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My Reaper habit started with a Friday night gaming session... "Tom felt a breeze wafting up from the chamber beyond. For some reason the air was hot and heavy, even though he was walking along a passage deep in an abandoned mine." "Ummmm. Sorry, but we have to stop here today." I did not have a dragon mini to use to harrass Tom. A salt shaker just does not have the same drama as slapping the correct monster mini down on the table. I also could not handle everyone laughing at my poor (ugly mishapen) solder dragon. Time to take a trip to the old Lone Star Comics and see if they had a Dragon that I could afford. As usual, walking into Lone Star was like entering Alladin's cave of treasures. Real Partha, Grenadier, Rafm, and more distinctively sparkled, beckoning, despite the cost. A Dragon was too far out of reach. Back along the wall, there was something new. There were affordable minis on the back wall! I was able to score a package of villagers, some weapons sprues, and a real Dragon mini. Tom was promptly roasted to a medium rare, and eaten by the freshly painted red Dragon the next friday. Don't laugh too hard, but this is the solder dragon in question. It is amazing what can be made with a soldering iron, a little flux, a bit of solder and a ton of patience. It did in a pinch, but was retired after the Reaper dragon made its appearance.

Greeting Folks! Presenting Hecklemeyer & Styx. " I'm a joker, I'm a croaker, I'm me-di-ocre, I get my heckles on the stage. I'm a chancer, I'm a prancer, I'm a nec-ro-mancer, Reanimatin’ the deranged. I'm a joker, I'm a choker, I'm a life-re-voker, Tellin’ jokes beyond the grave. W-o-o-o h-o-o-o! W-o-o-o h-o-o-o! " I really enjoyed painting this mini, I love the sculpting on it! I was inspired by another Joker for the colour scheme...... Thanks for looking! (3 Down 9 to go!)

This is another batch for Cal's Pathfinder game. I've wanted to paint them up for some time, so 2 birds 1 stone on this one! It was fun painting the elder male as it was based on Robert Cruse (AKA Jester), one of Reaper's finest painters, and sculpted by the wonderful Sandra Garrity. I believe she did the other 2 as well. Enjoy!

This thread may be very sporadic. My painting time is usually between art projects, and these puppies are pretty big. I have gotten started on some frost giants: Reaper's 02599: Frorigh, Frost Giant, 77107: Svetlana, Frost Giant Princess, and 77106: Boerogg Blackrime, Frost Giant Jarl. I am also painting a frost giant from Otherworld Miniatures that is a really nice figure, and a 54mm scale jester I bought by mistake and decided to paint up as a frost giant (he was on sale for such a good price I just assumed he was 28mm scale). The metal figures I primed in my usual fashion, with a layer of white paint followed by a wash of Burnt Umber. For the two Bones figures, however, I used Buglips' recommended method of priming with Reaper Brown Liner. Let me just say this is my first use of Reaper paints, and I was impressed with the handling. Although I thinned the Brown Liner considerably, it gave full coverage of the Bones figures with a single coat. Indeed, the surprisingly dark and greyish liner gave the figures a bronzey metallic look where it went on thinly. Burnt Umber is a dark color when applied thickly, but the contrast between it and Brown Liner was striking. I started painting the giants' skin with a mix of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna, adjusted to just the blue side of a neutral grey and lightened with various amounts of Titanium White. These are the only color mixes I have used so far. I like to do the faces first so I don't have to worry about them later. (Although I will probably add refinements as I go along because I can never seem to let a part of a figure be done when I am painting it, but always see more places which can be improved.) I figured frost giants would have icy blue eyes. One odd thing, these figures are huge but their eyes are tiny. They were definitely just within the range of my being able to see what I was doing, and I still had to check things with a loupe as I worked. The Reaper frost giant princess, Svetlana, is usually painted as though she were wearing a mask, although I gather that was not the original sculptor's intent. I decided to paint her wearing a mask open at the mouth, showing her mouth and chin. I haven't painted the Reaper jarl's teeth yet, so his face looks a little odd. The older Reaper frost giant is really big. He reminds me a little of a Muppet giant monster. The Otherworld frost giant is really exquisitely sculpted. I should look up the artist. I need to go back and look up the company that made the jester figure. It comes with two alternate heads and is kind of cute. I decided to make this one looking soulfully up and out rather than malevolently down at puny humans like the others. No that he's painted it's harder to see, but under that smiley-looking moustache his mouth is actually set rather sadly.

This was made for and with my girlfriend. She painted the princess most of it..I finished it. This way she wanted to know what my hobby was like. It seems she likes to look at these but painting is not her thing. Too bad, I think she got talent. The Prince woos the Princess from the other pond, a Jester is chaperonne.

Some fellows finally acquired in trades. The crossbowman happened to be part of a lot, but I'd been searching for Thulgrim the Gloater and Corbit Shortstuff for quite some time, and managed to get them both within a day of each other.

This post is a follow-up to A Pair of Very Old Dwarfs and a Very Old Gnome. The best I could come up with for a size comparison was a work-in-progress conversion of a current GW plastic Dwarf warrior model. As you can see, they are pretty similar in size, but the overly-muscled design of the newer dwarfs makes the King look quite the shrimp! I've also included a picture including the newly-finished Queen Asabelle Dragonsmiter, and a group shot of the completed Court-to-date. Thanks for looking!

Very exciting news for me: In about a month, I will take a hiatus from DMing and actually play in a few games. Other people will run the weekly RPG show at my house, and that's spectacular. First up, we'll finally get the Firefly game going that I painted up minis for some time ago (see them here if you're interested). Then, once the "pilot" episode of that game is over (we'll come back to it from time to time for two- or three-session "episodes;" not only is it in the same 'verse as Firefly, it's also going to be plotted like a TV series), we'll start a Dragonlance campaign. I should say, "the" Dragonlance campaign. We aren't using the iconic characters--no Raistlin here--but the DM will run the classic modules. I'm totally stoked for this! Now, I just have to paint a bunch of things. This WIP will show the process of the PC minis, and I may throw in a few other things as I work on them (my main job, aside from PCs, is the old Ral Partha box of Draconians). So, here's the five initial PCs. All Reaper minis at this point, but we have a few players that haven't made characters yet. Here you can see Alaine, Jester, Ezren, Lem and Dub in various stages of primer, awaiting paint. So far I don't have names for all the PCs, so I'll refer to them as archetypes (rogue, female fighter, etc) or by their minis' names until I do. Alaine and Dub will pretty well go to paint as-is; they'll be the party's female fighter/Knight of Solamnia and our ranger-rogue. Ezren is going to lose his staff, but we don't yet know what this wizard will replace it with. Lem will play the part of our kender. Happy-go-lucky, blithe...annoying as all get-out...kender use a forked weapon called a hoopak and wear their hair in topknots. So while the attitude of this guy (thanks to Derek!) is perfect, the acoutrements needed work. Here you can see the initial greenstuffing. Obviously I have some sanding and polishing to do once the GS cures on the hoopak, but I'm pretty pleased with the topknot. Jester will henceforth be known as Gerwin Southwall. Gerwin is my PC, a hereditary scion of the Knights of Solamnia who would rather keep his fellows alive than seek personal glory on the battlefield. As such, he's become a competent field medic in a time with no clerical powers, and has picked up a footman's weapon, the spear, instead of a knightly sword. For close combat he prefers a crowsbeak. I've removed the sword from this mini and replaced it with a spear. The axe was removed from his left hand, and will eventually be replaced with a medic's bag. The scabbard has been modified (along with the axehead) to put a crowsbeak on his belt, and the pile of skulls GS'd over to become a pile of rocks. More to come as it happens!