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Well, looks like Hasbro is doing their own version of a kickstarter for a new release of one of the all-time classics. I don't know if their site for the crowdfunding would be considered as a commercial site, but I'm sure it will be easy enough to find. I'm in!

This is the last mini finished in December 2020, mini number 79 of the year. I hit 97 mini if I count large minis as 2 each. Not too shabby, my goal was to finish 50. So this mini is the Female Halfling II from the Julie Guthrie series 2 from Grenadier (SKU 8145). She is the smallest mini I have painted in a long time, so I am super happy with her face.

So I dug an old mini out of the bottom of my box of forgotten lead - the 1989 Firbolg by Ral Partha. This classic figure deserved better than being lost for a generation so I decided to paint it up and take a few photos on the way. It was in fine shape except for the broken / missing handle and pommel for the sword, so I started with a repair job - pin it to win it. A quick test of my sculpting skills, I used milliput to add a new handle over the pin. I gave the whole model a new prime with vallejo surface primer through my airbrush. Overall, not too bad and one quick mold line removal later and a touch up prime and it was ready for some color. Time for getting some basic color on the model. I started with reaper golden shadow for the skin. It's a nice warm base to paint over, so I was pretty hopeful that it would provide the right base for the reaper warrior flesh I planned on using later. Next up. some shadow. I used vallejo model air burnt umber for the shadows and for a first coat of the leather bits.

This is the Chasme from the AD&D Planescape line from Ral Partha (SKU 11-649). Painted with the new mermaid scale paint from the pre-order Brinewind set. Painted over Coal Black it makes great shiny insect carapace, and over white, awesome looking insect wings. I also had fun making a lava river for this creepy demon critter.

Getting all, I have just been painting up a couple of teams for my friends to play blood bowl again, I haven't played for years since I was in the Waterbowl league, it was fun to paint up some fantasy again been doing a lot of sci-fi-fi and Modern military recently so it was a welcome change and has spurred me on to dig out the box with all my unpainted teams in it and get one done each month. This was the progress of the Wood Elf team which are called the 'Bare Arsed Chiefs' Nearly finished just needs the bases/numbering doing The other team team I was doing at the same time was a norse one same stage just needs the bases/numbering doing Been fun as I said I'll get some pictures of my other teams done which are Skaven, Undead (with werewolves), halfings, Vampire Counts, Amazon Raided my bits box to add some Team Score, turn & re-roll markers Just deciding which team to do next .. any requests

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.

"One of my favourite range of figures ever was Citadel's 1980's licensed "Lord Of The Rings" minis. I have finally decided to get all the miniatures I own painted up (over time) & try to acquire the ones which are missing from my collection (& paint them up too!)". Here is my next completed mini - Strider. It's actually part of a blister of 3 minis (ME1 - Fellowship Heroes) which also includes Gandalf & Frodo. I love the sculpting on this figure - grim yet regal. To make him look like he is roaming the wilds, I added some dirt onto the bottom of his cloak & boots by drybrushing a light brown followed by a dark brown nearest the bottom. Thanks for looking!

"One of my favourite range of figures ever was Citadel's 1980's licensed "Lord Of The Rings" minis. I have finally decided to get all the miniatures I own painted up (over time) & try to acquire the ones which are missing from my collection (& paint them up too!)". Here is my next completed mini - Gandalf. It's actually part of a blister of 3 minis (ME1 - Fellowship Heroes) which also includes Strider & Frodo. He was quite nice to paint overall - not too complicated either. Thanks for looking!

One of my favourite range of figures ever was Citadel's 1980's licensed "Lord Of The Rings" minis. I have finally decided to get all the miniatures I own painted up (over time) & try to acquire the ones which are missing from my collection (& paint them up too!). Here is the first completed mini - Frodo. He is actually part of a blister of 3 minis which also includes Strider & Gandalf, I will be painting those 2 sometime at a later date. This was also an opportunity for me to use my newly acquired "Flockbox" to create a more lush realistic upstanding static grass effect on the base, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Thanks for looking!

For a painting competition entry I had to find a 20 year old miniature to work with. Digging through my old boxes of minis (mostly Games Workshop) I found a "Kharn the Betrayer" chaos space marine from 96 (I think was the date on his tab). Decided I wanted to give him a fun base, something more than just the general skull pile he's usually on. So, started scratchbuilding a symbol of Khorne for him to stand on, here's two pics of the understructure. (Bottom of the actual base is the black, white cap is just for handling.) This (although small) is the most involved basing project Ive done to date, and I'm already learning lots on how to do things better, and a lot of what not to do. Anyway, will be updating as I progress further on him. - Added some more detailing to the base, and started laying ground for skulls. - More skulls and playing around with details on the symbol, have added a removed a few things that didnt turn out how I liked. - And some more skulls, also added paper cut of potential plating on the symbol on top right portion. Think I like it and will add to the rest of them for next update (which wont be til next week, as out of town til then.)

This is 01-151 Sea Dragon from Ral Partha, re-released by Iron Wind Metals under the same SKU. I got mine from the Chaos Wars Kickstarter they had a while back. I decided I would be more daring and colorful than I usually paint, and paint this up as a tropical coral reef dragon.

The dwarf is the 5th figure that I have painted from the old Grenadier 2007 set. It was so hideous that I never posted it, partially because I didn't really like the figure and just slapped some paint on it to call it done. I mean, those eyes were just sculpted circles. I filled the center with color, edge highlighted the raised outer edge, and then went around them with a shadow color. If you are an aspiring sculptor... never ever sculpt eyes like it is 1980. But I was talked into posting it, so blame 72moonglum and Volksfest for the horror. For scale, here is the dwarf between and Infinity Nomad and a Reaper bugbear. Knee-capping is her only option.

