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Originally I was going to paint this figure by Nordlys Miniatures with the more simple goal of "a man telling ghost stories around a campfire". I primed the figure with that intent (upside down zenithal). But then the invasion began, and the character's story changed. The color scene became one mimicking the Ukrainian flag, both to tell the story and honor their determination. The man now stands in front of a fire, ignited in his homeland as he stands in the aftermath of destruction. He has taken up arms, despite not having been a trained soldier before. He watches the night skyline as it briefly glows while bombs drop, but the illumination has a glint of hope as he sees the Ghost of Kyiv fly to avenge the country. He will someday tell his ghost story around a campfire in the future, of what he has seen, never to let it be forgotten. Kimera's Ultramarine Blue, Warm Yellow, Diarylide Yellow, and Carbon Black are among the most prominent paints on the piece, in conjunction with some from ProAcryl, Reaper, and Scale 75. Reaper's Midnight Blue, Corporeal Shadow, and Nightshade Purple form the basis for the darker blue regions and the shadows. Muddy Soil was the foundation for the eyebrows. Foggy Gray was the base for the whites of the eyes. ProAcryl's Transparent White and Transparent Orange are used heavily for the reflection, and amplifying highlights and deepening yellow areas. Bold Titanium White was the white of choice for opaques. Tan Flesh and Shadow Flesh were used for underlying skin tones. Scale 75's SC Tesla Blue and Deep Blue were used for the iris colors. I will be putting the figure up for charity auction in the near future via Facebook, on a Polish nerd-dom charity auction page. Please see my FB page if you are interested in that. Hoping mentioning this doesn't set off too many forums flags - good cause, not for profit, not yet listed... will edit post if folks want me to remove this.

Here is the start of pathfinder red, which I’ll be doing as a Sapphire dragon, similar to what i did with the Grenadier Red Dragon II (which I did as a Ruby dragon) a while ago. Just base colors here; dark blue/black wash over his entire body, earth wash over the sand, and white statue. I really like how the blue and brown look together. The brown will be lightened up to sand, and the blue will end up a more saturated dark blue. I hope those colors will still look good together...

I painted this guy up, despite having eyes on Gale Force 9's Behir for my personal use. Decided to go ahead and liquidate it in a certain auction site, but so far, no takers. Ah, well. It's still a nice looking mini, so it doesn't hurt to have one around until I manage to finish painting the GF9 Behir... Comments, recommendations, and suggestions are appreciated.

Greetings! I had initially decided to paint Mariel's dresscoat in red & white but I'm glad I changed my mind & went for blue & yellow instead. I don't often paint yellow so I'm pleased how this worked out. Thanks for looking!!

Hello all! I've just finished painting "Stormwing" from my Bones 3 collection - Yay!! My painting process of this mini can be found here in my ongoing Dragon/large monster WIP thread. Please feel free to comment & critique: Thanks for looking !

Malifaux: Ten Thunders Shadow Emissary painted as a blue dragon

"Remember that just because I'm blue does not mean I'm made of water. All that squashing of adventurers into Tiny bits can definitely bring out one's thirst. That's why I drink Ogre-Aid(tm) from my shot glasses made from the skulls of my enemies! It slakes my thirst and restores electrolytes, but without all those nasty carbs. Do you think I got this ripped drinking colas?" :-)

Hi all! Just recently finished painting my first Ral Partha figure: a heavy-armored warrior and a pretty dragon! Getting the pieces to fit together was a bit of a hassle (maybe it was a bad mould?), but after I got that sorted out I decided to go to with a classic blue dragon look. Look at those chompers!!! Used MSP Dragon Blue (29815) for the scales and wings, Sparkling Blue (09104) for the plate scales on the spine, and a mix of the Blonde Triad for the belly scales, horns, and wings. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this one. Certainly earned a display place on my desk.

I got this to be my first bust to paint, sourced from Figone. CMPA had the "Bust a Move" challenge, so I finally painted him up. Yep, first bust! Next time I'll try a human or humanoid. Mounting him was kinda a nuisance, but I did something basic. He has a magnet on his back, and I greenstuffed a magnet to a nail. I can change the base later if I want. He's the first of my limited palette challenges, and I used blue because blue is a pretty easy one and I thought he'd do well with it. I smooth blended the face, and semi-smooth blended the mane, and went back for fur texture with a tone just one or two steps off of the layer beneath it. I imagined him as a lion day dreaming of a fantasy world, and a bit whimsical. Eyes: NMM Gold Triad (Shadow, Base, Highlight), Dragon White, Pure Black, S75 Tindalos Red. The Majority of Stuff: Pure White, Ghost White, Morning After Blues, Sky Blue, Dragon Blue (base fur color), Midnight Blue, Nightmare Black, Vallejo Game Color Black Ink.

