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One of the old school figures I still really love. I started buying them back in the mid 70s, at Len's Hobby Center in Astoria. This was a more recent acquisition, from some nice lady down in Texas. The snowy base was a last minute epiphany C&C are very welcome. I'm not too happy with the awkwardness of the cloth - it needed a lot more blending. I consider it a snapshot of "that time I was focusing on getting more daring with contrast, but without the blending skills to pull it off"! -t

I have been busy painting these past months, but I have not been taking pictures and posting much, and these guys are to blame for that. I started them up many many years ago, but never could come up with a good paint scheme. My Monstrous Manual didn't have any pictures let alone a decent description, and the older pictures were all line art or black & white. Finally earlier this year I took a look at them again and was able to find 3rd ed pictures and descriptions and while very different than the old school versions it at least gave me a starting point. I could have just done them up in any ld color and been happy, but no color scheme really stood out to me, so "traditional" it is. their fur ended up not being as white as I would have liked and it doesn't help that it's hard to tell if something is supposed to be furred or bare blue skin, but Ithink it's more or less ok now. Now the reason I haven't posted was because for a while now I have just not been able to take miniature photos I'm at all happy with and these guys were the worst for it since they are mostly blue and white so it was hard to get a picture where their eyes (which I spent quite a bit of time on) even remotely stood out. Even now I'm not completely happy with the pictures, but like the minis I guess I just have to learn when it's just good enough. So without any further ado Taer This one got panted black with grey dry brushing for a while, but it just didn't seem like enough. This one was the worst to photograph as his rock kept casting shadows on his face. i like how the rock turned out at least. This one spent the last decade solid grey. I wish I could have done more to make the eyes stand out, but my hand is not very steady so it either works or it doesn't. The team together. Ready to fight off adventurers and keep them from invading their snowy mountaintop dungeon complex Really turned down the settings on this picture because even the previous pictures look too washed out now that I've got them cropped down. Comments? Critiques? Photography advice? Business ventures for for young Taer seeking promising careers with advancement opportunities? Edit: Gah! Blown up the first 3 photos look even worse now. I may retake them and replace them at some point, if I can ever pin down whats going wrong. in the last photo I turned off the auto settings on my phone and set them manually, but it was all guess work since literally none of the buttons and symbols mean anything to me.

Another old mini that I painted at the same time as the Taer. Initially I just primed him white and called it good, but since I was painting the Taer, I figured he'd be a good one to paint along side them since he would have a similar color scheme. He was also equally a pain the %&^$#@ elf to photograph, didn't matter if I was using a neutral background or my dungeon tiles. he would inevitably be washed out and or blurry. while trying to experiment I got a decent picture of him on top of my trash can out side. This guy is very much based on his art in the Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume One. Drawn by one of my favorite D&D artists Tony Diterlizzi. Hmm blown up it's still a little blurry now. I don't get it, the S8 is supposed to have an awesome camera, but it seemed like I was getting better pictures with my wife's old Ipad. I really thought I had finally gotten a picture of him that actually worked. Might try and fix this later as well.

