. Cardstock and Plywood. Laser cut. (Also resin cast deckguns and dowels for the masts.) Why...? What’s with the guessing? It says right smack in the middle of Grump’s post that the materials are lasercut cardstock and plywood. The fact that they supply placeholder dowels (almost pegs) for the masts and spars is a solid indicator the ship is meant as a gaming prop. What they provide could be used to anchor and engineer more elaborate (but possibly detachable) rigging and sails or it could be left as is. But if some Scientifical Wild Acre Guessing is in order, I think the materials are: —1/8th inch birch plywood or —1/32nd inch birch plywood (3mm or 1.5mm for the metric among us) —1.5 or 2mm oilboard (a sturdy, dense, tough, but flexible type of cardstock. Looks like chipboard but much tougher.) That same plywood is what Litko will lasercut gaming bases out of in all manner of sizes; they use both of those thicknesses.

I'm guessing, mind. But with the lack of full rigging, it looks like a table prop; something to represent a ship on the gaming table, something that I would not subject a high-quality model to. I need to not look at that site. That site has Dangerous Things on it. ... particularly with the tendency to throw models around like they're unbreakable, even if they're not yours. >.<

Usually ship models with planked hulls are made by wetting the planking and using pins or clamps to hold it in position till it dries. When dried the planking will retain the curve it was bent to while wet. GEM I'm not seeing that work too well with MDF, though, and that kit looks predominantly MDF. The grey sheets might be flexible plastic or cardstock, though, and that would curve just fine without water. I'd .. um.. need to have one in hand to be sure, and I'm pretty sure Mr. Thorne would boot me around the house if I bought one. ^^; He'd be right. We don't really need one. But... it's /pretty/. Oh well.

when he's not having emotional outbursts

My mom was a hippie. I was breastfed despite the prevalence of Dr. Spock. I remember just having learned to read and confusing him with Mister Spock.

Hi Arkady, This is Matt from First Legion. I noticed some traffic coming from here via the wonders of google analytics, and I thought I'd check it out. All of your concerns are of course very valid and one of our biggest hurdles is that we are very much an unknown entity to the 28mm fantasy market. That being said, let me address the specific points you've raised. This certainly isn't our first rodeo. We are one of the world's leading providers of fully hand painted figures. As part of that, we produce many products that are fully resin or mixed media. The best example are our WWII vehicles. We've been making these in resin for about 10 years now (well, mixed media - mostly resin, turned aluminum gun barrels, some injection plastic for high use parts such as bogey wheels, photo etch, etc...). Further, even for our metal figures, all of the tooling for the molds is done using resin masters. Finally, we've been producing 1/35th scale resin kits for years now as well. So you shouldn't be concerned with our ability to do production tooling or complete a production using resin. We've been working with Resin for a long time and use different resins for different purposes. As I understand the TGG KS that you brought up, they used spin cast resin. That requires mold release agents and isn't the same quality of the vacuum cast resin that we are using. I can't speak to Raging heroes, I know nothing about them other than the fact that they had a few tremendously successful KS's. That's great for them, cool designs and concepts for sure. I have no idea what they did before that or since. We have been producing products to extremely satisfied customers for 13 years now. We've produced and sold literally hundreds of thousands extremely well hand painted figures and related products. We will continue to do this whether our 28mm Fantasy KS has 0 backers or 5000 backers. The process for doing this is far more complex than the process for producing resin figure kits. That's not to say that this is "easy", nothing is ever easy and invariably what can go wrong will on some level. But it is to say that we have the MFR'ing and distribution experience and have created a brand that is synonymous with quality over the years. We aren't about to risk the goodwill we've worked so hard to establish by producing sub par products for the first time in our history for an amount of money that is relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I'd rather refund everyone than ship something I'm not happy with. Our goal with our KS is to offer superlative sculpts at great prices in order to get our products out to as many folks as possible in a new market space for us. We are confident that our KS backers will be happy with what they receive. It is through this process that we will build our brand and reputation in this market such that when we expand the series or do correlated series' in 28mm, the market will have had a good experience and won't have the concerns that you've raised. If we can achieve that with this KS than it will have been a success. Sure, of course we wouldn't complain if it was wildly successful, but the reality is that we aren't dependent on it as a company. Every company has a philosophy under which they operate. Ours has always been to produce best of breed products and offer them at reasonable prices relative to that quality. It has served us well over the years with our 60mm core business and we will apply this same model to our 28mm products. Are we perfect? Heck no, like everyone we make mistakes, but we've gotten it right far more often than we've gotten it wrong over the years and when we have gotten it wrong we go out our way to make it right. One last point back to the castings. If you look at the reviews that have been done about the figures, the one consistent theme is that anyone who has seen them in the hand raves about the quality of the castings and the quality of the sculptures. Everyone's first thought when they hear stuff like that is "you must have paid them to say that." The reality is we didn't. There's no need if the product is good. We simply turn the figures over and tell reviewers to say whatever you'd like about them. A business can't be built on paying people to say good things about bad products because in the end, the products are still bad. Anyway, didn't mean to go on this long. Just thought I'd share some thoughts. Best, Matt

