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Well I have finally gone and done it! I managed to build up my courage and paint Kaladrax! This was a very long session of multiple colors to make the bones just so (I didn't want white with just some quick wash). There is at least four different colors on the bones starting with Vampire Shadow then a black wash followed by Ghoul Skin and the dry brushes of Bathalian Chitin and Graveyard bone followed by some light touches of pure white on the bone edges. No this was not done with a size 0 brush or in seven days... those forumites are seriously NUTS! Anyways here are the pics comments and critiques are appreciated.

A couple of multibases for Kings of War (one horde and one troop), including a more practical use for big K (he's just too big for wargaming with). Lots of shots. I had originally only intended to paint up the horde, but found I was running out of room on the base for the original number of minis I wanted to paint, so I added a few more and made the troop to go with it. Thanks for looking!

That's right, an unknown with maybe 3 painted minis to his name is going to attempt the blasphemy of following in the footsteps of buglips*the*goblin and OneBoot! As a refresher, here's a link to the original challenge: http://forum.reaperm...ps-is-crazy-wip I will be following the same rules buglips followed in his challenge (plus some Christmas bagpipes the whole way because how is that not distracting?): 1) Only using a standard Size 0 brush since that was all he had. 2) I will work on Kaladrax for 168 consecutive hours (7 days) 3) The only prep time I've done is to wash and boil Kally 4) This post's timestamp marks my beginning and the time I should hit next week for my ending All paints will be from the Reaper Kickstarter collections as that's all I have! Hopefully I won't crash and burn or disappoint! Should be entertaining for you though watching me squirm and realize that badness I've signed up for. Should have finished putting sealer on my shoji screens instead this week... Here goes a week nothing!

If you're not familiar by now with the Goblin Challenge, then please go to Buglips' original thread where he first slayed Kaladrax: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/51269-kaladrax-in-seven-days-buglips-is-crazy-wip Then you're definitely going to want to see where OneBoot rose to the occasion and slayed the beast as well: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/68762-oneboot-is-crazy-too-kaladrax-in-7-days-wip/page-1 Well, as First Lady-thing and Buglips' other different favourite, I feel that it's my duty to take up the challenge as well - besides, I need to know for sure whether taking on Ma'aldrakar is actually feasible for me to try or not since I won't be able to take off a full week from work on short notice to tackle him right after the holidays. So the only way for me to do a goblin challenge is while working for at least part of it - I'm at work as I type this and have been since early this morning. I'll also be working about 10 hour days tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. Fortunately, I have one shot, or one opportunity here with the 4th of July weekend giving me an already planned 4 day weekend where I was going to be painting anyway. The Roolz: 1) Thou shalt not use any brush larger than a standard size 0. 0 shall be the number on the brush, and the number on the brush shall be 0. 1 shalt thou not use, neither use thou 2, excepting that thou ensures that it is actually 0/2 on the brush. 5 is right out. Once the size 0, being the correct number, be reached, then lobbest thy size 0 brush towards thy foe, who being made of Bones, shall be painted. 2) 7 full days (168 consecutive hours) from when the timer starts are all the time that is allowed in this challenge; whether that time is spent working, sleeping, painting or sobbing uncontrollably is up to the participant. 3) Boiling and scrubbing the model to remove casting residue are the only prep tasks allowed prior to the timer being started. Removing mold lines, greenstuffing or otherwise altering the original sculpt in any way beyond factory spec is prohibited. 4) The timer starts with the posting of a picture of Kaladrax and my intended brush(es) to be used and a device bearing my local time. The challenge will therefore end at the same time 7 days (168 consecutive hours) later. I spent yesterday putting together my new paint racks, organizing and cleaning my desk so I have a fresh start to my working space and then doing a dry fit to make sure I had all of Kaladrax's parts, boiling the parts that bothered me (probably poorly) and giving him a good scrub down. Mmm, just like mom's spaghetti. I will begin this evening as soon as I'm home from work and ready to go - probably around 7pm CST. Note: I may or may not log onto the google hangout while working on Kaladrax. As fond of you people as I am, I may not be in a talking mood or may need to zone out listening to music instead of trying to pay attention to and/or participate in a conversation. Don't be too disappointed, I'll be doing audio only anyway. If you see me on the hangout and I don't respond, or I randomly mute myself or drop out entirely without warning, (so, you know, just like any other night...) please don't take offense. It's my understanding that this challenge is going to be particularly mentally grueling and frustrating at times, so I don't want to take that out on anyone else.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Great Kaladrax Painting Challenge, initiated by buglips*the*goblin, here's a link to his thread: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/51269-kaladrax-in-seven-days-buglips-is-crazy-wip Feel free to boggle at the insanity of it for a bit, I'll wait. ... ... ... All done? Okay, so, being not entirely sane myself, I've decided to give it a go. I will be following the same rules buglips followed in his challenge, namely: 1) No using a brush larger than a standard Size 0 (no getting around it by using, say, a size 0 brush meant for house painting, for example) 2) I will work on Kaladrax for no more than 168 consecutive hours (7 full days) 3) The only prep time allowed before the timer starts is boiling and cleaning to remove casting residue. Removing (or not) mold lines is part of the challenge! 4) When I begin, I will post a picture of Kaladrax with my phone displaying the date and time (I don't get the newspaper) ...That's it, really. Pretty simple. I will endeavor to make semi-regular updates, but when I get deep into PaintingLand, I can lose track of time. I will, however, be very good about taking awful WIP pictures as I go, then at least doing a batch picture post each day. I've timed this so Mr. Boot is gone at a work conference about half of the 7 days, so I will have a little more free time than usual. So! Feel free to come along for the ride. I can't promise to be on here super often (or maybe I will be, who knows), but I can promise that the trip will at least be entertaining. If you'd rather just skip to the end, here's my official completion post with pictures: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/68762-oneboot-is-crazy-too-kaladrax-in-7-days-wip/&do=findComment&comment=1371410 Final show-off pictures: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/69015-kaladrax-reborn-in-7-days-by-oneboot/ Note: Unless otherwise specified, all of the paints used are Reaper brand paints. Huzzah! --OneBoot :D