Under the Repaint & Rebuild column, we have the Ral Partha Frost Giant, 11-436. A classic version of the Frost Giant for Ral Partha's AD&D line back in the day. Amusingly, I was rather proud of this paint job back in the day. I cut the base out of thick clear plastic and then edged it with a rotary tool. Mixed snow, sand painted white and such to cover the large integral base and painted him up. However, on his way to an early days Finger Lakes Paint Day, he and a few other minis got unceremoniously dropped on the floor in their container. They weren't individually contained. They were just pulled from the shelf, loosely wrapped in paper towels to keep them bouncing off each other and taken in to show off. However, I didn't get out the door before my elbow bumped something and wham, down they went. The Frost Giant comes apart at the waist and the shield comes off. Naturally he came apart at the waist and in my heart sunk condition I shelved the whole box and didn't touch it again until recently. So, I dipped him, cleaned him and re-based him yesterday at paint day. With one distinct difference in the base ... The ice sheet of his old base is now the ice sheet sitting on top of water on top of his new base. The base is one of the 2-inch tile squares I use a lot with a 1-inch plastic tile holding up the old base: I used Golden Heavy Gel with no coloring as the water between the top and the bottom bases after painting the lower base with an aqua/sea blue I mixed from Warpaint Hydra Blue and Reaper Ultramarine Blue. I added a skull floating/hanging in the ice/water near the front of the base to add SKULLZ for my buddy @ub3r_n3rd because ... SKULLZ!! I painted that up on a stick beforehand and used part of the stick to help plant the skull in the gel after I had "cooked" it to set a bit. Speaking of cooking it. I improvised a low-heat method to "bake" the mini all day after assembly: All lights are energy efficient but still generate a lot of heat using the metal shades and the direct contact of the bulb under him. Last night when the gel had contracted a lot, I added more gel to fill the gaps back to the edges of the tile. Here's a close up of the skull. I also sprayed the giant later last night after masking off the base. I am back in the office today to do a little work and paint. So he's back on the lamps "baking" the gel. Upcoming: Ice ... I am going to use the crackle effect I got from Ub3r to create a cragged, icy appearance on the plastic base and bring it level with the integral base to a degree. The plastic base will be painted an icy blue to show through the cracks. Gloves and Sleeves ... I painted his hands as gloves last time to avoid messing with full blue skin. However, this time I plan to add more blue to him. Whether the blue will be in the form of bare hands or bare arms I am unsure. More Water ... as the latest gel contracts I will likely have to add more gel to get it level again towards the edges. I expect should give me some nice edges within the water to look through. Shield ... gonna put some more effort into the shield this time and paint a device on it. Part of the reason I left it off. Stay tuned and Enjoy!

Here is the finished Sea Ghost. This is the ship detailed in the AD&D module U1, The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. I have worked her up to-scale, 1" = 5'. Each deck is separable so that below deck action can be carried out. The bottom deck can be flipped over to show the bilge floor plan. I've put a 1" grid on each deck and painted in the walls and doors. You can see the WIP photos in the WIP forum if you're interested. I'm considering making a sloop and a treasure galley, too. But if I do that won't be for a couple months. Need to take a break and dig up some nice deck plans. I hope you like her! My group begins a pirates D&D game this week! The game begins with our characters having just been dumped off in Jamaica for various offenses committed in England. My character, Simon Kershaw, was a shipwright's assistant in England. When the Master shipwright used (and took credit for) one of Simon's ideas for an improvement to a ship design, Simon set fire to the ship before it left the harbor, thus earning himself a spot aboard the prison ship... Suggestions for improvement welcome!

So here he is the final piece to the set I've been working on, an old Ral Partha AD&D set from the nineties, the Drow Elf assassin. and here: is the whole set and as a reminder the other three individually: Enjoy!

So on my quest to finish up this set of four elves, I just completed the sea elf last night. I don't say this too often, but I think I'm really glad the way this one turned out, at least colorwise, as I was using a very limited color palette and was using sea-oriented colors that Reaper makes, like Seafoam Blue, Marine Teal, Clouded Sea, which are paints that I bought a while back but really haven't taken advantage of. With this color scheme in mind I may very well try to do some other aquatically themed figures in the near future. Now out of this set 11-422 from way back in the day I've got one more figure left, a drow assassin, who will be up next as soon as I finish him.

So a while back Master Buglips and I were talking about this set of old Ral Partha figures, and I've finally found some time to work on them. The set itself has two archers, a drow elf and a sea elf. I've got the two archers finished, so I'll post these now, and hope to have the other two elves done soon. The female archer I tried to do with a wood elf vibe and the male elf with more of a high elf color scheme in mind. Hopefully you guys enjoy!

When you find those frequent trips to the gaming store too embarrassing... Funny spoof. My apologies if it has been posted before.

So I added some black ballast sand and some Earth colored flock to add some variety to the base, and am calling him(?) done. Comments and critiques welcome! Thanks for looking! George Wip here

These are four of the classic old lead figures from the 1980 Grenadier "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" boxed set #5001, "Dungeon Explorers": the Ranger, the Bard, the Cleric "turning", and the Paladin. They are marvelously clunky and awkward. I never owned them back in the day, generally preferring Ral Partha and other more gracile brands than Grenadier's old standbys. It's been neat, though, to hear my old gaming friends recognize them. They are fairly simply sculpted, rather crude, with some bodged details. The right side of the bard's face was such a mess I painted him with an eyepatch, then added a little blue detail on his lute to match. The original WIP thread was here, but after a long hiatus I finished them during a speed paint on the Memorial Day Weekend Paint Binge.

