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What to do for my April resolutionary challenge? I haven't actually decided yet! Apart from painting a bunch of minis that is. At any rate, as per the resolutionary painting challenge guidelines, I will post them here, and link in my post in the challenge thread. So today I finished the Reaper Bones 92620 Evil High Sea Priest from the second Bones KS. This would be the first mini from that KS I have done. This one was chosen as it is the featured mini for the first Bones 2 Beauty Pageant competition elsewhere in this forum.. "I AM THE DEEP LIGHT! I struggled a bit with the OSL effect, as the light blueish white was rather chalky, and therefore needed to get thicker than I had intended, obscuring the colours beneath instead of tinting them. Oh, well. It looks better IRL than in the pictures though. I am fully aware that my crude and speedy painting style does not hold a candle against the kind of proud quality most other entrants show off, but I like to enter so others of indeterminate intermediate skill can see that they do not have to be all that ace to enter as well.

77166: Balto Burrowell, Gnome Wizard, painted for the current Beauty pageant. I cut off the outstretched hand and rotated it to make it more metal, based on a Mantic 20mm base. Strange how a mini that is shorter than an inch goes from "well painted" and you're happy with when seen IRL to "flawed" when magnified by the cruel lens of the camera and too harsh lighting. oh well. Maybe it is the onset of advanced age screwing with both my eyesight and not-so-steady-as-they-used-to-be hands. Bah, enough whining. It is what it is.

This winters’ beauty pageant is this miniature, 77149 Damien, hellborn wizard. I do not really know what a “Helborn” is, but I susrmise it is some sort of demonic or half demon character class or enemy types in the newfangled D&D and/ or Pathfinder role playing games. At any rate they are humanoid with horns and devil’s tails. This mini had it’s arm straight out and fist with index and little fingers extended. So of course I had to do a bit of the old cut and paste,rotating the hand 90 degrees at the wrist. and also some boil and reposition of the arm to make it point upwards into the air…after first cutting and gluing the wrist. Rock concert movement #3: Metal horns! I experienced absolutely no problems with the recently superglued wrist, being submersed in near-boling water for a minute before being thrust into cold water. So that is good to know next time I do things in the wrong order. May I present: Lücifuzz, lead singer of Hellbörn! Here he is caught flashing a pose before he goes backstage where there are more groupies than his tongue can cope with! I still need do something about the stick he is holding. I do not think I have anything suitable for a microphone stand, Maybe just a microphone, or a scepter like Alice Cooper used to faff about with on stage. But is he the Alice Cooper type, or more of a hair metal-dude in tiger striped spandex and garish make up? Or… rather a Black Metal -type called Evil Odin or some such, with corpse painted face and a massive bloody pentagram tattooed on his chest? We shall see! and yes I posted this in the contest thread first by mistake. Sorry. Please dont shoot me.

Lysette (sounds like Norwegian "Lyset" literally "The Light") became Murkette (sounds like Norwegian "Mørket" literally "The Darkness"), and my entry for the Bones Beauty Pageant 2013 found her direction! Murkette To’ken represents the Beneathdark in the Beauty Pageant, being the official Miss Beneathdark and sole survivor of the preliminaty Beneathdark pageants. The other contestants mysteriously suffering strange, and completely unrelated, series of accidents and illnesses. Several dying of natural causes (coming down with particulary violent cases of the stabbings). Indeed the whole contingent of Bathalian contestants accidentally got redirected to the delivery entrance of the kitchens, ending up being served as appetizers at the judges’ banquet. Hailing from the dark city of M’anzan, Murkette orphaned herself at an early age, and is now travelling the world. Presenter: “Murkette, you have put student as you current occupation. Please tell the audience, what have you been studying?” Murkette: “I have been studying where the tunnels from Beneathdark come closest to the judges’ homes.” Presenter: “Um…right. What you would change about yourself and why? Murkette: “About myself? Nothing. I am confident the judges will make the right choice and not get dragged away in the night to be sacrificed on dark altars in the deep places of the world.” Presenter (visibly sweating): “uhh…is that a live spider in your hair?” Murkette: “No, it is an avatar of my Goddess, you unctuous little toad.” Presenter: “Next contestant please!”

Hello forum folks I have not been painting anything the last half year or so, as my left elbow and lower arm have not been working properly, ligament problems leaving me unable to hold anything small still for any length of time, or at all. But it is getting better, and I have been getting a lot of prepwork done on of alot of the masses and masses of minis that have arrived, fulfilling the last years kickstarters. The Kings of War and Reaper Bones has been delivered and are now complete, and the third and last Dreadball shipment is probably in the mail, leaving me with more minis than space to put them. And several more are on their way…and the Bones are doing a second kickstarter at the moment…uh oh. At any rate, I am trying to get back in to it now, and have chosen the “Reaper Beauty Pageant 2013″ forum competition as a suitable target to actually get something done. I seem to need a deadline these days, or it gets put off. In this competion, one is to enter the Bones mini called “Lysette”, and elven sword toting maiden. Quite intrically detailed, so I might fail utterly as I still cant seem to hold it completely stlll for painting. And there is really small detail on this piece. Giving it a go, here is the first WIP shots of Murkette the Dark elf: You see where this is headed. Black undercoat, mantic base. I like mantic bases better than citadel ones these days. The Bones’ integral bases are quite easy to trim down to fit the hole, fill with a spot of green stuff and away we go! Speaking about bases… I am at something of an impasse about basing the Bones. Traditionally I have based most everything to fit with Warhammer. However…Why on Earth have I been doing that? There are lots more base options available these days. Such as the “lipped” bases (left). I find I really like those bases too, even more than the round beveled of yesteryear. And lovely sculpted bases in resin are readily available. I am not sure the square bases are as nice. I think I like round bases better in general. And these days you get something newfangled called “movement trays”…and many of these can be ordered with precut holes or slots to fit whatever size or shape base I might like to have. So any shape can actually fit Warhammer or whatever. And for games such as Kings of War, the need for individual basing is eliminated altogether, all models in a unit goes on a single base, as the minis themselves are not used as wound counters. This means that an entire unit can be based as a kind of diorama, greatly enhancing the look of the unit as a whole, and speeding up movement in-game. This also lets one play around a bit more: “a 20-man strong unit of skeletons” but… I dont really get to play any more. At all. So why even bother following that paradigm? Or any at all? So, maybe taking a more individual approach, basing each model on whim more than any special uniformity is the right way forward. What do you think about this? Any thoughts are appreciated.