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I finally found some time to paint again! This is a classic sculpt by Ral Partha from their "American Line". Usually orcs don't interest me too much but I'm completely blown away by the posture of this sculpt. I imagined this to be the moment when the spirit of Gruumsh takes over this little orc. He needed some shiny new weapons for that, I couldn't bring myself to weather his stuff. 😇

Good afternoon, all your Reaperites! So just finished this one up and sun even cooperated for photos, a Cat Burglar, sculpted by Jim Johnson quite a while back, and now available at both Iron Wind Metals and Ral Partha Legacy. Been for whatever random reason working with some anthropomorphic minis, first a fox, then a wereboar, and now a Cat. Odd part on this one were the toenails hanging over the base, as sometimes happens, so made it rise a little bit above the base. So kind of wanted to give him a little bit of a Sylvester vibe, his sleeves might be a little long, but wanted his leg sleeves to be visible above his boots. So anyhoos, enjoy!

Good evening again Keepers of Reaper! So this one, also just finished this morning and photographed this afternoon is a female archer sculpted by Dennis Mize back in the day for Ral Partha and part of their Silver and Steel collection, where Dennis Mize sculpted figures based on Larry Elmore drawings and paintings Only a little metal to worry about, she was a pretty quick paint job. The one thing I think should have been was her arm guard at the back probably should have just been flesh, but I totally blew it off so painted it as cloth to match her loincloth. So anyhoos, another mini for your viewing pleasure! An Edit: Also just added a close up because her eyebrow on the left side as the viewer sees it looked a little bit odd, but I think it's just shadow with the hairline against the side of her head: Close up I see where it begins and ends, but it was looking a little awkward further away.

Hello all you Reapertronics! So have been starting to painted some of my Ral Partha Legacy Kickstarters, and here's an Elf Mage with Wand. Photos are okay I guess, and so hard to figure out colors, but here he is: and a close up of the face, itty bitty and small So enjoy! More to come!

Good evening my Reaper brethren and sisters! So tonight I've got a mini I just finished, Reynard the Rogue, a figure sculpted I think back in the eighties by Tom Meir. He's an anthropomorphic fox before they were fashionable: and this figure looks coincidentally similar to another figure painted by Mr. Meier a few years earlier, which was a Highwayman, mounted and on foot. Way back in the early eighties I painted the original highwayman: In my adolescent style, with probably at that time Polly S paints and as a base I just used a piece of balsa wood that I painted earth color. It's interesting what almost forty years will do to the brightness of the paint. And then here is a side by side, just for fun: I think my newer version is much more flamboyant than the original one! I've got to see if I have the human version somewhere unpainted. Might have him somewhere, really not sure.

Good afternoon Reapercochlians! So here's one I just finished, a female elf mage, with wand, sculpted by Tom Meier for the last Ral Partha Legacy Kickstarter As always no idea what colors I wanted but something light and pastel. As Mr. Meier is rather infamous for, it's so hard to hit his eyes properly, they are so small. So from the collective hive mind, when you have small eyes on a figure, do you try to keep within the actual confines of what has been sculpted or do you go outside of the boundaries? Anyhoos, here she is: and here's a close up of her face with the eyes: Besides eyes, I'm finding my new favorite hard and horrible thing to paint are the eyebrows. With this one, I almost didn't want to add eyebrows, thinking she's blonde, maybe you wouldn't even see them, but then of course I started looking for blonde elves on line and they are all presented with brows. As you can see, one is a bit different than the other. Sometimes just impossible to get them to look the same. Anyhoos, enjoy!

My most recent one after taking several days away from painting.

Good morning alll you Reaperniks! Taking advantage of a later shift this morning to post this lovey lady, a figure sculpted by Dennis Mize for one of the Silver and Steel boxes, which were boxes based on paintings and drawings by Larry Elmore back in the latter eighties early nineties. This one is appropriate called female warrior with sword and torch: and of course always fun to do a close up, even if it may show some of those close up errors: Still fun in any case to take advantage of this close up technology. I should take a bunch of closeups of the minis I painted in the eighties, and maybe that way I'd stop complaining about what I do nowadays! Anyhows, enjoy!

