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Goblins! So awhile back I was horrified to discover that some old un-finished minis had sprouted a strange orange mold. I gave them a deep clean and seemed to have solved the issue (spoiler: I did not and it's affecting nearly all my minis... but that's a problem for another time). As a reward for enduring the cleaning, these goblins deserved to finally get painted. Goblin Command (77349) First up are these two baddies from one of the Bones 2 expansion sets. These guys, being earlier bones, are a bit on the rough side, and definitely out-of-scale with the others. But that does help them stand out a bit. More Photos Below the Spoiler: Goblin Warriors (77444) Next up, we have our "heavy hitters" from Bones 3. I like these sculpts a lot better. There's a uniformity in the face structure, while still having individuality between models. More Photos Below Spoiler: Goblin Skirmishers (77445) The final batch of wimpier goblins from Bones 3. These guys are the mookiest of mooks. Poorly armed, and poorly armored. These are the guys that get sent in first to soak up some arrows. More Photos Below Spoiler: It's nice to finally have some painted goblins. Though my bag full of 50+ more unpainted goblins still taunts me. I have plans to paint them in a few different shades from the yellow-green used here, to a fleshy yellow-tan, to a pale fleshy-grey. Hopefully that'll break up the duplicates and add some variety. But that's a future project. After painting all these guys up I am tempted to finish the set with the Goblin Honor Guard. They're the only ones I don't have. I can't see myself getting much use out of them, as they're a bit more situational or decorative than practical. But my completionist brain says I need them. Reaper has so many incredible and different goblin sculpts. Which ones are your favorites?

Every so often, a model catches my attention. Sometimes because it is excellent and inspiring, sometimes because there is something off about it. Sometimes the model is both. Here is one such example: Yeah, it is the angle of the buckler thats just wrong. It simply should not happen. It triggers my OCD. This is the "Gnoll Warrior" from the "Thank You pack" add-on in the second Bones kickstarter. During the kickstarter it was presented as a line concept drawing and as is usually the case, the resulting miniature ends up slightly different. Still a perfectly good representation of the original concept art, but anyhow. That said, I do understand that one-piece castability requires certain angles and alignments for the mould to work, and to get the detail in the shield to show it cannot be sideways in the mould. There have been plenty of examples of minis in strange poses and/or holding things at strange angles because of this. This Gnoll is also stylistically rather different from the other Gnolls Reaper makes in Bones, perhaps it's just not so comic-like? But I ramble. The other day as I yet again was perusing the Drawers of Doom™, I picked this one for the painting table. But first it got to meet Mr. Scalpel for a field amputation followed by a quick rotation and graft: One drop of superglue later the case of the misaligned buckler was solved. Add a base and some paint: Good thing classic Bones material is really easy to slice and reposition. Such an excellent material for convertions as well. Jagged white parallells of sharp fangs emerged into the campfire light, then a staring yellow eye. Inquisitive, roughly probing clawed fingers followed. Snorting, foul breath enveloped me, causing me to gag. It jerked its beast-like head back, loud barks of mocking laughter spraying spittle in my face as I tried to stand my ground. "I smell fright, little man", the gnoll rasped out at last. "Why's that parlay-totem here?" This mini was finished September 12th 2020. 77388 Gnoll Warrior From the second Bones kickstarter 2013 Reaper Miniatures Sculpted by Bobby Jackson classic white Bones PVC 40mm base available from reapermini.com

The last few weeks have been very busy with very little time or inspiration to paint, as the general lack of posts lately will bear full witness to. As you might imagine, I was going for green magical flames. I struggled with this, and it did not turn out as I had envisioned it. This one I count as a bit of a failure, and I am not at all satisfied with how it turned out. Maybe I will repaint the whole thing at some point but for now I am rather sick of it. At leaast it does look much better IRL on the table than when magnified in photos. Somthing which is a small comfort. The white for "teeth" does not work at all in the pictures and I might just redo that part and leave the rest alone. Or not. The wierd thing is that the white "teeth" are not that bad IRL. But once seen, it cannot be unseen... What is this sorcery?! Gah! Even the captions are uninspired. I should probably just go to bed. 77352 Demi Lich Bones 2 Core set, 2013, from the Expansion set #1 Reaper Miniatures Sculpted by Julie Guthrie Made in Bonesium PVC 30mm base. available from reapermini.com

Your basic normal-sized wolf: And Black Panther. Alas, the fangs I painstakingly painted in do not show up in the photo. Wolf animal companion Big cat animal companion From the 77216 Animal Companions pack Reaper Miniatures, Bones 2 KS 2013 core set Unknown Sculptor(s), although the wolf makes me think Julie Guthrie Bonesium PVC. 25x50mm oval 3D printed lipped bases available from reapermini.com

Also did a quick speed paint of two statues. Not sure were the other column is at the moment, but this one was out while I was painting the angel of death so it got paint too. She fit very snuggly into that base. I'm debating whether or not she'll stay in it. The pair. Also the angel without the base.