CMPA is doing a "Bust a Move" challenge. I've been meaning to paint this lion for a while. The only non blue part are his eyes. The rest will be 50 Shades of Blue. I am basing with Dragon Blue, but intend to subdue it with less saturated blues as I go. First bust and first monochrome! Okay, almost monochrome

For your consideration, I offer Nolevniss Azrinae: Reaper Miniature 60162. Or in this Multiverse: Elariel Moonshadow This elf Magi was an active sculpt to paint. The robes and cloak are dynamic in portrayal of wind movement and direction. The robes were long and laying folded in back, which suggests weight and volume. Limited palette with work on suggesting different textures of cloth. Teeny eyes. Delicate sculpt too with the hair and features. And the familiar was an enjoyable if not surreal sculpt. I was told by the person who wanted this painted, "And paint the baby dragon gold." When I popped my Opti-visor on I was like, "That's not a dragon..." This creature reminded me of the haemonculus familiar from earlier Dungeons and Dragons editions, while the head reminded me of an eye-less vampire bat. What you see is the result. Cute. (But you don't want to be left alone in the same room with it.) The staff is a weapon of Power - like Purple Name power. Spell book and scrolls along with bandolier pouches told me a story of a travelling Mage - even his staff clutched a simple stone at the foot to act as counterweight. But not a nice guy. I hope you enjoy him. :) Peace and blessings.

Here is my newest D&D character. There are very few Dragonborn minis so i had to work with what I found. This is Khalla the dragonborn bard. I think I may have a problem with choosing high charisma classes...

I have recently been invited to a Kings of War Escalation campaign. I looked around my hobby room and much to my dismay found hundreds upon hundreds of unpainted models because I am a bad, bad procrastinator. As a result,I decided to do an Undead army, and have decided to use as many miniatures I already own rather than buying new ones, many of which come from the Bones Kickstarter 1, very very old GW models and some Mantic stuff I have had for years, the idea being that the undead army is a mishmash of former armies of ancient which all fought under the same banner, sworn to never rest until a great evil has been banished from the land. Plan is to work it up to 2500 points in a few months... We will see if I can keep my painting game strong. Here's the startings of Lord Calder's Host... Pictures after the drop. -------- "Before you sign this, you need to understand that swearing fealty to Lord Calder is no small measure. I've seen those eyes before. Dreams of adventure and romance, tasting the first blood on your blade, and helping slay the evils of the world. Maybe you're in it for the coin, dark knows I was. I know the rate of pay is high, and I promise Calder can pay it. Whatever your wildest dreams, you sign with us, you'll get it. But you gotta understand boy, Calder don't give nothing for free... This contract don't end with you toes up towards the sky, the ravens feasting on your soft bits, your family safe in the wealth Lord Calder pays after you take a stray arrow in the face. No lad, this contract is binding. For today, tomorrow, and the hereafter. We all die. Maybe you'll die on the field of battle a month from now when some unknown evil claws its way out of the earths to tear apart every man, dwarf and elf across the realm, dying in a pool of your own entrails to protect whatever sweetness you keep at home. Or maybe maybe you'll die old and wrinkled in your bed, a legend among men, songs sung and glories burned into the histories. We all die. All of us. But son, you gotta understand that someday, he will call again. It don't matter how long you've slept. I swear you boy, You'll wake." ------ Comments and criticism welcome! Promise Reaper minis will be included soon.

This is continued from my summer thread here. These are my old threads if you want them. there are a few tutorials linked on the last one. Jan-April 2013-14 So, I'm bound and determined to finish this cursedly large dragon! Right, working on the sides from a few different angle: The goal here is to make sure I get enough contrast and also have a gradient from light to dark. The leg: Still in progress... every time I get a few layers down there are a thousand more waiting! The tail: ...and here is the in progress: Still have lots to do but making progress! I did get the torch glued in and I'll up the highlights on it a bit to make it brighter. More soon! Thanks everyone!!

I owe an extra-special thanks to all the Reaper Forumites who helped win this beastie and allowed me to paint her! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I loved this project. I wanted to paint this resin master sculpt all in blue with an ice and snow theme. Also, I wanted to create what seems like the perfect camouflage for an icy dragon hunting after dark. So the dragon from below is blue-black like the night sky, invisible when she soars overhead, while she is icy and pale on her back to hide in the snow by day. But I couldn't resist carrying the aurora pattern on to the back of the wings. I tried to match it up as carefully as I could to seem like a translucent wing. I have a fairly (hah!) extensive WIP encompassing several different threads: May-Aug '15 Sept-Dec '15 most recent She took...sigh... FOREVER. But she's worth it. She's also kind of hard to photo. I had to use the icky white background, but it at least worked. C&C always welcome! Let me know if I can fix anything in terms of the snow. I'm still exploring the whole icy creating aspect of mini painting...