After a solid week of hard-fought battle, detailed in the WIP thread, I am pleased to present to you... KALADRAX REBORN! All of my notes and thoughts, as well as what paint colors were used where, are detailed in the WIP thread linked above. EDIT: I would be remiss if I didn't include pictures of the Not-Trophy, which I just received! Huzzah! --OneBoot :D

So I've been working on this guy pretty much all day, and I didn't do the crazy goblin thing using only a teeny tiny brush... And I still have so much to do... At this point it's all dirty bone on the bones, and valiejo's red leather (2/3) walnut brown (1/3) on the 'fleshy' bits.

Finally he's done! Finished! "On the coast of the vast sea there once stood a mighty kingdom, its walls of white marble shining in the gleaming light of the sun that would rise over the sea every morning to bathe its pearly walls. Great, colorful mosaics decorated every flat surface and fabulous ornate carvings were etched wherever possible But it was not to last...for one day, with the rising of the sun, there came a great wave. A leviathan of the sea rose from the raging froth and breakers, a horrendous skeleton! It was encrusted as if it had once been part of the sea floor, and this monster tore the city and broke its white walls. Upon its ruins he crouched, reclaiming land that had once been his, centuries before..." WIP Thread (dragon) : http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/53995-siris-kaladrax-n-nethyrmaul-wip-thread/ WIP Thread (base) : http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/56564-basing-coraldrax/ First up are Full shot from all sides, then a closer up of the base on all sides

Okay, so I'm probably going to go either this afternoon or tomorrow and pick up a wooden oval base and cork [to be sea rocks on the base] to put Coraldrax on. I had a few questions, as I've never constructed a cork base...is hot glue okay to use? Should I use a different glue to hold it together? What do you recommend to cut it? Xacto knife? Figured I should ask this before going to pick up supplies haha Coraldrax: Main thread with more pictures: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/54577-coraldrax-sea-kaladrax/

Here is my showoff of my finished Kaladrax. My take on Kaladrax was to have it guarding treasure, and lots of it, as well as to make use of one of the LED Alpha Kits I got from Powered Play Gaming's last Kickstarter. Because Kaladrax is Bones, it made the task of adding the lighting kit easier (a lot easier) than if it was metal; also, the empty cavity in Kaladrax's chest/belly, as well as the recess on the underside of the base itself, made it suitable for housing the light kit components. The switch and battery connector are housed under the base, with the PC board and LEDs housed in the chest cavity. The biggest part of the conversion was in segmenting the neck so that I could drill out holes large enough for the wiring to pass through from the chest to the head in order to install LEDs to light the eyes and mouth. Details were posted in my WIP thread http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/54482-77192-kaladrax-wip/. I also posted two videos to my YouTube Channel (my username is the same there as here). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuiIWFTDAaI and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRfru-_m_B4 What is that lurking in the shadows? Is it a statue? Wait, it's alive! The undead dragon in its lair! Do these adventurers dare to challenge the dragon for its treasure?