Hi all, painting a bit less infrequently these days due to this and that and the other, but just finished this one recently, a Wizard from Dennis Mize's range Children of the Night. He's a pretty small little guy, probably about half the material a modern mage would take up, pretty faithful to 25 MM: Pretty simple figure but as such rather enjoyable and quick to paint. In the photos there is a weird light reflection in his cape in the darkest recesses which is weird because there's not an unpainted patch there, just odd the way the light hit it. Anyhoos, enjoy this blast from the past, I think this is one of those 1979-1982 figures, forgot to look at the bottom.

Good evening all you Reaperpaths! So tonight I've got an old blister pack of miniatures, a mounted and and foot Lord Soth, sculpted by Dennis Mize for Ral Partha's D & D TSR series from the eighties and nineties. This is another one of the miniatures that I'm going to be selling on EBay (just listed them a moment ago), and the proceeds of the sale are going to go straight to Melissa Noe, the wife of Michael Noe, Iron Wind Metal's president. She was diagnosed last year with cancer and their bills are copious even with insurance, so trying to do a bit to help out. Anyhoos, here they are finally, first Lord Soth on foot: and then Lord Soth on his loyal steed (not saying the steed has much say in the matter really): and here they are together: I had a few problems, as I'd mentioned in my little post under the "Painting Tips and Advice" forum, where lots of the chainmail I could see little white holes that just didn't get filled, but spent lots of hours trying to fill them individually and was successful to some degree, and if not under a 3000 x 2000 pixelated photo, you really notice overly the holes. The other thing that I did was I was able paint the second eye in the Lord Soth on foot, for which I added that close up because I was so happy I was able to get it done. So crossing my fingers and hope to find a buyer for these two fellas and their horsey. If you happen to know anybody that collects Partha figures, make sure to mention to them that this is out there, just waiting to find a new owner, and that all money received is pretty much just going to straight to some medical bills for a very nice lady. Anyhoos, at the very least I hope you all enjoy the paint job! Thanks, Mark

And the last mini of the evening, this one is an eastern wizard, sculpted by Dennis Mize. Mize was a very big fan of Harryhausen movies and stop motion animation, and this was his version of one of their wizards from one of those great old Sinbad movie. I don't remember when these figures were sculpted but this, along with some other from the same genre were some of the last miniatures Mize did for Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals. As always, colors were hard to choose. The one thing I knew I wanted was for him to have that kind of cool dyed orangish beard that I've seen before in some Middle Eastern older gentlemen. Anyhoos, here he is: The hardest thing to do on this gent was his eyes because they are so deeply set. I'm still not exactly sure what they look like.

Another I found in my loose figure bin and thought he would be fun paint job.

And another finished mini this evening! So I've had a free-ish week and have been busy like a Keebler elf making cookies, painting as much as time would permit. This one is a Vampire Lord as per its original packaging back from either late seventies or early eighties. Later on when he got separated from the blister pack, they called him a gesturing wizard. With this in mind, my question was do I make him a vampire or a wizard? So I wanted to have him pale and pasty like his vampirish early concept, so here is the result:

Hello ReaperWorld! So here is a lady I just finished, one that came from the Silver and Steel series that Reaper did years way back. Sculpted by Dennis Mize, based on some Larry Elmore artwork. I think from what I have seen, the actual artwork was black and white and the box art was with her being blonde and pink clothing, so I had all my options open. So here she is:

Good evening my Reaperlangarians! So it feels like I haven't been too productive this year, got kind of stuck on painting Lord Soth, which seemed to take longer than it should have, but now that he's painted up, it's onwards to other little projects. These two I actually finished last weekend, but I always take pictures with sunny weather, but it's been cloudy all week long until today. The only time it was sunny was last Sunday when I got up, went grocery shopping really quickly to Aldis and when I got home, saw the sun. I went into the shower really quickly to clean up and then I was going to take pictures of these ladies, but by the time I got out and dried off it was cloudy again. So anyhoos, pictures finally taken and here they are, the first is a Female Dwarven Warrior, not too sure who sculpted her: and the next one is Kylie Darkwalker, a Wild Elf Thief, sculptor also unknown: I like both figures, both pretty fun. I like them especially because they are Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals figures, but I think sculpted much later in the company's history. I'm guessing latter nineties, but no way to be sure without asking. I'm a bit puzzled by my choice of colors for the elf. I figured wild elf, and though kind of woodsy elf, with brown skin (base code was Reaper's shield brown), and her top is green, but then she has those funky purple pants. She kind of reminds me if I harken back to the days of an old Olivia Newton John video, Let's Get Physical, or something like that where she has a green top and I think pinky/purply spandex pants. I actually just went to look at a picture and my memory was a bit faulty, it was a bright blue top and pink sweatpants. In any case, hope these provide moments of visual pleasure and simulation, until the next chunk of minis!

Alway wanted to paint him as it brings back memories of my days playing Pool of Radiance on the computer. My first thought was to paint him in brown colors that I remembered in the game but when searching for pictures of Ormyrr's they were all blue, thus... When I had gotten him the swords on him were broken and were way to skinny to pin and glue back in place so replaced. Unfortunately, after looking at the pics, I just took I should have just used the blades and taken off the hand guards but oh well as they say hindsight is...

Good evening all and happy new year! First finished miniature of the year, a Ral Partha thief with sword and dagger. These photos might be a little dark, so apologies for that, but here he is, probably sculpted some time back in the eighties if I'm not mistaken: The only part I really didn't like was how the dagger came out in front. The back cam out just fine, but the front of the dagger was a bit bumpy and odd. Anyhoos, here is it, enjoy and Happy Slappy New Year to everybody!

So through the winds of destiny, I had found out about this miniature and even had a really poor, squishy nosed copy of her. I really didn't know where she came from, but as I was wandering around EBay recently as I was doing auctions for Melissa Noe related to her cancer, I came upon an auction that I found rather interesting. It was a whole blister pack of these little ladies, whose origin was rather mysterious, at least to me. This is one of the miniatures whose existence I was aware of but didn't know in what context she fit in the whole Ral Partha pantheon. Well, I ended up winning her bid, and was the only one who did actually bid at 15.00 plus shipping, so got this delightful pack of six identical ladies: Come to find out, at least as per the Lost Mini Wiki, she's a part of Ral Partha's old Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age line, sculpted back then by Dennis Mize. The miniature itself is stamped with 1979 on her base. So, now before I had one cruddy copy. Now I have six copies, and it looks like they all have noses and such, so life is good. I've had these about a month and just painted my first copy of her: This is the first version of her and hope to paint a few more over the next few months/years when I get so inspired. The other thing that it worth pointing out is this little lady is really small. She's from a 25 mm line when 25 mm really meant something. I took a few photographs so you could see what I mean by petite, first picture of her up against a Reaper paint bottle: Sorry the picture is so dark but at least sizewise you can see how petite she is, and then the other picture shows her against a beautifully sculpted Werner Klocke hobbitess I painted many many years ago: That picture can help with notions of size creep and just how small some of the old miniatures used to be. So this is one of my Holy Grail miniatures that I was wanting for a while, but never knew enough that it really existed that I could actually try to hunt her down, and now I have six of them! My other Ral Partha Holy Grail is the Children of the Night Brontotherium and Rider, not so much for the Brontotherium, as that figure currently exists on Ral Partha Legacy's web site, but the actual Rider, who is this little cave check mounted on this prehistoric beast with a spear in her hands. One day hope to get a hold of a good copy of her too, and then I will have all my Ral Partha desires fulfilled. Then comes the hard part, have to paint them all. Oh when will it ever end? Hopefully never....... Anyhoos, a little bit of material for your reading and viewing pleasure, enjoy!

