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I painted Space Marines from 1988 to around 1994 and then fell out of the mini painting hobby. I just got back into it and the Grave Wraith is my first effort. As I was stuck on how to paint him apart from covering him in black, I had a look around and based his look on this one by Vulture but decided to go with purple rather than blue. The sword, which I thought would be a doddle, caused me all sorts of problems (I kept overthinking it) until I just went with a gold hilt and silver blade. I have yet to base him — in the photo I have him sitting on top of a small jar. He was photographed at f6.3, 1/25s. A few random thoughts while I was painting him: Wow, these things are smaller than I remember. Flash! AAARRRGGGHH! My eyesight has really gone down the tubes since 1990... Any criticism/advice is welcome as I can't wait to get on with painting another figure (probably 03374 Ragnaros, Evil Warrior)

Hey, folks! I'm brand new here, though I've been lurking for awhile, and brand new to miniature painting in general. This is my absolute -first- attempt at painting a mini. I tossed around whether or not to post, but why the heck not, eh? The earlier I get constructive criticism, the earlier I can put it to use! I've been wanting to try my hand at painting for awhile now, and finally decided to get a learn to paint kit. I set right to it after receiving it yesterday. He's by no measure great, but I'm fairly happy with him for a first attempt. At the least, I was never tempted to strip him down and start over. :P If anyone has any constructive criticism or tips, they'd be greatly appreciated. The most trouble I ran into was with dry brushing highlights; I seemed to either go far too light or far too heavy on it, with no real middle ground. In any case, if I had any doubt about sticking with this as a hobby, they were long gone last night. Down the rabbit hole I go! :P (Edited to correct the absolute mess that my image uploads were.>_<)

Finally, I started working on painting my first miniature! I've tried starting since the Bones 3 Kickstarter, and I want to thank everyone for their encouragement. Let's see what I've done so far. Wilson and Optimus!!!!!!!!!!!!!: My sacrificial constructs, I learned a lot from these little things. I primed WIlson with Krylon Black Matte Paint+Primer and Optimus with Plaid Clear Matte Acrylic Sealer, both painted with FolkArt acrylic paints and a size 0 Daler Rowney nylon brush. I learned a lot from them like some brush techniques and the importance of watering down thicker paints. Now, my first Kobold figure: I used the same black primer on this one. Had to strip it once because I sprayed it on a little too thick. Lesson learned. First shot at painting: Finally slopped paint on my first miniature. I painted this with Citadel Mephiston Red and a 00 Winsor & Newton synthetic brush. I would have used a sable or sable/synthetic brush but because of Russia things, the hobby store I went to wasn't able to restock. Poopy. I learned to control how much paint should be on the brush and how my brush strokes affect where the paint gets applied. I deliberately chose a small figure instead of a standard size one purely to force myself to learn control and painting techniques that will help me with larger ones. Now I need to decide if I should try lighter on the skin and if I should drybrush the new layer on, or if I should start painting the armor and accessories. Well, here goes nothing.

Hello! So I received my Kickstarter package a week or two ago and after enjoying the rather later mass of miniatures I decided I better get painting. My girlfriend isn't a gamer and wasn't really into miniatures, but I surprised her with a decent order of paints and all these Bones and she was down to paint! I started with the L2PK 1-5 for paints and then added in another 10-15 to try and round out some of the colors. I realized that I don't really have a grey though so I will be ordering some more soon. She has a good amount of experience and talent painting with acrylics on a canvas medium (and I've tried once or twice as well) but other than that, this was the first attempt at painting a miniature for both of us. I never started the L2PKs, I really just prefer the Bonesium over metal I think. It was hard to figure out what miniature to paint first, we looked over and through the pile and found a few simple miniatures, some of the hooded elves and townsfolk looked easy enough, but in the end we decided what better miniature to start with than the Kickstarter mascot himself, Mr. Bones! I was very thankful to find that I ended up with about 8 Mr. Bones miniatures when I only ordered 2 or 3, so it seemed perfect since we would have extras and would get to paint the same miniature. -We cleaned the miniature. -Picked our colors. -Started painting, I used a #1 W&N 7, she used a #0 Da Vinci and a #0 W&N 7, she wanted a smaller brush though so I might be ordering a 00 or 000 even. -I only basecoated and then painted on Army Painter Quickshade soft tone. -She painted basecoat, then painted on shading (we didn't thin our paints this first try) I think it looks a lot better than mine. I don't think she did the highlighting step, we plan on working on the L2PK and our shading and highlighting and drybrushing, but didn't get into it for this try. Then she thought it needed some gloss finish, I don't have any gloss sealer, just the AP matte and the sealer that comes with the L2PK. She ended up using the Reaper brush-on sealer. She liked some parts of mine better so she then used a little bit of quickshade to help with the smaller details like the fingers and stuff. I don't think I need to point out who painted what, because it's fairly obvious I think, lol. Thanks for your time and interest, any and all comments are welcome! We looked through the show-off forum a bit and she liked it so I think she'll be joining at some point lol. We also looked at Anne Foersters paintjob of the metal version Mr. Bones is based from and she couldn't believe the detail lol. If anyone else has any Mr. Bones pictures we would love to see them as we couldn't find any anywhere!! Pictures were taken with an iphone 4 with and without flash. No lightbox or anything fancy, I think they turned out decent enough, but we will definitely look into making a lightbox as we get more into the hobby and pile of bones!

What was the very first mini you ever painted? From 1991: Straight from the pot with Floquil Polly S. Drybrushing and black washes. Even some highlighting on the muscles! Brush on gloss sealer. I probably used a Grumbacher 5/0 red sable. The funny thing is we gamed with minis back in the late 70s but I never got the nerve to paint one until then. Let's see where everyone began!