The Dread Polack

Holy crap, was that 4 years ago already! I picked up the mini a while back. She's definitely amazonian in proportions, but within human limits. Actually perfect for what I was looking for, although I never ended up doing the mod I planned on.

I am playing a sorcerer with the brass draconic bloodline in Pathfinder. Eventually, I'll start being able to turn into a dragon, starting at medium size, then large, and eventually huge. I already have a huge-sized brass dragon (77109: Fire Dragon), but I'd like to have a mini to use for medium and large sizes. What do you guys suggest, either from Reaper or other companies?

Wow, everyone. Thanks for the praise. :) I think I need to fix the blotch on his forehead, but otherwise, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Indeed. I have a big spool of floral wire I use for pinning. I just used a piece of that and used a grinding wheel on my dremel to sharpen the end into a point. I also cut away the big medallion and used some putty to close up his shirt most of the way.

I am working on an upcoming game of Save Rifts. One of my PCs is a dragon hatchling. We haven't settled on a mini for his dragon form just yet, but I asked the player what he wants for his humanoid form (they have the power to transform temporarily into a humanoid). He looked through all my Reaper Bones kickstarter minis and pulled one out, and came up with a backstory explaining how he chose it. Long story short- he's a fan of Bob Ross' Joy of Painting. I turned this mini: Into this: Yes, I am very proud of myself.

Hah! That would have worked for my druid's animal companion. I decided he was a otter hound, using the riding dog stats.

I wasn't going to back this, but I got 50 hours of overtime in the past 2 weeks. I'm reconsidering :)

The guy from Hirst Arts recommends "Envirotex Lite, Pour-on High Gloss Finish". I bought some a while back, but never ended up using it. You can check out his tutorials here: http://www.hirstarts.com/tipsmain/tipsmain.html

For some reason, I thought John C. Reilley's lines were the best in the movie. Maybe it was his delivery, but they made me laugh the hardest.

I would have to assume they learned a bit from the first batch, as you would expect. If it turns out bones aren't the best for some models, there are still plenty of models that it's great for, and still allows us all to acquire vast piles of miniatures at a good price, saving our dollars for the small, detailed ones we really want in metal.

Such a good effect, I'd be afraid to touch it without a tetanus shot!

I try not to get too sciency when it comes to discussing mythical creatures. I don't imagine they evolved, so evolutionary biology isn't necessarily taken into account. As far as I'm concerned, there are no appreciable physical differences in ability between male and female dragons, although secondary sexual characteristics might be noticable to someone knowledgable. Their voice quality might be different, as it usually is for other sentient races (or if they communicate telepathically, they might take on a gendered voice). Anyway, the genders of my dragon minis exist in a quantum state until it becomes necessary for me to decide for my game :)

Sorry for the hijack, but quickly, for anyone interested: the interview went really well and I got the job. It's a huge relief to know I won't be unemployed. Starting over at the bottom every few years sucks, but I sort of dodged a bullet there. The severance will help a lot, as well. And now back to eagerly awaiting the new bones...

My gaming and GMing style is to be in-character as much as possible, but not more than people are comfortable with. The number one rule is always err on the side of fun, unless it will create an obvious problem for later, and that means, for me, that if people are more comfortable speaking in character, let them, and if not, that's fine too. I recommend a screen. Especially when you're getting used to the rules, you'll want to fudge rolls from time to time. I fudge rolls mostly in order to avoid killing a character too quickly (I GM Savage Worlds, where a lucky roll can one-shot anyone), or sometimes to make sure my big bad gets at least *one* use of his cool power. As I'm getting used to the rules, howevever, I'm fudging less and less. Meta-gaming isn't even a thing, for me. That's probably a topic for another discussion, but IMHO, the meta-game is often as fun as the game, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying it on multiple levels. I avoid keeping information secret for two reasons: 1) the other PCs are going to find out eventually, so why make it necessary to share twice? and 2) if players are trying to keep secrets from eachother, there is likely a problem. The only time I would keep information to specific players only is if I think the surprise will be more fun. (I had a GM who used to take a player into another room and info-dump on them. Everyone was bored during this, and the player usually ended up just dumping it all on the table as soon as he got back in the room. This was a huge waste of time. We're all experienced role-players. We can act on in-character knowledge. Let's just keep it going...) 3D terrain is cool. Tac-tiles look awesome, but you're right- they're spendy. Honestly, a plain roll-up mat has always been fine for me. I've been a player in the Kingmaker AP for a while now. We're all enjoying it. I find the kingdom-building rules to be interesting, but it's a side-game I'm less interested in than the actual character-level RPing. I heard the newer rules are better. Other advice: Make sure the players are all on the same page as far as what the game is concerned. I recommend "The Same-Page Tool" : http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool/ Make sure there is some level of party cohesion. Most players can't handle a group working at cross-purposes. I recommend using the "Group Template" from the "Fear the Boot" podcast: http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/wp-content/uploads/resources/2_GroupTemplate.pdf Stuff I've learned from bad GMs: As a GM, don't plan too much. Don't ever bank on your players following any path. This is *not* like writing a story, from your perspective. Instead, be ready to create the story around where your characters go and what they choose to do. This won't be easy for a beginning GM, so be patient and forgive yourself if it doesn't go well. You'll realize quickly what I'm talking about. Make sure you have a clear understanding of your NPCs and Villain's motivations, and an idea of what exists just outside your party's location, and doing this will be easier. If your players decide to go easy on you, they'll be merciful and bite down on your plot hooks and not stray too far from your plans, but don't ever force them. Dungeon crawls are a good place to start for this. If everyone is cool with that, it'll be a good way to get a feel for the rules and the group before you start doing more improv. Remember it's not you vs. them. You're all grown ups, and you don't need to be antagonistic (only your npc villains need to be). Assume they're not going to try to screw you over, and you aren't trying to do the same for them. If you display patience and flexibility, you'll hopefully get the same from them. If you make a bad call and a player suffers for it, then there's nothing wrong with re-writing history to undo it or somehing else to make up for it. Also, don't worry too much about being too generous as long as you don't think your players are going to take advantage of this. If they are- they're missing the part where this is a game, and should be about fun.