So here are the mighty Goblins, painted more than 25 years after their brethren.... Just goes to show that even and old fool can learn a thing or two.... Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: So there you have them! Tried a little bit of shading on the metals of the weapons, using Decay Black where zenithal light would be absent, don't know how much it helps... And for minis that have been used in countless AD&D games since they were painted, the old ones still don't look too bad.... Comments welcome! WiP here Thanks for looking! George

I found it appropriate that Deep Purple's classic song 'Burn', was playing as I poured the sand on this guys base to finish him up... So here is Ral Partha's Efreet from the AD&D line: Some close ups: The first 2 pics were just to see how different the figure would look against different back drops... I did the runes on his sword in Blue, thinking that if I was an evil fire creature, I would want a scimitar that would work well against my enemies / kinfolk, so a Frost Brand... Would work better against water creatures than a flaming sword as well... I put a line of Reaper Blue liner along the bottom of the sword where it turns down to the edge, and left the dark Black Metal there, but it doesn't really show up... I also put some under the runes on the blade to try and make them stand out a bit more. I did the same thing on the gold portions of the hilts and his lamp with Brown liner, trying to ease into some shaded metallics... I used some brown grass tufts and sand for the base as I was trying for an 'Arabian Knights' kind of theme. I took some last minute advice and did some extra glazes of the base Scale 75 Violet on the sash to even it out... WiP Here C&C Welcome as always! George

I wanted to do more work on other figures tonight, but I am waiting for some paint to arrive.... I looked at my 20 primed figures, trying to think which ones I had paint to work on, and he kind of bellowed at me to be painted! So working with my new style of working from the inside out, his skin got done tonight. I used the Scale 75 Blood and Fire set, working from dark to light, not using the orange or yellow on the skin. The yellow got used for his scalera, and the inside of his mouth. I didn't think red would work well here, and I thought that if it matched his eyes, it might be his 'inner fire' or some such... The horns, teeth, and nails were done with SC75 Iroku. This (Redacted due to family forum rules, but REALLY bad) figure has a SCULPTED pupil, but only in his right eye! I was not going to attempt to push green stuff there, and I just realized that I could have tried the liquid GS, so I just painted SC75 Cantabric Blue for pupils. Someday I will try to do more than just one color on irises / pupils.... Pics: Comments and suggestions welcome! 8) George

Hello gals and guys, it's been too long since I shared anything. I've become somewhat obsessed with the licensed Advanced Dungeons & Dragons miniatures produced by Grenadier Models from 1980-1982. These are usually referred to as the "Gold Line." I never had a true appreciation for these sculpts as a kid, but with 35 years in the hobby. I've finally started to come around. I'm thinking of collecting the entire line now! I'm amassing quite a little collection. I will post up more pictures as models are finished as long as there is any interest. I'm sure that these models are older than some of the regular users, and I don't want to bore anyone. Thanks for looking. Comments and questions are always welcome!

