Gailbraithe

I'm not a big fan of elves, and I have very few (non-dark) elves in my collection. I picked these elves up several months ago (around January) so my friends without minis of their own could assemble elven warbands in Song of Blades and Heroes. Now they are finally painted. I kind of imagine these guys as an elven adventuring band in an elven land, You've got your fighter leader (Arthrand), a ranger/rogue (Nienna), requisite wizard (Anirion) and token demi-human (Drys), who also serves as Team Cleric (or, in this case, Team Druid). I get the sense that these guys would do okay in a dungeon, but would completely wreck a wilderness adventure. Also, I'm not prone to tooting my own horn, but I really feel with this set I've achieved two new personal bests. I think these guys represent some of the finest painting I've done yet, and a vast improvement in my digital photography skills. 14553: Arthrand Nightblade, Wood Elf Sergeant 02909: Nienna, Elf Ranger 03491: Anirion, Wood Elf Wizard 14479: Drys, Elven Dryad

Yeah, I've been using one of those customizable screens for a few months now. Haven't actually put anything in it, its all empty. Works great!

Really? I found it completely useless, and actually thought it was one of the most poorly designed screens I'd seen in a long time. I used it for about five months, and not once -- literally, not a single time -- did it ever have the information I needed on it. All that useless thing ever did was serve as a pit stop on the way to a book look-up.

That Cthulhu is sick. Just sick.

Otherworlds existing henchman line consists of a mule with or without equipment.

Nerfed from AD&D/AD&D 2e or 3X? I'm interested in your perspective. >>ReaperWolf From 3.5

Favored Class does not provide any skill bonuses, so no, the non-existent bonuses do not stack. I agree with the previous posters, you may need to re-read the sections on Favored Class and Multi-Classing, as I think you may be a bit confused about how those rules work. In previous editions a multiclass character gained experience in both classes at the same time, but from 3.0 on characters gain levels from experience and must alternate back and forth between classes. That may be the source of your confusion. Yes. Your player is dumb. He's stacking two divine spellcasters. There is practically no benefit to that, it doesn't even expand his character options significantly, and will result in a character who is severely underpowered by about 8th level. To give you an example of how dumb this is, at 20th level (Cleric 10/Druid 10) he'd be able to cast 5 5th level spells -- 3 from his 10 levels in Cleric, 2 from his 10 levels in Druid. Those will be his most powerful spells (and at that level, he'll be facing creatures immune to spells lower than 6th level), while a 20th level Cleric can cast 5 5th level spells, 5 6th level spells, 5 7th level spells, 5 8th level spells, and 5 9th level spells. Whatever your players concept, it can probably be better achieved by just going straight Cleric. Not really, though its worth noting that the changes made to 3.5 in Pathfinder have really nerfed the heck out of multiclassing, and its no longer nearly as smart an option as it was in 3.5.

This will be my last update before I post these to Show Off.

Yeah, I've only gotten upset about a character death on two occassions: 1. First session of a new campaign being run by one of my players. It was his first time DMing. Seven players, all first level characters. The only information that we received from the DM was that there was "mysterious creatures have made the road north dangerous." We go north, assuming that was where the adventure was. We get attacked by 16 hippogriffs. Four characters die on round 1. My illusionist creates an illusion of a griffon, hoping to scare the hippogriffs away. They flee for one round, then come back and kill the rest of the party. We couldn't run, we couldn't hurt them, we all just died. And everyone is pissed at the DM, and he's pissed off at us. We're like "That encounter wasn't even vaguely balanced" and he's like "I told you not to go north!" We had to sit him down and explain that when you say things like "mysterious creatures have made the road north dangerous" that's called an adventure hook and we we're trying to be good players by biting, having assumed that north was where the adventure he'd written was. He got mad and ended the campaign right then and there, and refused to ever DM again. 2. After several months of playing in this killer DM's game, where he was taking a Paizo module and significantly increasing the difficulty (I later went back and read the adventure, he was adding 10 to most monster's AC, doubling the number of monsters, causing monsters to respawn that shouldn't, etc.). For some time in the campaign I had felt the DM was deliberately being a jerk and trying to kill us. We'd been playing for several months and had no treasure, had burned through several characters, and were just generally having zero fun in the game. Everyone was getting really tired of this dude and his killer DMing. Then we got into a battle that just went out-of-control. We were like 8th level and this encounter was like a CR 20 encounter, and we were all going to die if we didn't figure out a way to run away. It gets to my initiative, and I start asking the DM all these questions. I'm forming a plan, something I can do in one round with all the resources in the room, to seal off the monster's path to us and give us a round or two head start in running away. And I ask the DM all these questions, confirm that what I want to do is possible, and I tell him "Okay, I do [the plan]." And he says, I kid you not, "Oh wait, I forgot that one of the monsters was supposed to go, so he acts before you." And then this monster, rather than attacking or anything normal, takes a completely random action which makes absolutely no sense but completely nerfs my plan. Basically he decides to rearrange the furniture in the room, in the middle of a combat. The DM tells me its my action, but that now that plan I had won't work. And that's when i realize he wants a TPK, and that we're not getting away. So I calmly packed up my books, put my miniature away, gathered my stuff, and started heading for the door. And everyone was completely quiet. Just as I'm about to leave, he asks "What, so you're just leaving?" And I proceed to scream bloody hell at him for the next twenty minutes, giving him one of the loudest, longest, and most profanity laden Reasons You Suck Speech ever given. Dude is incredibly lucky I didn't punch him. Never played with him again.

