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Good evening everybody, love or new and old miniatures! In this case we're going to be seeing some old miniatures, from days gone by. If you ever used these in your games, it probably says something about how long you've been around, here are two Grenadier bugbears. I painted them at the same time I painted the Stonehaven ones. Definitely a different aesthetic, but fun nonetheless. I've got one more bugbear I want to paint in the near future, the female bugbear that Reaper put out. Need to buy it first. In the meantime, here are some old school pieces of joy! I'm pretty sure back in the day they came back in a blister pack of three, and I'm not sure if the third one was different or if it was a repeat of one of these above. Anybody have any idea?

These I found in my loose figure bin, thou I'm not fond of batch painting but thought they would be a project to practice on for when the new bones 6 Lizardmen come out that I really want to paint.

Hello fine fans of fantastic miniatures! So I can't tell you exactly when, but months back Dark Sword Miniatures put out this miniature, two hobbit scouts one standing on the other's shoulders sculpted by Bobby Jackson, an obvious homage to some old Grenadier halflings sculpted I believe by Andrew Chernak back in the early eighties. As soon as I saw this miniature I immediately thought that all fine fans of old school miniatures would be buying the new version and then painting them both up to happily compare the two. Well, until now I hadn't seen any such "explosion" of comparisons, so I figured maybe I just need to be the first. So here is the most recent Dark Sword version, sculpted by Mr. Jackson: and here is are the original hobbits, sculpted by Andrew Chernak back in maybe 1982 or so?: and here they are side by side: I tried to use as much as possible the same or similar color scheme in each version. The only thing that did happen is that there is a Dark Sword version of the hobbits scouts one on top of each other with two separate cloaks, but I accidentally grabbed the one with a single cloak only. anyhoos, enjoy this blast to the past and let me know what you think!

I was digging through some stuff and found these two guys...the first two minis that I ever painted! They're not my best work, (obviously), but it's always fun to see older stuff. Not so much a "show off" thread as it is a trip down memory lane. 🙂 By the way, I know we've got some metal scholars here. Can anyone identify the exact name of either one of these guys? I got them from a buddy, so I have no idea what they were originally called. Like I said in the title, I'm 99% sure they're Ral Partha (probably 80's, if I had to guess). Edit: turns out, they're actually from Grenadier. Thanks, Chaoswolf!

These are 80's metal minis from Grenadier on a resin jungle base from microartstudios. Nice classics who are now part of my Lost World Project. They will be one of the Jungle Swarms.

Hi, I've been working on this for a while and have finally finished him! This is one of the Battling Behemoths from Grenadier Miniatures, and is huge almost a foot high, weighing 14lbs (lead). I took a photo for reference to show the scale with a reaper figure when I was assembling him. I was looking at the wall murals in Knossos Greece as a starting point for some of his body designs, as well as some winged griffons in grecian pottery for the designs on the wings. Hope you guys like him! Also if anyone knows the sculptor's name, I would like to give credit to them too, please let me know, thanks!

I just finished painting this figure yesterday. It's from the old Grenadier boxed set 'Fighting Men' #2005. Not really a whole lot to say about him, I spent about 3 hours painting him to a good tabletop level. I got a little burned out on painting for a while, feeling like I had to paint everything to a competition level. Well, sometimes it's just fun to slap some paint on a figure in a few hours just to take your mind off of other things. I had just forgotten that somewhere along the way. Anyhow, here he is, let me know what you think.

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.

Hello everyone! After seeing @Kangaroorex Grenadier 9601, Black Dragon, I decided it was time for me to salvage mine from the shelf of shame. Thanks for the motivation Kangaroorex. This model was sculpted by William Watt in 1988. Unfortunately, the one I bought some years ago had a few battle scars. It has a broken horn and a broken wing claw. Its main tail stinger and tongue were also broken. As a reference, the base is 75mm wide.

continuing my quest to paint down some of my metal mountain of dragons is my second Green Dragon II from Grenadier. I wound up with multiple copies of this dragon (I wont say how many but i still have another in its original box...) so when i noticed that i had primed this one a while ago, i decided to try the painting method from Mocha's painting a Rocky class during Reapercon (thanks @Mocha I am getting a lot of use out of that technique and it has definitely helped me with contrast in everything I paint) of starting with the darkest colors and working up to the brightest. This is the result of my trial with the dragon of the month series . I decided that since they liked swamps and other watery environments, i would give her a bed of dry river rocks in an underground cave. (hey everyone likes a comfy bed but nobody really likes a wet bed!) so i started with the base the miniature came with and expanded from there bringing the rocks out from there. The first pass had them all a monotone color which left the base looking almost black and white against the green dragon. Interesting but not what i wanted. Some colored inks later and we have a nice bed of various colored rocks! She comes out really vibrant with lots of shadow and contrast really nice! About my only fault is i haven't given much thought to handling a different colored belly scale and how a significantly lighter scale would work given the steady darkening as the light lowers past the widest parts of the model. Oh well, maybe next time. For comparison, this is the same dragon I did about a decade ago: I like both but i dont have to guess about which one will catch the most attention, even though it took far less time and skill. I am happy to give both of them a home, though i should probably give the older one a new base and maybe fix a few of his chips and dings (honorably gotten eating unwary PCs and their horses!) Hope you enjoy them!

