Search the Community

I submitted this for the February RCL ‘23. She came out of the kickstarter box a little goofy (her left arm is a bit of a mess) although not nearly as bad as Zeus. As usual, Reaper immediately sent me a replacement w/o question, what great people! While he’s going to get chopped up for broken pillar parts, I thought I’d try something different and go for a bronze statue look with her. Just one coat of brown over the olive primer told me it was the right choice. This was just an amazing painting experience - each color (I used Reaper’s Power Palette on a brass statue picture to pick candidate colors) just seemed like a revelation. I can’t believe how much a light brown over drab green can so immediately read as ‘aged bronze’. Comments and criticisms are welcome. I’m omitting the front view, but rest assured I resisted the impulse to give her a shiny nipple to match more famous statuary!

I'm working on these two recent Bones USA releases, and trying to paint them up as Revenants. This stage has been quick, but I need to think about adding more highlights and contrast. The bronze was done with gunship green. Then a rough drybrush with dark bronze and then light bronze.

So, after a lot of thought, research, and discussion, my wife and I have decided to purchase a lost-wax casting system. Essentially this is a system for casting any metal with a melting point below 2000 deg F into jewelry, minis, etc. Unlike the spin casting used by companies like Reaper, this will be low volume with only 10 to 50 pieces a day possible. I should note right away, that I do not intend at this time to go into minis production/sales on my own. So what do I intend to do with it: Make jewelry for my wife and our business. Eventually (10+ years), we would like to get into producing our own line of gold and silver jewelry and become seasonal vendors at various Ren Fairs as a retirement career once the kids are out of college. Of course this is a long term goal and won't happen for a long time yet. I'll practice on copper and pewter first. Make rings for our sister parish in Haiti. Due to various cultural reasons, most Haitians won't get married until they have a pair of rings. This can be very hard for some of the poorer people, so they just stay apart and don't get married. My wife can by old jewelry under value and I'll be able to melt them down and make them new rings and send them down to them as they need it. (We've been giving them the rings she finds, but this way we will be able to cast them in the shapes and sizes they actually need/want.) Make armatures for my sculpts. I spend a lot of time resculpting skulls and basic forms because I have to start from scratch. This will allow me to make a library of animal armatures and other stuff to speed up my sculpting. Also, I will be able to produce better sculpts by being able to control how much and what type of metal is in the armature. I don't ever want to send Reaper another piece of furniture that warps on the mold again (bookcase, I'm looking at you). For sculpts I can't/don't want to sell, I'll be able to make copies for my friends and I (maybe even some goodies for things like the BOGW ). I'm sure I'll think up other uses as I get more skilled at it. I started reading, studying, and taking some classes on the subject in the past few years. I'm at a point where the only way forward is to take the plunge and buy the equipment so I can begin practicing and learning for real. My finances are at a good spot for it now, so I took the plunge and ordered a kit from Gesswein. The following equipment is on its way: Rubber mold vulcanizer (small single figure version of what Reaper uses) Wax injector (for making wax copies in the rubber molds) Burnout oven (for baking the wax copies out of the molds before casting) Vacuum casting machine (for removing air from the molds and later pulling the metal into the molds during casting) Flasks, investment, wax bits, rubber, and lots of other materials needed. Here is a picture of the kit I bought: I won't be able to just jump in and start casting right away. I still will need to get a method of melting the metal (either a torch or an electric furnace). I'll also need to rework my basement studio with new benches, electrical outlets, and venting to make it safe, which is where this thread comes in, as I thought you all might be interested in this, so I plan on documenting everything here, from the unboxing, to the building, to the first cast piece. I'm very very excited! Andy

Now that I'm back from Reapercon, I think it is time to post pictures of my entries. This is Monique Denoir, and she was awarded a bronze Sophie in the painters category. I was pleased with the paintjob on her, and I'm happy that she could compete with the many very well painted Reaper miniatures in the competition (every year there are quite a few fantastic entries- this year was no exception).

Been playing this silly board game with my siblings called Quartz where you all play dwarven miners who mine for valuable gems. The day marker that comes with the game is just a lame little yellow piece of wood, so I set out to find something better to replace it. Ended up settling on the pack mule with plans to paint it gold. Then for no reason whatsoever it occurred to me that maybe it would be fun for each player to have their own little dwarf character that does absolutely nothing in the game itself. So I added pretty much every Dwarf that Reaper sells to my cart as well. My goal was to paint the pack mule with Vallejo liquid gold and all the dwarves with a bronze-like metal paint. Below is the result, and keep in mind I have never painted before... You may notice that two of these are not dwarves. Well I would counter that by telling you that one of them is an undead dwarf brought back to life by the sheer need to mine fancy gems, while the other is a tavern wench who's legs I MAY have chopped off to make her dwarf height. So for all intents and purposes, she is a dwarf. I used Vallejo Liquid Gold on the mule and MSP Dwarven Gold (mixed with varying amounts of MSP Dragon Black) on the dwarves. Also shaded them with MSP Sepia Wash then sealed them up with Vallejo Satin Varnish. Oh and fun fact, if you want to add heft to a 32mm round base a sacagawea coin fits perfectly inside and adds just the right amount of weight. Also threw on a 32mm washer.

Hi All! Here's Kyphrixis from the Bones 3 Kickstarter which I've been working on for the last few weeks. Thanks for looking!