Back when I first started getting into miniatures I would scour ebay looking for deals. One of the purchases that I made was Grenadiers 2007 Females set for AD&D. I don't remember exactly what I gave for it, but I do remember being happy because I was getting metal cheaper than I could Bones. It then proceeded to sit on my self for another year, to go with the 34 years that it had sat on someone else's shelf. As part of my recurring painting goals I am tackling minis from companies I haven't painted yet so I pulled it off the shelf and too a look at it. One thing I noticed was that there were some annoying mold lines on them. They weren't big but were in places where it required some care to remove them, like right down a face. Another thing I noticed was that two of the eight were miscast, and both of them were in the same area - the left hand gripping the shield. I knew expectations of quality have changed a bit over the last three decades, but a 20% failure rate seems pretty high. It's not like there's an option to return them at this point though. Anyway, for my first Grenadier mini I chose "Fighter." After the time I put in on the KD Survivor I decided to do something nice and quick. She's mostly just a standard metal armor job, but I did play around some more with the Scale75 flesh set. After the initial layers were in place I started messing with glazes... and she ended up a full step darker than what she was when I started. We'll just say she got some tanning in. I also tried to make up a new recipe for flaxen hair, but it didn't work quite right. The shadows were fine, but the highlights weren't. Kinda like I did with the face I just put down the brush and said done. The one thing she doesn't have right now is a proper base. I need to see if I can track down some 25mm hollow blanks to use for the whole set. I'd rather sink them in than build up a flat base. Here's a shot of her shield hand. It was basically just a blob of metal going from her hand to the end of the shield. I did a bit of filing and then just put the colors in to hint at what should have been. I just realized I never took a good shot of her face, so here it is. Such tiny little eyes... and I now see that I forgot to touchup the shape of her eyebrow. Oh well, not noticeable on the tabletop anyway.

I painted up an old Ral Partha troll, from their AD&D Monsters line. Love love love this sculpt of an old-school D&D foe I loved loved loved. I aimed for gross (and maybe a little radioactive) with him. Didn't do a whole lot, really--basecoated and applied a couple different washes (more SW; Algae and Green Black or whatnot) and sparely highlighted. Thanks for looking. Comments and criticism are very welcome!

I started this guy almost 10 years ago just putting base colors on him, but was never sure what else to do with him. Recently I saw him on a shelf and decided to finish him. Someday I hope to paint his blister brother and their big brother the greater wolf spider. I painted his eyes blue to try and make him look a little different. I'm not sure if it works or if it is even all that noticable. Hmmm. I'm seeing some places I need to touch up now and I think I need to do more with the fur on his face. now that I see it close up. maybe he's not finished yet. Criticisms and suggestions are appreciated.