As the year wears on i continue to complete my personal challenge of 12 dragons in 12 months. (I have to go count but i think i am there... not sure though so I keep it up!) this is another oldie but goodie from the third Dragon of the month series by Grenadier. this was the January offering, the black dragon. I decided that this dragon liked his underground layer so the base is done as a broken river skree. the large open space made me add a small geode, just to see if i could do it. The dragon is painted with dark blacks and Purple shadow (which actually looks darker than the black so there!) Then i used some new wax paints i acquired to bring up the colors on the highlights to give him a shiny scale and brightness. I think this is the first time i have created a dragon that actually looks black but still has lots of texture and contrast. Again congrats to grenadier for acquiring some really lovely sculpts and turning them out back when high definition was not a popular feature. there is a lot to see on this dragon, right down to the small row of teeth that line the edges of his closed mouth. I had a lot of fun painting him. I hope you enjoy him too!

Finally! These were among the first miniatures I bought and the nucleus of my original undead army in the 90s. Over a year ago I decided that I ought to repaint them, and so began a saga of Simple Green, several starts and stops, and entirely too much procrastination...but finally now that the Leafening is done.... A mixture of Grenadier (the standard bearer and champion with the freehanded shield), Heartbreaker (the ones with armor) and Mirlton (unarmored). The standard and shield emblems are those of Elizabeth Bathory. One of the first vampires I bought was the GW Isabella von Carstein and she had the Bathory vibe to her, so since I painted these as wights, I figure that they are her personal guard. Kinda visible are the greenish tinge to the weapons and eyesockets to signify their wight-dom in a low key way. and here they are with the army thus far...

Another of the older dragons completed. This has to have been my favorite miniature series. Over the course of a few years Grenadier brought out 37 new dragons, all of them unique and yet obviously part of the same world. This is from the third series and the sculptor is William Watt. I love the level of detail and, in general how well these have held up over the decades. These are always a joy to paint. I based him on a 3 inch base and tried to give it a blasted heath effect which makes him stand out pretty well. I'm still trying to complete 12 dragons this year and I am nearly there! Hope you enjoy him!

Happy birthday, @TheAuldGrump and @Inarah. I hope you enjoy this. Notes follow after the photos. This is Grenadier’s Hippogriff, #138 from the Fantasy Lords series way back in 1983, now sold in lead-free pewter by Mirliton Miniatures, Italy. It’s well sculpted, with securely fitting wings. I wanted to paint something different from the common hippogriff colorings, something with a little challenge to it. So I decided to go with several black and white patterned creatures. The front end is based on an osprey, the wings on a hoopoe’s, and the hindquarters on a zebra, all somewhat modified to suit the figure and to blend where the shifts happen. Whenever you’re going to paint a chimeric model, a creature made up of the parts of other creatures, it’s a good idea to go look at real animals to see how their colors and feathers and skins look, and also how they blend into other things. If nothing else, there are excellent visual resources on the internet. Technical notes:

I've been rummaging through my mini hoard and found all kinds ancient treasures, boxed sets with the original inserts! My stupid question is this, is anyone interested in photos of the boxed sets for identification purposes? The collection goes back to the early 80's and is from a plethora of companies. If members are interested in miniature identification, then should there be a dedicated thread where members can post pics of their boxed sets and still carded minis? Or is there already a thread for mini identification?

Weird mini of the moment... This one is some real heavy metal! It just looks like a pile of intestines with a couple of mouths. Should have given them a dark green grayish wash to tone down the Pepto look.

The dwarf is an Eureka 15mm figure (maybe 18mm, can't remember right now). I brought him with other 15mm figures to see if they would fit as brownies, gnomes or dwarves. He fits all of the roles, so now I know where to get some small folk. I actually enjoyed painting him and the 15mm landsknechts (didn't photograph them) a lot more than I expected. The monk is an old Grenadier Figure, I think you can get him at Mirliton now. I speed painted him using a Zorn Pallet. It works well for anyone who is somber or drab, it can also work well for NMM. The figures on both sides are from Ground Zero Games, i think they are from the goth set. They can work as cultists, lords or even vampires. The maid and the butler are from Wargames Foundry. I really like the sets. The rest is still being painted. With the maid I experimented in painting an impression of some lace or embroidery on her pink skirt. I tried to make the cup she holds look like bone china. Everyone Back of the Servants This picture is closer to the real colour than the one above (thought it is still not perfect, with the monks robes not being as distinct in sections as they are) Feedback and Critiques are welcome and appreciated.