Paint these silver and they could be sci-fi toilets.

Another cheap and easy way to temporarily base your minis while painting is this: That's a wine cork with a nickle superglued to the bottom and the miniature hot-glued to the top. Removal is as simple as twisting the miniature around - pops right off, and the hot glue just peels off from the underside of the miniature in one smooth piece (usually). I have two dozen of these in one of my drawers, and I can have a whole army going at once.

I think I'm done with the Dryad. I totally f'd up her face, and now I'm unhappy with it, but I'm not about to strip it and start over. So I'll start with basing her. The actual elves still need their hair painted (I've been highly ambivalent about the color there), then I think the wizard is done. The sergeant needs his sword's gem and his arrows painted, then he's basically done. Nienna needs her shoes, the interior of her bracer, her quiver, her bow and her arrows to be painted. Should be done with all of them in two, maybe three hours.

Oooh, great use of orange, the bane pf mini painters everywhere.

Last one for the evening, gotta rest my eyes.

Awesome, I have long wanted minis of a 1st Edition quasit and homonculus.

Washes and first highlight done. I achieved two new things tonight. I successfully used the two-brush blending technique! Yay! I used it mostly on the cloaks, so you can't see it from this angle. I also discovered a setting on the camera I'm borrowing that simulates a slow shutter speed, so I managed to get much better pictures. So here we are after washes and the first highlight on the greens, and the dryad's skin.

Base Coats: DONE On to washes, then highlighting.

What's currently on the table:

I use Princeton Artist series 4350 Golden Synthetic brushes. I usually buy them five at a time, 2 #2 Round, 2 #0 Round and 1 #4 Filbert. That comes to about $15 after tax at my local art store (I never buy brushes from hobby stores). At the same time I buy 10 disposable plastic palettes (the 10 well tray style), though the price I pay is way better than Dick Blick (it's around $.39/tray). I usually use 1 tray per painting session (a 3-10 hour shift, average 5 hours), and paint between 3 to 10 miniatures per session depending on how uniform the units are (my personal best is painting 60 Ork Boyz to tabletop quality in 2 six hour sessions). I only use the brand new brushes for detail work, and I use my older brushes for priming, coverage, drybrushing, etc. Eventually I use them for glue, and then they are generally thrown away. I usually get in about 2 to 5 painting sessions a month, which means I buy new brushes every two to five months, probably four times a year. So I spend about $60/year on brushes and always have everything I need - a crisp point for fine detail work, some more worn brushes for coverage painting, some drybrushes, and some total garbage brushes I can use to get superglue into a tricky spot if I need to. I tried using the Windsor Newton series 7 brushes everyone raves about, but I had to mail-order them, they were quite expensive, and they didn't last any longer than the PA series 4350s, so I don't consider them worth the cost. (PS: If its not clear why I went into detail about the palettes etc., its because I buy new brushes when I run out of palettes, not necessarily when I need new brushes. This leads to situations like the one I recently found myself in, where I returned home with a new set of brushes only to realize I still hadn't used the last set of new brushes I bought. I have something like 48 brushes at the moment, and maybe 7 have never touched paint.)

Great stuff! I really like what you did with Amri, though I'd suggest going back and adding just a wee bit of shading tot he underside of her breasts -- the leather and flesh tones are very close to each other, and a bit of shading will help define the line between the two. It will also make her boobs look bigger. I don't like the Pathfinder Dwarf Miner. Your paint job is fine, but I just don't like that mini. He looks too "dirty hippie" for a dwarf, like he's got dreadlocks or something. He's like "Hi, I'm Jerry Dwarfcia." Meh. Don't recognize the Stonehaven Dwarf, but nice model. That's what a dwarf should look like.

Yeah, seriously. If I put all my miniatures out for display, there would be no room left in my house for anything else. As it is, there are already miniatures sitting about everywhere you look (I'm bad at putting things away). Most of my miniatures are in cases, like these two chessex cases: There are a few on shelves, like these guys, but they're supposed to be in cases...they've just been used in my campaign within the last few months (I am really bad about putting things away): Some of my models actually live on shelves, like these oversized Warhammer 40k units: But only because they won't fit in this massive cabinet of exceedingly broad and deep, but shallow, drawers. Most of my miniatures live here: The stuff in there is about 75% painted, there is some unfinished WH40k and WHF stuff that just takes up too much space on my table of shame.

I think she fell over because of that giant sword of hers. Also its probably hard to see out of that helmet. Beautiful paint job on an entirely silly miniature. The whole Celtos line is...I don't want to bad mouth it, because its actually a very fun range, but there is just something very off about all the models.

Since the danger with Indigogo is that you don't get your money back even if it fails, you're already in the clear with the Otherworld Indigogo.

Does the brush end up on the floor, dropped while you fumble with the switch-out, leaving you to desperately scramble for it before the paint dries, only to slam your head into the underside of your paint desk as you come back up, which causes you drop the miniature you were working on, leading to pinned on bits disappearing under your desk, never to be seen again? Because that always happens to me when i try two-brush blending.

Are the rules still based on Song of Blades and Heroes? I couldn't tell from reading the kickstarter. Some lovely concept art there. I just can't do another kickstarter, but I'm going to have to pick up that Cthulhu temple terrain at some point, as well as the troglodytes. The model for the "Cephalid Mind Stealer" (if its the one I think it is) looks like it would make a great Not Mind Flayer. I could see putting that down on the table and having players freak out as they try to decide if its a flayer or not.