Alrighty... My first official WIP thread yay...... So, I today I'm supposed to be studying for a test but I decided to take a paint break. SO, I picked a figure that looked fun and stuff... For reasons that are possibly classified, (lol, inside joke...) my storm giant whom for the moment I will call Flynn (not his official name) is missing an arm. I started putting flesh on him and then a bit of NMM and then I decided on some red fabric Then just a bit more work on the NMM & hair and flesh

So, I need to finish the dragon and get it off my desk and onto a shelf somewhere where it will not taunt me. A bit of history- I decided to do a super in-depth WIP since so many nice forumites at Reapercon helped me win it two years ago in the auction. With this post I have officially surpassed 100 in-progress photos!! Yay!!! Here are the old threads if anyone wants them where I did the early step-by-step. May-Aug Sept-Dec This weekend I tackled the last aurora effect on the underside of the wing. No pics, sorry, but it looks just like the other one. I still need to do some blending to make the color transition more seamless. I'll do that with about a thousand (kidding, but it feels like it) glaze layers until I 1) get tired of it or 2) it looks the way I want. usually the former! I also worked on attaching my more finished wing to the body. I did this because it will push me to finish the dragon even though all the blending isn't where I want it yet. if I don't push, it will continue to stare at me from the desk. There is a larger gap on the top here than the underside. I’m a bit of a weirdo and I like to do most of my painting before assembling the major parts of the mini. It’s easier for me to reach some areas that way. And in the case of this mini- I wanted to treat the wings almost like a flat canvas. It just means I have to be careful handling the mini and in how much glue I use. But, if I have an accident I can always touch up (after the glue is dry!!! Save the brushes!) I use superglue. In the case of this resin mini the wings come with a double tab joint so I opted not to pin. The joint extends all the way through the body, so it seems very stable. Materials: I use the metal tools to place and mold the greenstuff and the clay shapers to smooth it out afterwards. It doesn’t have to be perfect! As long as the transition between the two limbs looks neater, that’s what I aim for. I use the Vaseline to keep the tools from sticking. Just a bit, don’t goop it on or it will be harder to clean it up afterwards. I keep a bit on the back of my off- hand (learned that from the pro sculptors- it’s an awesome trick) to keep it handy. Use just enough to coat the tool in a thin layer and not more. First I place some greenstuff- err on the side of a lesser amount. It’s always easy to add more, harder to take it away when the surface is painted. Then I sculpt a few scales. Just a rough pattern that I can touch up. The clay shapers are great for smoothing the area between the new scale and the body. If it isn't perfectly smooth I can always take some sealer and smooth it out after it's dry. Add more greenstuff. I roll out little coils with my fingers and then squash it where I need it. More scales and in the area where the wing membrane abuts the body, I just smooth it in and will paint it like more membrane. It will eventually blend in nicely and no one will notice! I do the same on the underside. This mini had a cracked scale near the body up at the top of the pic, so I just sculpted overtop of it. Sometimes I cover a whole scale, sometimes just blend into it, sometimes create a new one. It depends on what looks right or at least blended. remember, these just have to look like they fit. they don't have to be perfect and you can fix lines in the sculpting with sealer or sometimes even paint. The reason to make them smooth and nice to begin with is that it is easier to continue with the rest of the process and not work harder to fix them later. But don't sweat the details. It'll work out! After letting the scales dry, I’ll base coat them. This is usually where I find out the areas I need to work of smoothing out the color transitions. It’s hard to judge them when the parts are separate so that's one reason to pre-assemble. As you can see, the wing and the body colors don’t match up perfectly. Easy to fix, though, so no worries! Now, all I have to do is finish painting them and making it look smooth. I'm torn- Julie was nice enough to sign the bottom of it so I don't want to cover that with a base... but I want to base it. I may end up cutting into a wooden base to leave the signature visible versus just asking Julie to sign it again. more soonish...