I have used a model ship in game before - and am familiar with all the drawbacks - though the model that I used was cardboard, printed from a PDF. (Obligatory image of The Maiden of the High Seas from World Works -) She gave me many years of happy gaming. (And was actually recommended in a Pathfinder Adventure Path - above one of Paizo's own flip maps.(Mind you, they also sell the PDF for The Maiden on their website - either way, they make a sale.)) Once all the furnishings and fittings are in place - including cargo - you realize how cramped ships, even large ships, are. In the case of the Maiden the masts are removable, for the sloop the masts - as supplied with the kit - are stubs. Both are definitely for people that enjoy the modeling as well as the using of the kits. The Auld Grump Much as I love the sloop, and trust me, I do love it - there is a model on their site that I want more, as the base of operations for players in Frog God's Blight, Just the right mix of filthy coal fired steamer and 17th Century nautica - The Blight is an anachronistic dark fantasy setting Been lusting after that model since before the Blight even gave her a home in my mind.... (It helps that I had my own city setting also called The Blight - in my case originally named Blythe. Otherwise, remarkably similar... pretty sure that Mr. Pett reads the same kinds of books that I do.) The Auld Grump - I definitely detected a touch of Clark Ashton Smith in The Blight....

I think I may have too much hobby stuff. I could open my own store and not need to order any product from a distributor.

It does look pretty cool but there are a few things I would mention if you are planning to use it to play with: Modify the deck furniture (cabins, bellhousing, rigging fixtures, grates, etc) to be pegged and removable. It's really hard to fit minis with bases on the decks with all that adornment If you ever do rigging, keep it really simple. A real ago has almost a spider web of rigging over it making it real hard to play with. Consider making the outboards (the ledges on the sides that hold the shrouds away from the ship) much wider. Again room for minis with bases to stand on. That said,.it is a really pretty model and if I didn't already have a small navy in 28mm i would consider it This is a case of different materials for different purposes. A model ship with plank and bulkhead construction Takes me around 2000 hours for a ship that size. Admittedly, not having to do the under water part saves time but it's still a lot more effort than most gamers want to invest. There is also a steep learning curve to plank design, the planks require serious custom fitting to make things work (the surface area under the bow is 1/2 that if the belly for staters: half of each board has to disappear) and quite a number of special tools to make things work. The design using plastic and laser cut plywood gets around a lot of this making it sturdier, if a little heavier. The ships I have built of this design use horizontal stacks of laser cut plywood to replace the planks making it a Lego like design. It looks really good when finished and isn't easy to damage, nor does it need special tools. All this is great when you want to put something on the table to play with. Their site has many tempting things. I have resisted only because my opportunities to play are limited and my backlog is so long... Micomark is the tip of the iceberg. There are a number of shop modeling. Sites loaded with goodies that will make any modeler drool. All I need is about 500 years to complete everything I want to make and paint...