tl:dr Birthright takes that 'divine right of kings' bit seriously. I wanna do some Birthright themed skirmish using the Of Gods and Mortals rules from Osprey. Skip to bottom if you don't want setting explanation. So I read a bunch of the Birthright campaign stuff back in the day and really liked the setting but was so/so on the rules. Warning: Redonculously long setting summary for those not familiar with Birthright (aka, OMG a wall of text!) For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Birthright was a 2nd edition AD&D campaign setting that had Elves that were basically the Sidhe (both Seelie and Unseelie kinda rolled into one), orcs that were basically more Tolkien Uruk Hai than D&D pig-men, Goblins that were more Tolkien Orc than runty little arrow catchers for all the murder hobos of the world, Halflings that were fey and actually cool, and humans with a fairly wide range of cultures roughly equivalent to more realistic versions of Earth Europe around 1000 AD or so than most D&D settings. There were dwarves as well but they didn't feel particularly different to me. Needless to say I'm very loosely paraphrasing here. Essentially, the Elves and the goblins spent centuries merrily murdering the crap out of each other and having a grand ol' time doing typically medieval things to each other above ground and the dwarves and the orcs did more or less the same thing under the mountains. Then out of nowhere (ok, from another continent via land bridge but whatever) the humans come in and jack up the elves and goblins with superior numbers and their unique use of divine magic. Apparently cause the elves were immortal and big on nature based magic they never contemplated something higher powered than themselves. Oops. Anyway, the humans pimp slapped the elves and goblins and pushed them into the deep forests and hinterlands, taking all the sweet, prime land for their kingdoms and proceeded to screw each other and the demi-humans over for awhile. Unfortunately for this little human uber alles party, it turns out the humans didn't just roll up on this continent just to mess up that sweet blood feud the elves and goblins had going for them. They were actually fleeing from a bunch of humans who worshiped your basic Morgoth style evil god and guess what...somebody forgot to close the cattle gate when they crossed the land bridge. So the dark god and his worshipers are coming for the rest of the humans and make a pitch to the elves and goblins to join up and get a little payback. Since the humans and their grubby divine magic messed up the elf/goblin fun, murder times most of them responded with a resounding 'Heck yeah, dude! Btw bro, could we get the hookup with some of that dark divine magic?' Basically you get the idea; blood, tears, wild-hunting elves, etc. Anyway, eventually everybody ends up fighting at this huge battle near a mountain at the land bridge and it's obviously the endgame so the good gods and the evil god manifest and lead their followers in a massive meat grinder of a battle. At some point most of the elves figure out that the dark god is just stringing them along and will turn on them next so they swap sides when its looking kinda grim for the humans. Even though they hate humans, they hate getting stabbed in the back more so they figure better to backstab first right? Eventually the good gods and the evil god along with some favored followers meet on the mountain for a little West Side Story reenactment but somebody didn't read the part of the divine manual that says that if basically all the gods in the world go head to head you've got yourself a real Hiroshima situation there. So we have a big badda-boom and the gods are vaporized into a fine mist of divine blood. Oh, and incidentally most of the mortal armies become fine past as well. For most of them this just means they are worm food a little faster but for the greatest champions of the gods who were pretty close to ground zero they luck out with insta-promotion to the new gods along with insta-ascencion to the heavens to acclimate to their new positions. This is because apparently even aerosolized god-juice doesn't dissipate but seeks a vessel. The majority of the power is absorbed by our newly promoted godlings but enough overspray reaches various other combatants to create a bunch of mortal-ish almost demi-gods; some good, some bad. Course since there were quite a few more good gods the good guys ended up outnumbering the bad guys who looked around and said 'Uh-oh' before hotfooting it outta their. In the resulting confusion some of the newly 'blooded' on either side get wacked and everybody realizes you can steal somebody else's god-juice and therefore power. This is mostly not that important immediately. But later once the good guys get back to their kindgoms and basically take over by right of 'mine is bigger than yours now', several of the biggest bads go on a merry little murder spree amongst their peers to consolidate a little power Highlander style. This is all well and good right up to the point when they accumulate enough bad juju to suddenly start mutating into monsters. Some are a bit disturbed by this but most sort of asses the power that comes along with it and shrug and move on. Fast forward and basically you have a bunch of 'good' guys ruling most of the kingdoms along with a few hard as nails baddies (no scare quotes here, they really are real face eaters) ruling some other lands and making life hard for everybody else. Finally this long winded dude gets closer to the point! So a couple more vital points. Only the 'blooded' can use the real, realm-shaking arcane magic, commoners are stuck with hedge magic. More or less all the races have access to divine magic now, except most of the elves still turn their nose up and stick with nature and time manipulating. Oh, and a quirk of being a 'blooded' ruler is that that whole divine right, tied to the fortunes of the land thing that our medieval rulers snowed the peasants with really works here. On the good side, you get some sweet advantages in keeping the peasants in line and your hands on all the goodies. On the downside you better take good care of your land and people, cause somebody has to watch your back to keep someone from sticking a knife in it to steal your god-juice backed power and also ruining your best tunic. One last cool touch is that most of the monsters from your typical D&D games are singular examples of the bad blooded dudes rather than whole races. So there's a Ghost, a Gorgon, a Manticore, etc. And if they're still around after several centuries of their esteemed colleagues trying to rip their liver out to eat it raw, then they're pretty bad-elf. So, what I actually want to do (betcha didn't think I'ld ever get their didja?) I want to take this basic setting and play skirmish or larger battles in it using the Of Gods and Mortals rules from Osprey. These are a variation of the Song of Blades rules. I haven't actually finished reading them yet but I already know I am gonna love them. You have three levels of troops: Gods-pretty obvious, but essentially a manifestation maintained on the field of battle by the faith of their mortal followers. Legends-basically powerful mortals to sorta demi-gods. Think Hercules, Beowulf, Fenris, druids, banshees, etc. Perfect for representing the Blooded nobles and any weirdness they might have serving them. Not as impressive as the gods, but way more resilient than mortals. Mortals-grunts who also serve as the gods version of duracell batteries. At base game size you get 1 God, 1-5 Legends, and the rest of your points go to Mortals. The Gods and Legends are where the real power is but you better take care of your Mortal troops as well or your God ends up boned. What I would like to know: Any of you guys play Of Gods and Mortals and/or Birthright? If so, does this sound like it would work/be cool?