Today (well technically yesterday, but since I haven't slept yet it still counts as today) I decided to take a break from my 54mm mini and paint something quick and easy. None of the Bones were speaking to me, but then I saw my unpainted Grenadier Females staring at me and remember that I had planned to paint the set this year. I grabbed the "thief-sling" basically at random and sat down to get to work. It would appear at first glance that she should be a relatively straightforward mini to paint, but there was a complication. This poor unfortunate woman was lacking a face. Sure she had a jawline, and cheekbones, and even a nose, but there was only the barest hint of where lips should be, no eyes to speak of, and to make matters worse there was even a casting defect going down from where her left eye should have been and onto her cheek. This and a few other defects were filled with brush on sealer and it was time to freehand some true 25mm eyes! Except that I didn't quite get enough sealer over the defect which made the freehand a bit off. The after painting sealing is a bit satin, which is fine for everything but the hair which lost all subtlety. To keep the theme from the previous ladies going I outfitted her in only the finest 1980 colors, and deliberately made a effort to use paints that I rarely grab off the shelf. This makes four out of ten taken painted and sealed. Maybe the other six will have their own paint days before the end of the year? My valiant attempt at freehanding eyes over a defect. And lastly, I realized that I've never taken a shot with a coin to show off how tiny the minis I'm painting are. Wow, she's smaller than the coin!

These crocodiles have been on my "I want to paint" list for a long time, they finally made it to the front of the line. First up some Ral Partha Crocodiles from the RIver Denizens set (31-033). The set also includes a hippo and a submerged hippo, which is somewhere in the lead mountain. I had picked up an extra crocodile at a convention long ago. I also painted up the Reaper lead Dire Crocodile (65107). I was happy to see his brother in the Bones 4 Kickstarter, it would be swell if this guy made it into bones as well. I was about to start the lead version of the brother as well, when my husband piped up and said he wanted to paint it.

Another attempt at clearing the backlog, I painted up a bunch of lions. Reaper Bones lions on bigger square bases (Reaper Bones 77341) Classic Lions from Ral Partha (31-031): Another really old miniature that I thought was a Grenadier piece, but its actually from Ravens Forge (SKU CON1013). It is one of a pair of lions, I have the other mini somewhere.

Here is a group of speed painted bones skeletons I painted back in February. I spent maybe 4 hours total on all of them. I am still planning on adding some plant materials to the base. Skeletal Spearmen (77001) Skeletal Archers (77017) Skeletal Swordsmen (77018) All the bones skeletons I have painted so far: And all the skeletons I have ever painted, because I love me some group shots. The ones in front (and back) was painted over 20 years ago, before I started basing. Miniatures from Grenadier, Ral Partha, Rafm and of course Reaper.

This is the classic Ral Partha Hippogriff (SKU 11-441) from the awesome Dungeons and Dragons line. I finished this up in November last year, I just got around to taking pictures.

I can almost smell how bad this guy reeks.. and that greasy hair ugh.

Another hobo bugbear who can't afford pants. I'm sure he could trade in those shiny bracelets for a whole wardrobe but I guess he doesn't give a crap. Next up on my Otherworld tour: gnolls.

Censored for your virgin eyes. I really like these classic bugbears. I don't know that they needed to include monster "junk" but it makes it a conversation piece.( I had to paint that thing) ha. I did a comparison picture to the modern bugbear.

This classic Grenadier Witch is from the Fantasy Warriors Personalities line, and sculpted by Mark Copplestone. I rushed her at the end to get her off my paint table. I still like how she turned out.

I didn't recognize it while watching Stranger Things, but both my younger brothers swore we had it when we played as kids. I went digging through my old minis and just found the demogorgon. Might have to give it a real paint job now that I have some idea how to actually paint.

This is another honorary Old School mini, an Ironwind Metals casting of the old (dated 1982) Ral Partha "Female Thief With Dagger II", catalogue #DF-122 in both cases. She was one of the earliest minis I actually owned, so getting another copy of her meant something special to me. The original WIP thread is here, but I did most of the work on her during the Memorial Day Paint Binge last weekend.

I love the look of this classic thief. Sack of treasure, sneaking along, cliché mustache. Big fan.

First off, many thanks to those who helped me identify some of the stumpers here. These are a couple of adventuring parties' worth of Old School lead figures and a few baddies, kindly slung my way by Doc Bedlam and the generous folks behind the Random Boxes O' Goodwill. One remains unidentified, but most are known. They mostly cluster around two dates, roughly 1980 or 1991. I added a few women figures of roughly the same vintage to round the parties out. Here are four classics from the utterly classic Grenadier set 5001, "Dungeon Explorers": the Bard, Paladin, Cleric Turning, and Ranger. These are: a wizard FF2-A from Heritage Models set 1302, "Evil Wizards and Ring Wraiths"; RAFM's 3903 Ranger (Female), Ral Partha 01-319; "Elf Thief 3 Stage" 319b (stage two); and a fighter from from the Grenadier set 1414 "Fighting Men Champions". The last group is: Grenadier A183, "Dwarf with Two-Handed Axe" from the Grenadier Set 1603, "Dwarves, Army of the Gold Mountain"; Ral Partha DF-122, "Female Thief with Dagger"; some glorious Ral Partha female fighter that I'm blanking on at the moment (watch this space), and an unknown ninja signed "Ridolfi" on the bottom of the base. These are some opponents: Goblin w/ Axe and Goblin w/ Sword from the Grenadier set AD&D 5002 "Monsters"; a Ral Partha D&D figure -- again, I have to double-check and he might not be intended to be a bad guy, but that's how I'm thinking of him; and the Metal Magic C1017c, "Witch with Cat".