If you want to look at some premium quality ship models as a comparison, then check out the Micro-Mark site. Be warned, this is a dangerous place because they have all sorts of neat tools and supplies for model makers and hobbyists. You may come away with fresh ideas. Prices and equipment to suit all budgets, all the way up to fully equipped model machining equipment with four digit price-tags, accessories extra. GEM

Usually ship models with planked hulls are made by wetting the planking and using pins or clamps to hold it in position till it dries. When dried the planking will retain the curve it was bent to while wet. GEM

I can do that green corrosion stuff on bronze with light green and wash medium.

Citadel has just released (to pre-order - they're coming out next week) a new line of Contrast paints which behave rather differently than conventional minis paints in a number of respects. I recently got a chance to play around with them at my local Warhammer store, and wrote down some initial impressions. Has anyone else gotten a chance to mess around with these, and if so, what was your thoughts on them? (my favorite result down below)

Would renting a small storage unit for a month to toss the mess into and give some time to sort it all out be possible? Unrelated: why on earth did I loathe naps so much when I was younger? Naps are the bestest. Huzzah! --OneBoot :D

It seems everyone is doing pretty good and Crowley is sharing the coffee, so he gets an extra ration today.

Hi Here's a link to a video showcase of a Reaper Miniature on YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1YQyv7iD0E I'm still learning how to do videos so feedback and comments are so welcome. Thank you

Nice! Looking at this vehicle, clearly a desert scenario, it got me thinking. These days we get annoyed when the airco in our car doesn't work. Imagine these guys riding in a desert in an armoured vehicle, no airco...it must have been a riding oven!

Painted the throne of my Dark elf Queen.... Made it so that throne and Queen can be seperated.... Will probably paint a (standing) mini similar to the queen to have a "sitting and standing" version. Warning, not everything is what it seems... "Care! don't activate any traps..." *a feint mechanical ticking&clicking sound on the background* "Wait, did that leg just move?"

Thanks! I could have been even busier and perhaps should have. BUT! Mi-Sher is looking good. Went with red, blue, and yellow; realized the echoes of Captain Marvel after the fact. You know what will distract from that? Gold and embroidery! I think she's done unless there are suggestions. I also took some time to drill some holes in the back of Devil Girl's duster. A long time ago I picked up some Eureka Winged Monkeys with fezzes and guns that I intended to be wingless monkeys with fezzes and guns, so there were some extra little bat wings. After turning M4R1A into a machine angel, it seemed natural. And then my FLGS got a Reaper shipment including a Desert Thing. How could I say no? It's got a sprue of six tentacles, an outer maw, and an inner jaw.

A more radical mod than some of the previous ones...I call this one Maxim 43. Before: After:

Here's what I ended up getting done today. First, I added some shadowing to the statue because I didn't feel it was really connecting with the dragon. Used Burgundy Wine which is the color I used as the dark base/shadow for the dragon. I got the wings mostly painted which made me feel comfortable enough to finally glue them on. Now I need to really push the green. I want it to be brighter than it is right now. At least in several areas.

I think by Bending the card stock pieces. (Looks like it is the sheets of Grey material in the picture. I can see the gun port outlines on one of them.)

Very rarely. I have some pigments that I've only used a few times, some verdigris that I've used a couple of times, and have rusted a few weapons with regular paint. Chipping medium is on my acquire and learn to use list.

I have (re)acquired the internets! Not sure what happened but the whole area was without for almost 12 hours. In the meantime I went to the post office and picked up my package from Badger. I now have part of my 55th birthday order. I attached a quick connect to my new Sotar 20/20 and confirmed that it can spray water.

Varnished the big guy because I'm an idiot and forgot to drill for pinning before I painted. *facepalm* Primed and cursory base coat on the kobold, pinned everything but haven't glued yet.

Open bar is the redeeming quality of some weddings. In this particular instance, there was an open bar both during the wedding and at the rehearsal, and the bar is well stocked. I'm 4 gin and tonics in, and they had my favorite gin(Boodles). At the rehearsal I had more, including a couple fingers of Glenfiddich 12 at the start. But for some reason the open bar at the rehearsal was open longer than the one at the actual wedding...