Monument to the mighty heroes of something or other. Since they've got great big green statues they must have done terrible things to other people who probably talked funny. Bound to be Checkov's Knights in any dungeon situation. As it should be: Raw Umber, Robin's Egg Blue, Seafoam Green. The Tropicana lid plinth is a separate terrain item. They're just "army man" type Knights. Not sure what I'll use the other 30 in the bag for. I figured that larger, simpler figures might help my attempts to rehabilitate my fine motor skills.

I was inspired by how the paint combination on the Copper head of my Ma'al Drakar turned out, so I thought it would be fun to turn a mini into a bronze/copper statue! Given that I still didn't have a fully painted Sir Forscale (@Reaperbryan owns all 3 of the ones I've painted to date), I decided it was high time I had one of my own. Those two things resulted in this: I removed him from his broccoli base and glued him onto a 20mm Reaper base, so he'd have a pedestal sort of thing to stand on. He was very quick to paint up, just Green Liner, Copper Verdigris, a light Turquoise Ink wash, then careful drybrushing of Coppery Orange. I had fun thinking about what the wear patterns on a regular statue would be, hence why sections of his base and his right foot are so much shinier than the rest. Because given any flat surface, people are going to sit on it to rest or take pictures, and prominent areas are usually kept shined from people rubbing them. And here's a couple of pics just for fun, since Ma'al is still hanging out on my desk: Huzzah! --OneBoot :D

I call him Charles Bronzen or Bronzie for short.

Earlier this week I got my hands on a set of bones 3 mythos cultists. I'm not really that into cthulhu, but I do love a crazy looking cult. So I went with purple robes with bronze weapons, and painted the faces as masks. Not really sure if they were meant to be masks, but I think it worked.

Hi all, so want to work on bronze, and doing it as NMM . Any suggestions for base, shade and highlight colors?

Well, I not only finished my dragon, I got her entered into the ReaperCon painting contest, and earned a bronze. I then went and got her professionally photographed cause I knew I'd never be able to do her justice. She's currently displayed, along with the medal, in the place of honor on my mantle above the fireplace. "Good night, Nathavarr. Good work. I'll most likely dump you in simple green in the morning." I am thinking about repainting the treasure on her base in bronze...

A slightly tarnished oil rubbed bronze bull to be a mate for the brass bull I painted last year I had this idea as I was putting down the brown liner coat on the brass bull. A year later, I now have a pair of bulls to maul the PCs.

I started painting Narthrax the other day, and I've worked on him a little more today... So the bulk is done, I'm mostly at details and basing and stuff atm. However, to try and make sure I stick with this, I've decided to pop up a WIP thread. So this is where I'm at =] Yep, I'm still painting on a tray, on a teatowel, on my couch =P

for the really serious Dragon lover this will only be available in Bronze in small numbers, but it does look smashing https://www.facebook.com/NickBibby.Sculpture.Bronze

Ankheg with Metallic Chitin When I decided to work on this miniature it was because the base was already made and I liked the idea of something coming out of it, so I went with the Ankheg. As a Bones mini it was easy to remove pieces of the integral base until I just had the stones remaining. And mixing in some more stones from the same stamp as the base allowed it to fit in with the base more. The Ankheg is a combination of Bronzes except for highlights. There's plain Vallejo Bronze down his back as the base coat. Then the other colors are all mixed with the bronze for similar effect: Reaper Midnight Blue, Reaper Leaf Green, and Reaper Spattered Gore. The flagstones are all Vallejo Neutral Gray or that mixed with Midnight Blue and Reaper Rattlesnake Leather. Vallejo Chocolate Brown was used for the "dirt" side of bricks or the loose dirt that came with the integral base. Reaper Walnut Brown was used as a wash for the entire piece. Close Up Photos: Follow the original Work In Progress on the Reaper Forums Posted to the Inspiration Gallery. Remember to pop some thumbs up on it. Feel free to ask questions and make comments.

Now for something completely different.... I'm putting together a piece for my wife while I wait for paints to finish out Jazzy's elf/fairy/lutanist/whatev! The Bladesinger ended up being too large for Munchkin usage, and she and Jazzy never could decide who the piece belonged to anyway so... Here's to round #2! This will probably be a 2-piece game piece starring Victoriana and her robot companion/butler/keeper of the cheese HLpR Bot, both of Bombshell Miniatures. My wife loves all things Jane Austin, all things Victorain, all things Tea Time... You get the idea. She likes to tease me about painting tiny things, then I remind her of the time I walked into her watching Pride and Prejudice on tv while crocheting a purse and sipping on herbal tea... ANYWAY! This should be right up her alley and she's excited about it. I'm considering several ideas for basing (I'm getting addicted to basing). I've asked and looked at examples of miniature rugs, wooden staircases, cobblestone streets, etc. However, I was digging through my ever-increasing bin of things I've ordered but haven't used yet, and came across my Army Painter field flowers. I may end up doing a picnic for a lovely spring day... All in the size of piece used for Munchkin (yeah! right!) At any rate, here are the pics of Victoriana and HLpR Bot in all their shiny metal glory! The Lovely Lady: The Fussy Assistant: Partners in Crime (and tea!): I'm going to mess around with a few ideas, and am going to have some fun with this. I've got some Sculpey I haven't used yet (the oak tree was Milliput), and I may try to whip something together. Here's an idea: I'm considering using Sculpey over these 2 wooden disks to build up a small mound with grass, flowers, and possibly some gingham blanket somewhere on the thing... Maybe just a small corner to indicate the picnic part. (For reference, the large disk is around 40mm) We'll see what happens!