This past week I painted up the Goroloth (or "Sharktopus", as I like to call it. ) from the Bones 2, Expansion Set #1. I didn't do anything fancy, just painted it to a tabletop quality.

The bimonthly resolutionary challenge in the Reaper forums is to get about 4-5 minis painted each month, and also there are some bonus challenges. This February, like last year, one of the bonus challenges is to paint a minature with your fingers. No brushes allowed. And no fingers of other, smaller people either. And it needs to be a creature, not scenery. Challenge accepted. Again. Last year I fingerpainted this: 77368 Shadow Demon This year, I am doing this: The Bones 2 “77372 Burrowing Horror”. Basically a teeny tiny Tarrasque. Technically I probably should have done the primer with my fingers as well, but seeing as it was undercoated by spraycan many moons ago, there have not been any brushes on it. So there. In preparation for this, I have let my fingernails grow a couple of weeks…since my fingertips are way to big to get at any details at all…but a fingernail, both edge and torn, does the trick! These are the colours I used for this. I picked them as I went along, only having a vague idea of how this was going to end up. The miniature was baseless, so I made a base for it: Bespoke 3D printed 80 x 55 mm oval lipped base. Starting by dipping my finger in a pool of Scalecolor Heavy Metal (=midtone silver) I wiped the finger a bit and “drybrushed” the whole model with a movement from front to back on the model. A few goes at this covered nicely: This was followed by a highlight of Army Painter Shining Silver on the ridges and main plated of the head and tail, taking care to not cover up all the Heavy Metal. After that, some Vallejo Game Color Glorious Gold on the claws I mixed some heavy metal with the gold to create a highlight color, which I dabbed on the tips of the claws. I also tried to do the teeth in gold with the edge of a fingernail, but this did not turn out too well. Tearing a fingernail, I used the point to paint the teeth individually, and also did the eyes in Vallejo Game Color Magic Blue, highlighted with a small dot of ancient Hobby Game Products Blue 005. The nail broke off, and I had to tear me a new one. This I then used to clean up some areas with black lining and fixing bits I had missed or slopped the wrong color on. I finished with some blobs of Vallejo Green Ink on the sides and underneath. Then I had to fix all the spots of green that had gotten where they should not be. And then I had to fix all the metal that had rubbed off here and there with my handling of the mini. The base: A thick layer of Army Painter Walking Dead Dirt Spatter, followed by Reaper Pure Black on the rim. After this was dry, I marked where the feet would be by dabbing some lighter brown on the soles of the feet and holding it to the base. This was followed by a globbing on of thinned down PVA woodworking glue to the base surface with my finger again. A couple of tufts were added straight into the wet glue and then I dipped the whole shebang in my box of flockmix. Gently clearing flock from where the feet were to go, I put some superglue in the general areas and placed the miniature on the base, and it was done: Painted by hand. In the most literal sense. All in all, a fun couple of hours of getting messy fingers. Mostly waiting for the paint to dry whilst frantically wiping at my tacky paws to get the paint off. And at last I got to cut my fingernails down to their proper place again! Cardboard boxes being the sworn enemy of fingernails, they caused a couple of casualties at work today.

Here is my Kanjira. The pose of the monster made me think it could be a good idea too make it emerge through the Trees. A vision of Knightmare, for sure.

This week I painted up the Mystic Theurge figure from the Bones 2 Pathfinder Heroes Set. My plan is to use him as a Soothsayer type wizard's apprentice for Frostgrave. Full painting step-by-step on my blog: http://allbonesabout.blogspot.com/2016/07/mystic-theurge-bones-ii-figure.html

Howdy, For my ninth day of International Mini Painting Month I present Sister Maria from the Chronoscope Bones... Guns are not my fantasy... So I gave her Seoni's Staff... (89006: Seoni, Iconic Sorceress) and painted her as a Druid, Kev!

Howdy, My Weird... Thanks, Kev!

