Madog Barfog

I have all 4 of those guys I painted around 87. I still love that they are anatomically correct. A few years ago I finished my collection of nearly all of them at an FLGS in Cincinnati when someone decided to liquidate their old collection. So I still have more to paint (not that that's uncommon around here). Thanks for sharing!

I love this style of orc, it's my favorite. My first group painting project was painting a group of these guys to be generic monsters until I got more painted. I used enamels... Looking forward to seeing the results! I also graduated in 81.

Very nice, I love aboleths and am designing a campaign featuring one. Your highlighting and shading are very good. If I had to suggest something, it would be to add another color. Maybe some yellow to highlight the dorsal fins. That should compliment the green nicely. I'm also one of those who gloss whatever is supposed to be shiny or wet. I doubt top painters would do it, but it works for me.

Nice work, I always liked those type of minis. What is WC One Coat Yellow? All Google would show me is house paint. I'm trying to use some very old VMC yellow, and the coverage isn't what I want.

Doug Sundseth pretty much said what I would say. Typically, mini-metal can bend quite a bit before breaking, even if it is making awful cracking noises. But not every time - I have been surprised by some instantaneous breaks as soon as I started to reposition something. But this was on fairly thick legs, and it was a snap to pin them back on. I've never heard of anyone welding the tin-antimony-bismuth alloy used. I seriously doubt it would work.

I'm re minded of the time, decades ago, when the game would have been a TPK except for the courage of the MU, who *grappled* the big bad guy, bare handed - and won.

Sounds like you are having a good time. The hero's javelin toss was pretty lucky. Definitely enjoy it, but realize it might not work out as luckily in the future. I always recommend more than one way out of a situation in case the players miss one. Your campaign is not something I can assist with, but I like your ideas. Maybe because of the cult, but it sounds very Lovecraftian to me, and I like that a lot.

Superb base work! I've done similar, enough to wonder how you managed to get exactly the right amount of resin water on it. Egads.

No, duh, that's obviously Brother Hammond Cheese.

That's exactly what it is. Obviously Tom Moldvay was a fan of CAS, but the connection is pretty tenuous ( Castle Amber is French and that's it) and what really bugged me was that 4 adventures based on his writing were crammed into 4 pages. I wrote an expansion with more pages than X2 about adventuring in Averoigne; PM me if anybody wants it. Regarding Bone Hill, it's exactly what U1 isn't. U1 has a great adventure but nothing is devoted to the town or environs. Bone Hill is a sandbox adventure with a great town and what's around it, but lacks any "big" adventure. Most DMs find they work well together. Oh, I forgot to mention it should be easy to discard the Averoigne section of X2. I don't remember if there is anything the PCs need to bring back, maybe the mirror, but it should be easy to substitute some other mechanism. I think X2 is definitely worth playing, and found it worked well in my campaign. I especially enjoyed the French manor and all that went on within it. Very creative.

As someone who has worked with resin, I'm in awe of the scope of your project!

Followups to The Keep for me have included X2, Castle Amber, which was truly whacky but needed a ton of fleshing out for the Averoigne section, and Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. If I ever play again I'd like to combine Saltmarsh with Bone Hill and take it in a Lovecraftian direction. These are just suggestions, YMMV.

I've had the same problem with size differences. I had to do some basing tricks to make an old RP werewolf look roughly as large as a couple of giant Reaper werewolves in the same group. I've pretty much learned to ignore it. I love the old classic stuff and own lots of it, but I don't want to miss out on the fun of larger, somewhat less proportioned yet more dynamic Reaper figs. I just say the figures aren't scaled and mix them up.

Good news and bad. First, Tom Meijer did release 2 lines based on his earlier RP work. One was a "standard" size and the other was very similar to the 78 sculpts but noticeably larger. I think each line had 8 figures. They were sold through his boutique company Thunderbolt Mountain. The bad news is that Thunderbolt Mountain closed a couple of Christmases ago, and I haven't seen hide or hair of the larger orcs since then. I've checked eBay, Google, any resource or reseller I can think of, and nothing. You see, I want a set of them, too, having seen them in person twice, thefirst time at Origins when Tom was there with his stuff. It was very nice to meet such a legend. Anyway, months ago I hear a rumor that IWM was going to be selling the TM stuff but I haven't seen it materialize. So, good luck hunting, and please let me know if you find anything. I'll do the same.

In regards to your original question, I'm a big fan of polishing with a Dremel and the "wire" wheel with plastic bristles. I do it just before I wash the mini with dish soap.

Let me throw out a few answers in my own opinions. This has already been covered; I use brown liner as Bones primer and so do many others. Give it a try if you don't like what you are using. It's pretty thin paint. I have some clear colors, but don't use them. Maybe because I'm not sure how. IMO, if you are low on paints, you would be better off getting something else. I can't advise you as to what. Dark Elf Skin is really good, as has been mentioned. RMS metallics are good, but I've also had something else recommended to me. I recall that they are sets of metallic paint, with each set having a different color range. They go for about $40/set. There is no difference between RMS and Bones paints, except RMS comes in triads. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. BTW, I think triads are great, but there isn't always enough separation between the colors. Mold lines are tough. I think metal minis have an advantage here, as they are easier to file. However, if the line goes through a heavily detailed area, such as chain mail or fur, you are basically screwed.

Dutch flag? I'll have to check that out. i always refer to an early 70s Porsche race car sponsored by Gulf. I think it was a 917. I had a soft spot for Porsches, before they mainly started making SUVs.

Yes, welcome back. That miniature is definitely better than most of the ones I did when I got back into painting a couple of decades ago. I have no advice for you, other than to say good job! You are correct that hobby store acrylics should only be used for basing. Reaper makes a fantastic bunch of paints. I'm partial to their RMS.

I like the color scheme. It could use more grays and greens, though. Just kidding about the grays and greens. I'm a big fan of orange and blue. I'm slowly bringing my GF around to it. She didn't use to understand it at all, but is coming around as I show her more examples. This is a good one!

09300 Wash Medium. Did you mean something else?

Nice skull.

Holy cow, how do you make the eyes look so good on such a tiny figure? Seriously, I'm asking for your recipe, please.

What Doug said. Reaper brown liner is thin, to hug the recesses, and much darker than I expected. I'd call it a blackish brown. I really like it. I just finished priming a metal fig with white RMS primer and then a coat of brown liner. I'm pretty sure I thinned it, but it did exactly what I wanted, which was to line all the recesses. The mini does have a thin coat of brown on the raised parts, but I'm fine with that. I've also used it straight as a primer for Bones. It's dark, but I'm ok with that. I can always go over it with white if I need to.

A recent post by @Higlander got me thinking about my painting process. My paints are all RMS with some Vallejo Color thrown in. I thin them slightly, especially the Vallejo which is a bit thicker, with nothing more than the tap water I use to wash my brush. Much of the time I'll add a drop or two of Reaper Wash Medium, but that's it. in the past I had a premixed Visine bottle that held a combination of distilled water, flow improver, and drying retarder, but I'm not sure it made any difference. My minis won't win any awards, but I'm happy with my results and they work well on the table. i have also experimented with Future and liked the results a lot. So so now that you have some idea what kind of painter I am, does anyone want to suggest improvements? ill start with a comment on the retarder: sine I'm typically not wet blending and don't have problems with overly rapid drying I don't see any need for drying retarder. I tried a wet palette years ago but prefer nylon wells now. Also, Ohio. It's humid here. Thanks in advance!

I commend your ability to select proper shadow/highlight colors. How do you do it? Triads? Spot on.