Gailbraithe

If you're using Reaper's Master Series Paints, take advantage of the triads! They're phenomenally helpful. For example, Oiled Leather is the midtone in a triad with Ruddy Brown and Burnt Orange; so if you want smooth shadows, you can do a base coat of Ruddy Leather (Shadow), then highlight up to Oiled Leather (Midtone), then highlight again to Burnt Orange (Highlight). If you want a nice gradient, then you'll want to go with a minimum of five layers: Shadow, 50/50 Shadow/Midtone, Midtone, 50/50 Midtone/Highlight, Highlight. You would then go back and use something like Blackened Brown to do blacklining. The Blackened Brown will achieve a more realistic effect than blacklining with Pure Black. I wouldn't bother trying to save them. The blue is just never going to work with the flesh tones you picked. I'd go with a warm brown, like the Mahogany Brown-Chestnut Brown-Rust Brown triad. I usually use a wine cork with a nickel superglued to one end and the miniature hot-glued to the other end. Like this:

The Cave Troll model from the Bones line is not a Pathfinder Cave Troll, it's a Reaper Cave Troll. I'm pretty sure the original metal miniature was released around '00-01, somewhere around there. That sculpt is, I believe, older than the Pathfinder RPG. In fact, I'm pretty sure that sculpt predates D&D 3.5, and was released around the same time as 3.0. It's not going to fit on a medium base because it's a large creature.

I'm in love with that shield. I want to have that shield's babies.

I think I'm most impressed by the amount of work you put into the tombstones, something most people would have half-assed. And that custom built flail is...wow. Just Wow!

Dude, you've got better brush control than I do, and I wouldn't even think of using dips. You are ready, grasshopper.

Oh man...dude, you are way, way too good to be using a dip. The undipped model you posted looked great! Its a shame you dipped them when all you really needed was to do some washes on the weapon.

Reaper does put color insert cards into the very large models that are sold in blisters. I imagine they do this to help increase the sales -- it's hard enough for a retailer to move a $30+ giant or dragon, it must be much harder when that giant or dragon is cut up into a dozen chunks and crammed into a blister pack. The card gives you a sense of what the model looks like assembled, so you have some clue what you're buying. One of the reasons I like the Warlord line more than the Dark Heaven line is that the stat cards for the models have a photo of painted version on them, which I have found indispensable many times.

They're also great for tinting clear resins like Castin' Craft without losing translucency.

Color is definitely not coming out right -- the backdrop in this photo is a light blue shop towel (the super heavy duty paper towels), but it looks white! This should be the last update before Show Off, as I think he's done except for the basing.

Huh, with all that yellow and black my first thought was that she was one of the Uncanny X-Men.

Added some midtones, and blended the cape up. Doesn't show up so hot in this photo, but I went with a base of MSP Faded Black to P3 Coal Black to MSP Surf Aqua.

Primed, base coat added:

It never would've occurred to me to paint Lamann in anything other than dark, somber colors. He just has a heel look about him. But he actually looks pretty awesome as a white hat.

I didn't mean to imply that. More that this community just isn't used to people saying mean things, and that leads to a perception that someone saying mean things must be doing it to intentionally get a rise out of people. Pretty sure it's Melange.

Not to stir the pot, but I've noticed that on these forums there is a tendency to see anyone who is hating on anything as a troll. These boards seem to operate heavily on the "If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all" rule, and if you say something not nice it will tend to provoke a negative reaction. So, in a sense, expressing a negative opinion on these boards is akin to trolling. Unless you're trashing GW. That appears to be okay with everyone.

I don't know why I subject myself to this kind of abuse. All my stuff is getting 5.8, which would be fine -- except the Spinespur stuff I posted a few years ago, the stuff that is poorly photographed and nowhere nearly well painted, averages 5.4 So what, after 2 years I've improved by a whopping .4? Argh!

In my Wednesday night game, I'm currently running Idyls of the Rat King. The mid-dungeon boss is a Gnome Necromancer named Narzy Hilspeck. Unsurprisingly, no one actually makes a Gnome Necromancer miniature. There are some Gnome Wizards, but none of them have that Plays With Dead Things vibe that a proper Necromancer should give off. I've been planning this campaign for some time (and actually hadn't planned to run it til next year, using Kickstarter Bones). As soon as the model for Balazar, Iconic Summoner was released I knew I'd be using him as the base for my Gnome Necromancer. The combination of the heavy robes and wild mustache/eyebrows made him the perfect base. With the right paintjob, he could pass for a necromancer as is. But he'd need some dark gothic bling to really fit the role. So I removed the little symbol from his hat and replaced it with a skull. POW. Instant Necromancer.

The WizKids one is too big. I mean its just way, way too big. Its so big that if you put it on the table during a game, it just doesn't work. The WizKids Cthulhu (and the Galactus, and all those foot and half and taller "miniatures," including a lot of Adeptus Titanicus kitbashes) are just so much larger than the miniatures they interact with that it feels like you've put a toy on the table. Like maybe you're using a He-Man figure as a giant. I think eight or nine inches is about as tall as a miniature can get and still feel like its in 28mm scale, and even then it has too have heavy, heavy proportions in order to fit in with 1" warriors. That's why I dug Talin's art for it so much, with that big elephantine body, and the announcement that it would be 8" tall. That's more than big enough to make players wet their pants with fear, and not so big it just sits on the table like a joke.

Yellows in particular tend to need many, many layers to become remotely opaque. Blue is much heavier, and takes far less layers. I usually prime in black, and the ratio of layers of yellow I need to get to an opaque versus blue is 5 to 1 at least. That's why when I do yellows, I usually basecoat the area with a light, warm brown first.

Those wings are gorgeous. That's the perfect way to do black wings, way better than anything I've seen before. What's the formula?

Clearly she's a drunk.

Oh, that is just awesome. That is what a woman in plate armor would really look like. None of the breast-shaped breastplate nonsense that seem inescapable. I wonder how many more contributions Otherworld would have received if they had released these images a week or two ago.

Dude, I love it. All of it.