Search the Community

For ReaperCon this year, I painted the giant spider that I sculpted for Reaper for Bones 5. This spider has been a wild ride from inception to final paint. The Sculpting: https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/88957-the-making-of-arakoth-the-ancient/ The Painting: https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/100752-arakoth-the-ancient-reapercon-2023-entry/ Photos: The Results: I won a gold medal in the Open category and the Reaper Gold Sophie in Open as well. 🤩 (This is the first time that the mini I painted doesn't get lost in the picture next to Sophie. 🤣)

I almost didn't bother posting these, but I went ahead and did so. Just some quick rats and spiders. The rats are from the D&D Castle Ravenloft board game, the spiders are from the Legend of Drizzt board game. To mix it up, I alternated colors between brown/dark gray/light gray. They came out a bit dark, but I guess that's okay for rats and spiders. Nothing spectacular, but they actually get used quite a bit (on the rare occasions when my group actually gets to play).

Last one for a bit, I swear! This one isn't a Reaper mini, but I had to share it because it is actually seeing game time! I am using it as the BBEG for the excellent introductory module "A Most Potent Brew" by Winghorn press. My kiddos have just encountered this beast, and it definitely spooked them a bit! Next session is the climactic final battle! I have a poster of the dungeon and everything - it has been really fun so far, and I plan on using it as a lead in for LMoP. If they survive.

Painting got interrupted by basement flooding... and show off pics got got interrupted by more flooding... I will have a few more pics to add later from behind and under when I have a moment. I may not do much more painting for a while though. WIP starts here. A few posts surrounding show some of my Bones 5 dry fits and will have other Bones 5 stuff in that thread ...whenever I can paint again. Spider: Base:

Continuing on what will hopefully be a Halloween Season painting binge, a Wizkids Phase Spider in the traditional Halloween colors of Orange, Black, Green and Purple... Surprisingly the underside wasn't too difficult to get to considering it's attached to the base out of the blister. I liked the naturalistic pose of it, and here we can see the magic that is Reaper's Coal Black adding a nice subdued greenish tint to the legs. I don't know what release phase the spider was a part of, but I've had him for awhile. WizKids can be kind of hit or miss when it comes to the frustration level of painting them, but this one was easy to work with and there wasn't any missing or obscured detail, nor were the mold line too bothersome.

First Reaper minis I've painted! Pretty proud of how the spider turned out! I tried to get an iridescent look on the crow, but I couldn't quite figure it out 😅 Constructive critiques welcome!

My 3rd encounter in the last month and I'll need to slow down a bit. Main Bones 5 WIP Specific WIP The spiders were influenced by real spider types. The big black one was painted like the little red and blue one, Opadometa sarawakensis, but it was too distracting, so the color is on the underside. See p7 of WIP for more. The blue fuzzies ( Poecilotheria metallica) are tarantulas - adult and juvenile, so the small one is intentionally less bright. More pics later

Arachnophobic Trigger Warning! If seeing lots and lots of pictures of spiders is an issue for you, this is NOT the post for you. As soon as the Goroloth was done, Ron asked me if I wanted to do another. Of course, I agreed. This time, he wanted a really big spider; one to fit a 4 inch (100 mm) base. Before you all say, "But I thought it was on a 5" (130 mm) base," bear with me; that is a part of the later half of the story. He pointed me at several sources of inspiration, but the design was going to be for me to develop. Funny though how what an Art Director can see in the sources and an Artist sees can be completely different features, as you will soon see. Where Ron saw a bulbous body, pointy fused legs, and plates; I saw spikes, spines, and big fangs. This project was about to become one of the most intense back and forth projects between myself and my art director that I have ever had, but the end result was well worth it and, together, I think Ron and I developed one of the best figures I have ever sculpted. It started out as any project does, with a basic armature: I refined that shape grossly into the shape I wanted for the body: After that I started pulling in rough details using mostly the Move and Inflate brushes. I should note that I was not yet trying to create a finished spider, but merely get my concept down so I could send it to Ron for approval on the general theme of the piece. I added eyes. These were based on Jumping spiders. Then I built the legs. Each segment was a separate piece that I sculpted from cylinders and then inserted into the main sculpt. I built all the legs on one side, and then mirrored them onto the other side. Again, this is all mostly conceptual at this point. If you look closely, you will see that noting is really connected, I just needed to get it put together to get Ron's feedback. Next post, I'l cover Ron's response and where we went from there. (Though it should be obvious what his response was, considering that the above spider looks absolutely nothing like the finished Arakoth.)