Good afternoon chaps and chapettes, here are a few woolies, sculpted by Tom Meier in his Sparkle and Savage range, when he had his own company Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures. These have been nowadays related at Ral Partha Legacy: and they come as a group as well: Imagine all the fanciful colors you could make these if you had a big group of them!

Here's another one I just finished, also from Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures, The Slug Eat Your Face, conceptualized by Theo Meier and sculpted by his dad Tom. Easy and quick miniature to paint once you decide on colors: The pupil in the big eye is a little weird as Mr. Meier basically just put a hole where he thought the pupil might be so that's the black part of his pupil and the other little eye was so deeply sculpted in, and also the pupil was sculpted inwards, that it was a little hard to reach, but a fun miniature to paint just the same!

Hello my Reaperleapers! So I wanted to repaint this figure, that I had probably already painted ten years ago, because I never liked her left eye, thinking it was too big and bulbous, and I thought it was due to my actual paint job. So I painted the eye, as it's small and hard to get gauge with a line instead of a dot, so maybe it looked to me for that reason a little bit odd as well. So fast forward a decade and I decided to repaint her with a different color scheme with the hopes of repairing her eye, but with the second time around, I realized that the sculpt of the eye was just big and round. So here's my new version, different color scheme and with the thought of eye reparations that didn't apparently seem to work out or matter: and here's the original one from who knows how far back: and here they are together: I think I actually like the coloring on the first one better, with the white and red. I think maybe the metal turned out better on the newer one (even though I still think the axe head is too blue) and I tried to do some bronze/brass/who knows what color on her grieves and the thingy that goes around her throat, but who knows. I'm still not that satisfied. Are we just doomed to never be satisfied with some of our little projects?

Hello all you Reaper Acolytes! So tonight going a little demonic, just finished painting these three Demon Women, sculpted by Dennis Mize. I'm not so sure how good the photos actually are, they end up being a lot smaller on detail because they've got those big, tall wings. I'm also kind of wondering about their faces. With my thought of "demon women", I thought they'd be a little more natural, not tons of makeup, so I didn't put in any eye shadow or even eyebrows. I also did eyes without pupils. I wanted to do some different colors, so the red one has yellow eyes, the white one green eyes, and the purple one has light blue eyes. I'm. not so well though these translate visually, and I'm vaguely considering painting them again, but not so sure because once I finish something I'm usually moving on to the next project already. So we'll see. The white lady's eyes seemingly were a bit more pale than I wanted for example, and the red one's eyes seem too flat. The purple one's eyes in the photos actually look to me more white than blue. So maybe I'll update. who knows.... As always, apart from thinking of how the eyes turned out, the biggest issue was choosing colors. I knew the skin colors I wanted, but the clothes were another story all together. Eventually had to choose some color, and I knew I wanted the lava-ey bases, so hopefully they all turned out okay. So anyhoos, enjoy!

Finally, some time to paint! I wanted to take a break from my ongoing mini projects, so I painted up these guys. Ral Partha & 70's kung fu movies, that's a perfect combination in my books. So here is the result of what I fear was my last painting session in 2022:

Hello all you Reaperphonics! So today's mini is a Druid, originally sculpted for Kenzer and Company under a miniature line they had for a number of years and afterwards sold to Iron Wind Metals who produces him nowadays. I have no idea who the sculptor is, maybe somebody else does. I've always liked this figure. Like so many of the Hackmaster figures, he's kind of a bit chunky and "raw", but he's got a goodly amount of personality, and was enjoyable to paint. I did notice that I've been painting a lot of purple pants lately, need to stop doing that.

So continuing my barbarian, slightly-avoiding copyright infringement miniatures, here's a random Barbarian Warlord with Great Sword, or is it just a great sword? Anyhoos, he may or may not resemble some great square jawed barbarian, only you and Crom know for sure: He's got a crazy, exaggerated helmet, but I'm guessing it's ceremonial? Or who knows, maybe he uses it when he's samba dancing.....