Hello guys and gals! so this is the first figure I ever painted, even though these aren't that version. The first version, which is actually the one you see below that was painted first years ago, is actually the original stripped version that I would have painted when is was probably about twelve. The original one was painted in model enamel colors, with pink skin, yellow hair and shirts, green paints and I think grey cloak. I ended up getting back into minis again way back and stripped him before I knew about EBay and was able to get a second copy. So here's the one I just finished painted a few nights ago: and here's the one I painted I think in about 2004: and here they are together: So anyways, just thought it would be fun to post, now I'm off to go make some organic pancakes for breakfast! Enjoy!

Frog-folk are always irresistible, and tiny poison-arrow frog-folk even more so. These are from a Nolzur's 3-pack. One had some kind of horns on its head I didn't fancy, so I trimmed those off. Look at these big-headed little savages! More angles: But I know you're all here for the Grenadier! Afraid I had to get this Marsh Dragon from Mirliton, but I couldn't resist. It's so salamander-like, with goggling newt eyes and axolotl gills, and that lovely rounded snout. We're really jaded by fancy dragons after years of fantasy art. Even a low-level drake like this would be pant-fillingly TERRIFYING in real life. Look at that dynamic curve of its body, the lashing tail! The armored prehistoric arrogance of a crocodilian, but faster and more agile; something with the metabolism of a tiger and the yawning bite of a leopard seal, with a bone-breaking tail-swipe. This is a great 'cryptid' dragon, suitable for Call of Cthulhu or a low-fantasy gritty medieval / renaissance game. You know any treasure hoard is buried deep in soft, acidic mud, too. They don't stockpile precious metals in particular, but anything else gets corroded away in that caustic sump. Like the Grungs, I gave it vivid aposematic coloration, partly like the salamanders it resembles, and partly because many of the dragons chronicled in Continental European legend were feared less for their size than for their virulent poison. I don't know what the excrescence on its back is meant to be; certainly not wings. Maybe a bony outgrowth, maybe a Suriname Toad style brood pouch of puckered and toughened hide, maybe an organic saddle. Since there are so many styles and colorations of poison dart frogs, I might get another pack of Grung and modify one of them to ride on this thing. Their bandy legs and its peaked carapace look like a good fit. EDIT: More froggies!

With my Cadian army nearly finished and my wife's army at a playable state I decided to take a break from 40k painting. Since I've been painting for our actual armies for so long I decided to start a new WIP thread rather than use my old random projects thread (the "Too Many Projects" thread will be replaced by this one). But before getting too far ahead I'd like to show everyone just how bad my box got while painting for 40k and killteam. This of course doesn't include any GW boxes I may or may not have on hand to paint "just for fun". I swear I'll paint those Skaven sooner or later. Though some of the figures were closer to completion, I simply couldn't resist painting one I've had my eye on for months (I mean this quite literally as the figure sat on my lamp's base since I first got it and probably ended up in the background of many of my progress shots). When I first pulled this from a box of goodwill I knew exactly what I wanted to do. This figure just screamed Don Quixote, at least to me it did. So that's exactly how I painted it and though it may just be a simple paint job I'm already thinking about creating a new character just to use it.

This Grenadier Hydra (SKU 124) has been languishing on my painting table for a really long time (maybe 30 years), so I decided it was time to finish it once and for all. I wanted it to have a similar color scheme to the Grenadier Hydra Dragon (SKU 9911) I painted 30+ years ago, in one weekend (to get it ready for the game on Sunday afternoon). It is a true oldie, with a bunch of that old mini charm, but it has a serious lean. I didn't realize how bad it actually was until I glued it together after painting.

Here is the Druid from the Grenadier Wizards box set, this one sans dart. Very simple garb on this guy. I don’t know what to think of this guy. He looks very 1st-level, compared to the Druid with Dart. His sword doesn't even have a cross-guard. How anyone can sword fight in those Smurf-like robes escapes me as well. I think this guy has a lot to learn.

This is the Druid with Dart from the Grenadier Wizards box set. The mini originally had a tiny little limp carrot-looking dart in his hand, which i always hated. I took the liberty of replacing it with something a bit more substantial. My daughter came up with the entire color scheme. I sometimes ask her to pick out the colors when i have no idea what to do. I don't know what the little critter perched on his staff is. Maybe some kind of little lizard friend? Or maybe just something carved on the staff? Oh well.

This is the Cleric from the Grenadier Wizards box set. As with the sorcerer I posted earlier, this guy suffered from a sandblasting 25 years ago which gave him a slightly gravelly texture and eroded some detail. I modeled him after a Catholic Cardinal with the red and white robes and beanie. Having a priest with a snake familiar is a bit on-the-nose, don't you think?

This is the “sorcerer” from the Grenadier Wizards box set, circa 1980. As with most of my minis from this set, he was sand blasted a long time ago, which significantly eroded some detail. Trying to stay away from the usual wizards’ blues and blacks, i went with white. The orb he was holding was a challenge. I’ve not seen how to paint a proper crystal ball, so i went with reflected earth and sky.