Okay so my attempt at coming back a little while ago kind of fell flat on its face, and my attempts to return to painting have gone terribly. However, I visited Drifter the other day and we stopped off in London on the way to his, and we dropped into a shop which carried Reaper Bones I was so pleased I bought a new dragon and a unicorn. Hadn't been intending to buy minis at all, just to browse, but nevermind. I decided to paint the dragon today, and he's the Fire Dragon... However, I decided to try and paint him up as a white dragon, coz he's little, and for some reason I just didn't fancy painting him as a red. I'll do a red another time =P However, in painting my whites, I ended up going more frosty, and he's got notes of silver and all sorts in him. Wow my photo game is off at the moment :S but yeah, there he be. You can see in the last photo the shimmer on his wings Paints used: Citadel -Fenrisian Grey -Ulthuan Grey -White Scar -Runefang Steel -Guilliman Blue -Screaming Skull -Drakenhof Nightshade -Gehenna's Gold -Dawnstone -Mechanicus Standard Grey -Steel Legion Drab -Agrax Earthshade Primed with black Army Painter Spray. He's been popped on a 7.5cm MDF oval and based with sand, tea, and Army Painter tufts. Narthrax is sitting on the bookshelf next to me being annoyed that I started a new dragon in the middle of painting him. Nethyrmaul is staring resentfully up from the bottom shelf, loathing me for my terrible efforts at finishing his goopiness.

Something to excite all you brushlickers out there. http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/this-new-shade-of-blue-was-accidentally-discovered-by-chemists/

Finished my Adventure Sophie a while ago, but finally got around to taking some pictures. WIP: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/62385-reapercon-2011-adventure-sophie/

I found this interesting article on a happy accident that resulted in the discovery of a new blue pigment: http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2015/may/licensing-agreement-reached-brilliant-new-blue-pigment-discovered-happy-accident

Man I have really been slacking on getting these minis posted. Last one for tonight, I promise. Enjoy edit: So I have to admit I got a little exited playing with new toys last night and rushed the picture process. But I just wasn't happy with how dark they turned out. After another read through of the Miniatures Photography 101 I think I did a much better job today. Now You can see all the detail good and bad! Still my favorite. Any tips on painting orbs?

Yay Ub3r got my mini! When his package arrive I thought it was hilarious we'd been assigned each other!! So, here are the finished pics. Below I'll go through a quick WIP on how I did it if that's ok in the showoff forum. If not, I'll move it to a WIP thread. But there aren't too many pics. I had a lot of fun with this one. It gave me an excuse to play with a wintery theme. I tried to paint an ermine, but with them being all white, I'm not sure the contrast works. there's a touch of freehand on the dress and on the crystals. I dullcoated her Ub3r, but she's not sealed, so when you game with her, just be cautious. the snow is baking soda. I used brilliant blue, snow shadow, leather white, pure white, deep ocean, deep twilight, nightshade purple, fair skin and porcelain rose. I was trying to make the crystals look like a spell effect, but in hindsight I'd probably add something swirly around the staff to connect next time. Here's a quick step-by-etc-etc: Sort of how I approach eyes and shading. I like to block in some of the colors. It took me awhile to decide what color to do the border of the skirt. sorry for the focus. here's a quick way to approach gems. she's got these little circles on her belt begging for something shiny. I shade the belt first, then do the gems because I think it's easier. remember they're light at the bottom and dark at the top, with a little hotspot in the center of the dark area. so here's the base: I used a combination of sculpey for the bottom crystals and actual crystals for the long ones. I bought the crystals in bulk (about 300 or so) from a girl on ebay. you can get them cheap. I also sometimes make them out of bones sprue. I baked the sculpey after positioning the crystals, but I took them off for the bake. the tree is twisted wire with greenstuff on top. I tend to paint up the base then attach the tree later because it's easier for me to paint. For crystals, the base is whiter and the tips more colored due to where the imperfections form. The edges are light to illustrate reflection. each plane acts as a unique surface. it's fun to try to get contrast between the planes, but still give the illusion of a solid form. I use the edge of my brush run along the edge of the crystal to get the thin line. Enjoy! C&C and questions always welcome!! I can try to explain more if you want! What I love most about this mini is trying to figure out exactly how to attach that staff arm: where exactly is it supposed to point?!!!

Hi all, I tried some painting again last week and had the perfect model for it, big and bulky with plenty of area to practice some glazing and to see if I could keep my left arm still enough to get some detail in. The arm is still hurting, but I can at least paint again. I need to rest my arm after 30 or so minutes so it all takes a bit longer, but here is my first mini of 2016. The mini turned out a bit shiney in places and I was wondering why that is. Is it because of the glazing? The paints I used are all very flat when diluted with a little water. I didn't block in any color, it is all just glazes except for the basecoat. C&C is much appreciated since glazing is kind of a new technique for me. He will get a base eventually, but that is still to much effort with the arm

I'm pretty happy with my Wall of Ice. The WIP is here. I tried doing the highlighting 2 different ways - I described it in the WIP - but I don't remember which is which anymore. I used a variety of inks - I'll have to get back about which ones exactly, I don't remember any more - to try and create some variety in the thickness of the ice, but it didn't work out so well. Edging was done with Reaper Ghost White. There's some happy accidents in there too where the brush slipped. If anyone's wondering, yes this is still see-through.