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For your consideration, I offer you the Frost Giant King from the Bones 3 Kickstarter. He is the pair to the Frost Giant Queen and I am not disappointed in the sculpt. This miniature (bigature?) is packed with details and a metric-ton of space to paint and practice textures. The level of detail for Bones miniatures continues to impress me. The King and Queen were both primed with Krylon and sealed with Dull Cote and neither exhibits tackiness. The bits that stick out - like the butt of the spear - did rub off when I handled it during painting. I really had to work my way from the inside out to paint this big guy. The fur textures on the fur cape was an enjoyable ride. I look forward to seeing what others do with this team of Giants, and I'm eyeballing the release schedule for the Frost Giant Guards. I recommend purchasing the Royalty as soon as they are available. Gratitude for all who participated in the WiP thread. Your enthusiasm kept me going. #respect #gratitude I hope you enjoy. :)

For your consideration: Reaper Bones miniature Female Anti-Paladin. It wasn't until I started on my idea for the shield that I realized that *it* was the Main Character. Not exactly a daemon-possessed sword, but a symbiotic relationship none-the-less. Extravagant tone with bright, decadent colors. She-Hulk for the hair. Massive Voodoo for the dots. (More dots!) My cat Zen for the eyes. (He's a Tom.) Lots of non-textured areas to tell a story. Great player character or reoccurring NPC. A lesson of extreme - in Color and form. The armor was protective but the clothing was tattered like a torn mesh bodysuit. Heavy straps encircled limbs and the armored boots formed like hooves. Toothy maw adornment on the armor hints at hunger. A very introspective Pin-Up. I hope you enjoy. :)

Update on the Frost Giant King. Cheers to the recommendation on Bases to replace the GW base! I have a slew of baes now for my projects. Plus this base is so much better. I hope to add more embellishment like rocks to match the Queen after I get this chap sorted. So many smooth surfaces asking for textures. Leather texture after the inner cloak is done. The spear shaft wood.grain has to wait until the end as the butt of the spear continues to be worn off during painting. The sword will be a session work in-and-of itself. Enjoy!

So for my next project I'd like to have one of the Stephanie Law DSM minis holding a rose. I have no idea what I'm doing and it seems super hard. What do you more experienced folks suggest? Any easy path or can you help me down the difficult path?