Yesterday evening I decided to take the plunge and start work on my Kaladrax model. Last year I participated in Powered Play Gaming's Kickstarter for their light kits and I knew I wanted to use one of them on Kaladrax. I spent Friday night and most of Saturday putting the two together. My first step was to remove mold lines so I won't have to worry about them later. Then came the careful process of planning out how I would install the light kit on Kaladrax for best effect. I knew I wanted to make use of both the base and Kaladrax's belly to keep the kit components. So, the first major effort was in separating the two halves that make up the belly, as it was glued at the factory. With some strategic bending and the help of a long necked flathead screwdriver I was able to separate them. I knew I wanted to light up the eyes and mouth, and eventually settled on using two different colored LED lights, one for the eyes, the other for the mouth. As the light strings from Powered Play Gaming's alpha kits come as a pair of lights, this meant using two different strings and only one light of each string. What to do with the other light of each pair? Leave them in the belly to provide an additional light source, this one to suggest some powerful animating force originating there. So, how to get the lights up to Kaladrax's head and minimize exposure of the wires? By carefully cutting up the neck into several short sections, then a combination of drilling and digging out a series of holes big enough for the LED lights and the wires to pass through from the belly to the back of the head. Then, drilling into the head, both in the mouth and in both eye sockets for the lights to show through. The mouth was easier than the eyes. For the eyes I ended up cutting two short lengths of fiber optic cable from Powered Play Gaming's fiber optic kit (the 3mm cable size) and then inserting one into each eye socket, making sure that the inner ends ended up fairly close to each other so that a single LED light could be the source for both cables. Test mock-ups showed great promise in this strategy as it made the lit eyes more focused and defined with just the round end of the cable carrying the light through. I knew I didn't want to keep all the light kit components in the belly, as I wanted the switch and the battery pack accessible without having to open the belly to use them. So, this required some careful drilling (and digging) into the base to provide a hole for the wires to pass through from the inside of the base to the belly. I carefully chose the spot for this hole to minimize the length of wire exposed between the base and Kaladrax. I also got the idea of mounting the switch to the base so that it could be accessed from the outside instead of having to lift up the base to get at the inside. I chose one of the flat stone surfaces on the backside of the base as the location for the switch, you can see it in the pictures and on the YouTube video. Now, in order to get the neck back together and strong enough to hold up, I decided to drill a series of holes along the top side of the neck and ran a brass rod through them for support. Finally I was ready to put it all together for a dry fit before gluing anything permanently and make sure it was working as planned. So far so good. Now time to glue the neck parts back together (with the brass rod and LED wires securely in place) and then use some epoxy putty to fill gaps and cover the seams between the neck sections (since I used a hobby saw to make the cuts, they were not a perfect match when I put them back together). So here is where I am now, before any painting, with the light kit installed and Kaladrax glued into several assemblies to make it easier to paint. Here are some unlighted pictures of my assembled Kaladrax, followed by a couple with the lights on: Here is a link to the video I uploaded to my YouTube channel showing the lighting effects: http://youtu.be/bDFRQGz0tp4 If I can figure out how to embed the video, I'll see if I can do it. Next step: Painting!