Back again with some spiders! I tried out Rangers of Shadow Deep last night and got to break out my spider minis. I've got a few Giant Spiders and Spider Swarms from the D&D board games Castle Ravenloft, and Legend of Drizzt respectively. I had started these ages ago but quickly became dissatisfied with the direction they were headed. A few months ago I picked them back up and went in a different direction. The giant spiders in particular were letting me down. The sculpt is pretty undefined. It took some freehand fur work to bring it to life. I also switched from a warm brown tone to a cool grey. I think the added contrast makes them stand out a lot better. I also added some used dryer sheets as webbing. It's mostly successful. The super glue turned it invisible in places which sort of works as holes in the web. Definitely will revisit this idea again in future projects. The spider swarms are less successful. I tried to keep three distinct colorations to help them stand apart from one another. But with such poorly defined details, they could have used more contrast. They work well enough. Maybe I'll revisit them, but I tend to just move on after calling something "good enough." What do you all do for swarm minis? I find that most of mine look rather drab or incomprehensible.

Hello! I am a very new painter, I have painted some minis in the past, not a lot though, but due to some jerks at a game store I stopped playing. Almost 10 years later, I have decided to get back into it and I present to you Mr. Webster the Giant spider. I had a lot of fun with this, and the paints were all from the Reaper Learn to paint kit core skills. This was my second time ever using washes and dry brushing, and I am really excited with how it turned out! Going to get him on a base soon, and introduce him to my players at D&D...

Drums! Tribal drums from the heart of the deepest jungles. The Goblins wage war. They spider heards will consume everything on its past and, when there's nothing left, they will leave the trees behind to invade the lands of men. Their Chief, riding the giant eight legged spider steed Sleipnir, is ready to lead them to victory. Here I wanted to try a particularly colorful palette to tap into the jungle theme. Maybe in that note it lacks a bit of green... first time I use this colored liquen. Maybe is too much? If you liked it, please consider following my instagram :D

Finishing up some minis, including a small coterie of spider centaurs and their demon mistress. These are two of Gene Van Horne's "Arachnid Archers". I had a lot of fun painting them. Front views are linked offsite because of nudity. Front views: http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u439/PingoPaints/Miniatures/Female%20Driders%201_zpspjgm3vbn.jpg http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u439/PingoPaints/Miniatures/Female%20Driders%202_zpsxvv1dozb.jpg http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u439/PingoPaints/Miniatures/Female%20Driders%203_zpsgye2xhwm.jpg I am especially pleased at how the red one came out. In person she looks translucent like a pomegranate seed: Companion pieces: 77180: Shaerileth, Spider Demoness and 77181: Arachnid Warrior WIP thread here.

Here's the creepiest mini I own, and my wife's least favorite!

This was a nice and relaxing speedpaint while watching a movie. Hope you like it!

How slowly has this WIP gone? I started these elves in late spring 2016. Because of events and shake-ups I set aside all my work from that time, but now I have picked them up again. For this WIP I am making a warband of three female and one male Drow with support from a female sorceress Drider. The three women are the wonderful set 03516: DHL Classics: Dark Elves sculpted by the inimitable Sandra Garrity. I'm going to identify each separately because they also have individual SKUs and names and it's easier to keep track of them that way. The man is 14046: Ardynn, Elf Hero sculpted by Werner Klocke; he is not intended as a Drow, but he looks so cranky I think he will do well as one. The Drider is a Bones mash-up of 77182: Arachnid Archer plus the torso of 77057: Juliette, Sorceress, as detailed in this thread. All paints used are Golden Matte Fluid Acrylics. Color mixes are (usually) noted, but not exact ratios. Questions are welcomed and I will try to answer them. Critiques are appreciated. This is the way I usually start miniature figures: Lightly primed with Titanium White, then when that is dry, washing it over with Burnt Umber. Burnt Umber is a dark, transparent pigment that settles into crannies when thinned down and shows the details very well. It also gives a nice warm undertone to later paint layers. To begin with I painted the three women's weaponry straight Carbon Black, with the thought that I would paint over it later with metallics or iridescents, which always look better against a dark underpainting. I mixed a transparent dark blue-black from Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue and washed it over the three women's skin, and a bit lightly over their hair to begin to work where shadows will be, The first dark elf in the Garrity set is also sold as 02574: Female Dark Elf. The second is also Reaper's 02524: Female Dark Elf Cleric And the third is 02460: Vernicia I then mixed some Titanium White with the blue-black to make a cold blue grey and added rough lights to the skin, and white to the hair. Ardynn I started a little differently, with blue-grey mixes from Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, and Titanium White and a bit of straight white in his hair from the start. This is my custom-made Drider, primed with Reaper's Brown Liner diluted somewhat: I painted her skin and hair the same way I did Ardynn's. This is the crude beginnings: Next time: Faces! And arghy bits I missed, like Ardynn's hands.