You're right. I haven't increased the area, just makes them more visible from the front. Since the stands go nearly all the way to the top, I don't see a need for creating any more effective shelves. You have to crouch down to see the lower shelf, or kneel to see the bottom shelf as it is- cramming in any more would cause them to overlap.

You can't beat the price. You couldn't even get the glass for $65! I was actually pretty surprised at how sturdy it was when I put it together. You can get at least 60 figures on each stand, so that's 240 per case. I'll need one case just for my kickstarter bones!

So, there was a recent kickster that sold a display stand that fit on the Detolf display cabinet (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10119206/) . I had a little cash to work with, but alas, the stands cost as much as the cabinets. I picked up one of the Detolf cabinets last week, and then went about building my own display stands out of craft wood from the Home Depot. A coat of dark brown spray paint, and this is what I ended up with: Here's a closeup of the stand: I might build one more stand for the third shelf, and put the bigger pieces on the bottom. It's becoming clear that I will eventually need a second cabinet. The cabinet is only $65 and IIRC, the wood for the shelves only came to about $15 each. You could probably do better if you tried.

Also, if you're going to use a pen: make sure the paint is thoroughly dried. If the paint is still wet, the ink will spread out all over the eye, and it's hard to paint over that- it'll take several coats.

When I was in HS, we were very poor and had 5 colors of acryllic paint in jugs. We learned how to mix everything from those colors, including flesh. This helped me early on in my mini painting. Since I've amassed a larger collection of colors, however, I've gotten lazier.

This is basically how I leared to blend, only more succinctly put. I get lazy a *lot* and try shortcuts, but all my best looking blend-jobs were done this way, and I have to remind myself to come back to this.

I dabbled in sculpting back in the day. I picked up some of the Reaper Advanced Dollies and liked them, but I wanted to go for a slightly taller scale (mostly because it was just easier for a beginner). I also made my own armatures as TaleSpinner describes, and they worked pretty well, also. I used a soft wire for mine, and it needed a coat of putty to make the whole thing sturdy enough to keep from bending further. I scuplted my current D&D party, twice. There was a marked improvement from the first set to the second, but that was a few years ago and I haven't tried again. I plan to try again soon. One of these days, I'll post 'em up here.

I'm getting in the habit of priming my bones lately. I can paint directly onto them *most* of the time, but its just a bit easier when primed. I have a 50/50 gesso to water mix, with a few drops of black so I can see what parts of the mini have been primed. I spray it on with my airbrush, mostly. Works quite well for me.

Very nice warm/cool combo.

That's sharp! Indeed, love the black stripes!

I found out about 2 months ago I was going to be laid off at the end of August. I was pretty bummed. But, the recent good news is that my boss likely found us jobs that will start immediatly after the end of this one (and we'll get severance), and actually pay more. This means I won't have to break my lease and move back in with my parents at age 35! The actual interview is on Friday, but I'm quite confident it'll go fine. Just thought I'd share that in case you were feeling too sorry for me :)

I was on the fence about whether I was going to back it in the first place. I definitely couldn't afford it then, or now. I'm paying off credit card debt now. :(