Hello everyone, Over in the Bones 4 Kickstarter enthusiasm thread, there seemed to be quite a few people calling for a list of the new bones figures coming because of the kickstarter. I had a spreadsheet that I'd been using for the previous kickstarters and have tacked a Bones 4 sheet onto it. This is open for editing by anyone to edit and fix things I've missed. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dFN0lQL096zQMq8KG5aXcgrA7-VEIEoU6W-ujck7kj4/edit#gid=142862380 (same as linked in my signature). Entries are group by set (core, expansions, add ons, etc) and sorted by display order on the Kickstarter images. Reference numbers are from the Kickstarter images -- for the most part, some are made up to make discussions easier. The colors of the "Reference #" and "Group" columns match the colors of the backgrounds of the Kickstarter update images or for late additions, the Pledge Manager. Specifically for the Bones 4 sheet several of the rows have red background colors. The red background "Name" entries are where I've not been able to determine the correct name from either update images or sneak preview videos. Red background "Existing Part #" entries are where I've not been able to determine if the figure is a new sculpt or what the existing figure's number is. One thing you'll notice is that there are counts in columns E-F of all sheets, and a date entry field in column G. These counts come from my Bones Kickstarter painted mini tracking spreadsheet. Column E is a full count of the figures you'd receive if you pledged for one of everything in the Kickstarter (except count of bases). Column F is a count of minis that are painted. G2 is a count of unpainted minis and H2 is a percentage of collection that is unpainted. Hopefully this is helpful to others out there.

Howdy, Here I was going for a Japanese beetle sort of color... Thanks for looking, Kev!

This is the last of the seasons, I got the idea for a mini exchange, but only finished two of the figures in a timely fashion. Spring Summer and Fall

This guy started out as one of the figures I set aside to practice TMM. such a lovely axe, then a month went by while I painted other things, and I am am tired of practicing TMM. So this guys axe does not have the special care I intended. perhaps I will go back and work on him later ... like after my bones 3 stuff arrives ? hahaha. btw: a weaponized cow skull as an offhand weapon? who thinks of these things?

I needed this guy for a game today, so I painted it quickly over 2 days. I could use some advice on what to go back and fix. starting a new 13th age campaign, in a fortress overlooking a hellhole, swarming with demonic bugs. while below them ratmen burrow. Of course they have black fur .. do I have any painted with black fur? nope. gonna need to work on some scaven too.

I painted up Mudcroak, Squog Shaman, this past week, to go with the unit of Squogs I completed last week. I used the same Strawberry Poison Dart Frog color scheme I used on the unit. I also experimented with giving him one sightless milky eye, to add to his mystical nature. (He can see more things with one eye, than most can with two! )

Last week I posted my first group of 5 Squog Warriors; the ones wielding a trident, painted up as Strawberry Poison Dart Frogs This past week, I finished up the next batch of 5; the ones with the spears. You will also notice that I converted one of the spear-frogs into a leader by cutting the spear off and reusing the spear blade as a sword; then cutting the arm at the elbow and repositioning it so it would be in more of a natural sword holding position. I also borrowed one of the skull helmets from a Mudcroak, Squog Shaman, figure and attached it to the leader's head. This completes a unit of 10 of them. Like with the others, nothing fancy, just a tabletop paint job. And here's a couple group shots of all 10 together:

I didn't like his dagger, so sculpted a new one from greenstuff and a pin.

This past week I started working on a unit of 10 Squogs to add to my old Poison Dart Frog Army; which is made up mostly of Eureka Miniatures' Frog Warriors. I thought the Squogs would fit right in with the rest of the troops, as some sort of more tribal cousins. I started with the ones that came from the Bones 2 Kickstarter in the Swamp Things set, and ordered a couple more packs from Reaper. This week, I painted five of the trident armed ones; converting one into a standard bearer. I made the standard from the petal off an artificial flower. Nothing fancy, just a quick tabletop paint job for these guys. And I decided to model their coloring from a kind of strawberry poison dart frog:

Here is my painted version of 77197 Erick Paladin Initiate. He was painted last year but has just been based. As always comments or feedback welcome.

Here is my completed 89022 Alahazra Iconic Oracle. Painted last year but recently based. As always comments or feedback welcome.

I was tidying up some of the many areas I have models stored in the house and I came across a box of primed wargaming models. So I selected a few and decided to paint them, these will either be used for Frostgrave or other games. There are 14 in total some with black undercoat, some white and some cream. I will try and post updates as I got through them, hopefully I will progress a few at a time but may end up finishing one at a time. Thanks for looking.

This past week I painted up the Imrijka, Iconic Inquisitor, figure from the Bones II Pathfinder Heroes set. I believe this figure is supposed to represent a half-orc character, but I chose to paint it up as a half-elf female instead. So, the first thing I did was very carefully try to slice off the fangs. What I couldn't get off with a hobby knife due to the cramped area under her hat, I hoped to disguise with paint. There was something about her outfit that read Old West Cowboy to me; so I decided I would go with that kind of earth-tone palette for this figure. And her coat and hat made her seem a good candidate for Frostgrave basing. I'm really happy with how this figure turned out. I think the "Western" look came across well; and I'm particularly pleased with how her face turned out. I have to say with me faces are a good deal of luck rather than skill. I'm not good at painting those tiny details, but sometimes, like with this figure, my squinting stabs with paint turn out to be in just the right places. :) For the complete, step-by-step painting article, please see my blog: Imrijka

Howdy, One of two... Kev!