"On the coast of the vast sea there once stood a mighty kingdom, its walls of white marble shining in the gleaming light of the sun that would rise over the sea every morning to bathe its pearly walls. Great, colorful mosaics decorated every flat surface and fabulous ornate carvings were etched wherever possible But it was not to last...for one day, with the rising of the sun, there came a great wave. A leviathan of the sea rose from the raging froth and breakers, a horrendous skeleton! It was encrusted as if it had once been part of the sea floor, and this monster tore the city and broke its white walls. Upon its ruins he crouched, reclaiming land that had once been his, centuries before..." I wasn't sure what I was going to do with Kaladrax when I first got him...there several ideas poking around in my head, but I definitely knew I wanted to do something different. The softness of the rocks, the smooth roundness of them, made me think of erosion. So I thought....either desert themed, eroded by constant sand-filled winds, or coastal themed with the tide line. I went coastal. I bought my very first batch of green stuff and tried it out, and then heavily decorated Kaladrax and his base with it to make sea weed, sponges, star fish, and more. I added sea themed mosaics to the white marble of the ruins, and a few old chains. Stingrays, a crab, octopus, and a few sea gulls are hidden around the base as well. Work in Progress thread and pictures: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/53995-siris-kaladrax-n-nethyrmaul-wip-thread/ His basing project [ongoing] http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/56564-basing-coraldrax/ Sorry for the many pictures! **This was done purely with craft paints from Hobby Lobby!**

[Edited to reflect a thread split.] After seeing some of the incredible WIPs here, I wanted to try doing some of my own. So, I decided to start with something simple: Kaladrax! Over the Christmas holidays, I went over and trimmed and sanded all the mold lines from the model. Kaladrax's details are rather soft, but that was an advantage here, as I didn't have to worry much about losing any detail as I trimmed. The base was annoying to clean up. Every time I looked, there was another mold line I missed. The spine cleanup was a multi-day nightmare. Remember, always cut away from your hand. I was lucky this time, as I just poked myself only enough to draw blood. Personally, I sometimes think that a big project isn't really underway until I've anointed it with blood. Let's hope this isn't enough to rouse an ancient dracolich from aeons of slumber. That brings us to tonight: puttying and priming. When I boiled the parts to reshape them, the torso halves came apart. It was what I was planning to do, since there was a big gap between them. I've taken the opportunity to fill the gap with putty. I'm using Tamiya Epoxy Putty, since it's what I have on hand. It's designed for resin and styrene models, but should work here. I haven't used Green Stuff, but I expect it works the same as this: Trim two equal pieces from each stick, then fold them together until they're blended. Keep it wet while you're working it, to keep it from sticking to your hands. It's workable for about 1/2 hour or more before it begins to harden, and takes more than a day to fully cure. I made a long string of putty, then wrapped it around the outside of the torso seam. I then ran a bead of AC glue (super glue) around the inside, and on the inner alignment studs. I quickly jammed them together and squeezed them together with a few clamps, and set it aside until the AC set. There were a few lines and holes to fill on the model, particularly a large injection hole in the middle of the head (above, left) and a meet line or two on the base (above, right), where the Bones material cooled lightly before meeting, leaving a seam. Normally, I'd leave it as a crack in the stone, but since it overlaps a carved crack, I felt it had to go. I jammed putty into the gaps, then smoothed it over again and again with a putty knife, until the only material left was in the gaps. The head especially is too soft for this, and I had to add material back into the hold several times until I could smooth the hole over properly without leaving a depression. I'll deal with any surface roughness after it hardens. Back to the torso. I removed the clamps and trimmed the squeezed out putty away. Look! No gaps! I even sculpted a bit of rib past where it just ends on the casting, as you can see in the background two photos up. Now I just leave it to harden, which in this cold weather, may take two or more days. For the rest of the parts, I washed them and taped over the parts that will be glued together. Then I primed them with Liquitex Neutral Gray Gesso, as I expect the model to be painted in a mix of light and dark colors. This stuff shrinks as it dries and leaves a very smooth surface to paint on. (Also, you can never have enough clamps.) I had some trouble with the hydrophobic nature of Bones, and for this model at least I was seeing some serious beading. It's been rather hit and miss before, so I tried something different. Remembering an old science experiment about surface tension and water beading, I dumped a generous amount of gesso onto my mixing surface, then just barely touched the bristles of a wet mixing brush to a drop of dish soap -- the tiniest of smidgens. I then worked this thoroughly into the gesso, and painted it onto the model. Much, much less beading! I was left with a secondary problem -- more paint bubbles -- but that was as easy to solve as blowing on the gesso, and could be solved in the future by using a touch of liquid dishwasher detergent instead. It remains to be seen if this affects the primer adhesion. And that's a good place to leave off tonight, as all this dries.