First and foremost, thanks to all the wonderful people for making that such an amazing experience. The friendly forumites, the generous artists, the harried and helpful reaperites. It all came together into such a great mix. Secondly, my first Reapercon; as well as my first convention since 1985 or so, so I don't have a lot of experience to compare. The Hotel: I really liked having the event in the hotel, I think it was responsible for a lot of the community feel and making people more relaxed. Good mixing in the common areas, easy places to retreat to for privacy, and you can't beat "Hey, I have that mini with me, let me go grab it". Others have already talked about the food (tasted good though Texans shouldn't try to make cannolis), but the beverage prices I felt were steep even for hotel pricing. There's "let's make a few bucks" and "let's encourage people to bring their own" - as many may have noticed I drink a LOT of diet coke, between that and a couple beers in the evening my beverage tab would've been over $50. A day! Not sure how to improve the classroom situation. My biggest suggestion is for Reaper to supply a few packages of plastic disposable plates for palettes, the absorbent plates were a drag. Remember to bring portable lights if you have them, it made a huge difference. Especially if you don't forget you have one until Schubert is almost done painting a face on a demo model. Derp! Hotel staff was excellent, rooms were clean. The Classes: Ok, I took a LOT. I would not recommend this if you're casually enjoying the con. But as anyone who shared a class with me may have noticed, I was pretty on point with note taking and questions. I targeted my selection to very specific things for my current progress as a painter. I did make one switch to Schubert's sculpting classes (during the auction) after looking at how tight his basing was in person. Every class was more than worth the dough, I could almost light the room with all the little lightbulb moments. It's one thing learning online, but the speed of interaction for a professional just to quickly point out 'do this, this and this' while pointing at a model or painting an example, is so much better. Hands-on was tough, many provided unprimed Bones, and I'm one to prime Bones because I dislike how they take base coats. So many thanks to Aaron for priming (and even zenithal priming!) his! Not having my own quirky setup, constantly losing mixes mid-blend to the absorbent plates, etc, just made it weird to paint...but still worth it for the immediate feedback. The Artists: So friendly, supportive, generous, kind (if you can take critique!), and just plain fun people. My biggest complaint was that I didn't have time to get to know (and pick the brains) of more of them. Of course I stalked DKS as much as possible, but I think everyone can understand that :p Jessica was extremely kind in her feedback and generous with suggestions when I found some scant time to hit the artist's row before submitting my contest entries (per Proctor, "Enter all of them!" which explains why I have so many in the contest gallery!). Anne was also beautiful as I showed my L2PK progress (you guys like my nmm, thank Anne!) and gave me good tough critiques of a couple models. My tight schedule didn't allow me time with Bonnot, the 'tough judge' on my ballots; I always like to hear the tough critiques! I snuck behind the table Sunday morning for a 1-on-1 with Derek (OH. MY. GOD.) in which he repainting a bit of my Twilight Knight to show how to improve what I had been shooting for. I already thanked him about forty times, but I cannot understate how helpful it was just to sit and watch him paint and ask random questions (and I wish I had thought of more). Meanwhile I noticed a bunch of little napkin sketches on Tre's workbench...so I asked if he could make a sketch for me. "Well," he drawled, "I don't really sketch out full figures, I just work out a torso or arm..." I told him anything would be amazing. We talked a bit about Frazetta and Vallejo (my Svetlana was based on a Vallejo painting). He ended up sketching a full page scene with a rampaging helsvakt about to slay another barbarian prone beneath him. Holy carp! While I had Tre sketching in my notebook and Derek overpainting my mini, I asked nearby Kev White if he'd sculpt something for me. He quietly looks up from his works and give me a curt, deadpan "No." Kev is hilarious and awesome. I never realized how much I slip into a fake english accent in conversation (at one point Kev said, "Oh, is that what that is?"). Finally, the non-painting discussions just hanging out because of the relatively intimate venue, with so many people in the same general places at the same time. Talking about horror flicks with Jessica, playing in bands in the 90s with Tre, playing bass with Izzy (we should've hit guitar center!). I love the 'shop talk' but I also like the after-hours stuff just getting to know some really fun talented people. Having breakfast with Angela and Wappel (and Kuro!) one morning and then Rhonda and Jessica (and Jen!) another is just the kind of thing that put this convention into the stratosphere. The Forumites: You guys are, without exception, an amazing bunch of people. So friendly and thoughtful and inquisitive and humorous. I'm a smidge of an extrovert, so anytime I saw someone in the hotel with a badge I just introduced myself. The amount of times that was met with a big smile and a "Hey Cash!", the recognition was humbling and I'm truly happy to have met and interacted with so many, and as with the artists, I regret not having the time to interact with everyone, more! I'm horrible with names, so please forgive me in the next while on the forums if I don't recognize your name or handle, I'm a facial recognition person. I do want to know where Corporea comes from, because are there more like her? We need to clone her and populate the planet. Such a force of nature, kind and generous and talented and thoughtful. Corporea Corner is a thing now. Monkeysloth caught me just as I came in (in my suit, bwahaha, Bryan's face was priceless), as planned we shared a ride to the Meat & Greet (with Dilvish). I got a nice guided tour of the suburbs (ya'll love you some brick) in his 'Texas Sedan' (a light pickup...he kept asking for a sedan and they kept offering him a pickup). Kuro also hung out alot, I realized on the return flight...I don't think we ever talked painting! I was in the contest entry room when someone said 'Pixel was looking for you', and I met this amazing new talent. Pixel, you're an amazing person I'm glad to have met, thanks for the laughs! And our newer forumite, Mocha who is basically her avatar, so much fun! And klarg, and Sanael, and Nissiana, and Dilvish, and The Melons, and ye gods there were so many of us and you were all even more fun and interesting than I expected. The Contest: Dun dun duuunnnn! I kind of unintentionally shotgunned my Painters entries (I blame Proctor), but decided to put Damien in Open due to his conversions and minor sculpting. I never had enough time in the display room to just ogle over the entries, there was some seriously nice work on display in that room. I could easily have spent the entire weekend in there taking notes. Damien took a gold and the judged chose Anval for Painters, where he took a silver. I was honestly hoping for a pair of bronzes to set a baseline for future work, so I was stunned when Damien pulled a gold. Not too stunned to bow and mug for the amazing response (thanks folks, that was some nice applause and made me all squishy inside), of course. Performer's reflexes. But all I could say for a couple minutes was an incredulous, "What?" And of course Pixel kept ribbing me as we had a general friendly rivalry between 'newbies'. So when I got the gold she declared I was the better painter...and then she got a Sophie! The Sophie Award winning Pixel! I mean, come on folks, I'm painting ok for a year and a half but this little monster has been painting since last JULY. All hail Queen Pixel! Speaking of royalty....Corporea. The big winner, nabbing medals and trophies left and right (not to mention some sweeet Darksword loot!). We've all seen her amazing WIPs and finished stuff here, and it's WAY BETTER in person. I was lucky to hit Corporea Corner before she entered her stuff and just drooled (on myself, not the models) over it. Her Grey Maiden was the moment when I became a major fan of her work and it's still one of my favorite pieces ever, so seeing that in hand was awesome. Then the dioramas were just unbelievably cool, Corporea has set the bar for 'our generation'. Congrats, it literally could not happen for a better person. I could go on, you can see a bunch of the regular forumites medals in the pics in Kuro's WIP thread. I put mine on and somehow talked Pixel into joining me, so when people wanted pics I talked /everyone/ into wearing them (more likely, I talked Pixel into talking them into it, she's much more convincing). Bryan walked by and noticed us wearing the medals so I started chanting "USA USA USA" Speaking of I could go on, I really could. It was such an overwhelmingly amazing experience at every level from learning to just relaxing and being silly with great company. I truly hope I can find the time and funds to attend next year and pick up where we left off.