The Pumpkin Spiders guard the Holy Patches, protecting their charges from the heretics known as "Pumpkin Smashers". When not dealing out the Wrath of the Great Pumpkin, they also look after the pilgrims who sit in the Patch, providing them with Reeses Pieces and covering the sleepy ones with Security Blankets...

Greetings all! Presenting Cadirith, Demonic Colossal Spider. I was going for a creepy a look for her so I tried to keep the colours dark but with flashes of red "warning" colour. The base is my own creation. The WIP for this project can be found here. For the first pic, I have included Sir Forscale for...um, scale - I'm sure he'll be fine........! Various angles: Without the base: Base only: Comments are always welcome, Thanks for looking!

This was a diorama entry in the Crystal Brush competition at Adepticon last month. (The Adepticon 2018 picture thread is here, new images still being added.) Does anyone recognize the spider-centaur queen figure at the top? Someone asked me what mini it was and I couldn’t answer.

Testing out those HD D&D minis. I really liked them. Nice detail, good price point, paint adheres normally, but a little hard to reach some areas.

The two spider swarms from Bones 1, painted to a table top standard. I tried doing a little free hand with some markings here and there to hopefully make them a little interesting. Thanks for looking.

Hi everyone, i'd like to share the photos of my Cadirith, from Bones II.

This one has been sitting on my desk begging to be finished for awhile now. After taking the pics I fiddled with the face and changed the color of the stained wood to a walnut which I like better. I'll try to get a photo of that up at some point. I had a wip on this with all my colors and process but the evil empire of photobucket ate the pictures. I used some of the bright skin triad and for the shadow colors corporeal shade. The basework is made from the firm sculpey (the gray type,) a stick and etched brass foliage. The spider shield and barrel are from reaper's bones line. The crystal I did with a few real ones and then just made the rest out of sculpey. I had fun with the idea of someone emerging from shadow so painted the back with the shadow colors and then blended the front to back which gave me a very nice green I used also on the foliage. I made that using a combo of chestnut brown, corporeal shade and linen white. Enjoy! C&C welcome and feel free to ask any questions! I can try to dig up some of the old photos, but having lost my hard drive, it may take time to find the right SD card. Also, I have clearly been playing too much Skyrim...

Another one for my LOST WORLD PROJECT. WIP here: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/69308-lost-world-project-glitterwolf-paints-coldblooded-creatures-and-conquistadores/&page=93 CADIRITH, Demonic Spider. I used a Web Stamp for the base a gift from @knarthex, as was most of the flock on the base. Added some venom with Vallejo Water Effects, Base is made of foam. Likes and Comments welcome. Negative critique, talk to the Spider first.

This is "Achik" my Aztec Warrior from the Lost World Project I'm working on. WIP HERE: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/69308-lost-world-project-xherman1964-paints-coldblooded-creatures-and-conquistadores/& She is on a Micro Art Studio Base, and I added a resin spider from Ristul's Extradorinary Market. The mini is Tepeyolottla from Bombshell Babes.

True story: before I had built the base, I left this guy out on the table to dry, and one of my daughters shrieked upon seeing it. She then politely requested that I paint no more of them. I'll consider that a win. This was my first experiment with pinning, as the spider was a single unit and had no base. Fun, but next time I'll try to remember to do it BEFORE painting... I hate to keep posting minis of uncertain sources, but... The problem with spiders is that the sculpts look very similar. I think this one is Reaper 02417, but am not 100% sure.