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Its been a while since I have put up any WIP on Reaper but I figure I should for this guy. Commission paint job for an old DnD GM. :) Shadow Dragon Custom base and designed to fit in an index card box. I even grooved out the bottom to fit so it would not move. More pictures on that later.

Hey everyone! It's been a long while since I could post on here, I've been really busy with work. I've started a new commission piece from a client I won't name just yet but whom has given me permission to share my sketches/WIPs/ and sculpting process with you guys! The project is to sculpt several nereids/sirens/water nymph type characters. One full body and at least two others partially submerged. They should be gorgeous and make men want to leap to their deaths so I'm avoiding any monstrous type features. Although we want them to be mostly humanoid I will be adding in some little features to indicate their magical/watery/fey nature. Here are my initial sketches where I'm exploring posing, body types, and the kind of shape language I will want to use in the sculpts. My drawing hand was failing me today so these are REALLY rough but I got my ideas down and I'll have enough to move to the next stage which will be creating a mannequin in ZBrush. *Apologies for the more sexual images. These aren't intended to be offensive in any way merely educational on the topic of character design*

Hi guys, so finished this one a few days ago and he's been sent to his final home, a commission figure I was asked to do. The figure itself is pretty neat, I'd never painted any Rackham figures before so it was something fun and different. I think I can see a bit the joy of commissions for other people because you never know what you are going to receive. Anyhow, here he is, hope you enjoy him!

Recently finished up another jarred mini, this one a Beholder. Beholder mini - Built on the base with a coin pile and treasure chest (also from Nolzur's/WizKids) as well as some hand punched loose coins and lots of sculpted resin Close ups. In jar - Client wanted a nice, small, display piece for his desk that he doesnt have to worry about the piece getting dusty. Metal plate on bottom of beholder, and magnets inside bottom of jar, if he chooses to use it for tabletop. Also more handcut coins glued inside the jar. writing on top was a found fantasy script that he liked, I translated 'Imprisoned Nightmare' as the writing. Have to say that I had so much fun painting this mini that I ordered 2 more to play around with later this year. Think I want to zombify one, and the other will be similar to this but with more elaborate basing.

I've recently been posting some of the minis I've painted (here as well as my art pages and social media). Have now had people asking about pricing on purchasing or commissioning painted pieces, and even possibly some custom sculpts and paints. My question, what are reasonable rates for mini sculpting and painting (seperately or together). In my experience, prices tend to vary from field to field, and the going rates for 'amateur vs professional' is also drastic in each field. I know what I can ballpark in the other art fields I work in (comics, murals, illustration, tattoo and concept art), but minis are a new breed for me. Any experience, suggestions, advice, much appreciated. InB4: "Figure out time to make project, what your time is worth, that's your rate". Because for some art jobs I've charged 20/hr, and for other jobs I've made 200+/hr. Just need some ranges to figure out where I can charge that isnt overcharging a client, or screwing myself. Thanks in advance (Also feel free to move post if this isnt the right forum for it)

So, recently I've been taking on several commissions, and of them, this is the first I've finished! One of my fellow players at our FLGS asked me to paint an archer mini for him. I told him to take some time picking one out, and a week or two later, he brought me this guy: Now, first, to address the elephant in the room: this is obviously Tanis Half-Elven, right? I mean, it's not even subtle, this is totally him. I can't be the only person who sees it... The mini itself is pretty solid, but that's a very accurate representation of the paint job: wash everywhere, lumpy colors. I'll be honest, though, even unmodded it's not a bad mini compared to a LOT of the prepaints - anatomy's solid, pose is strong, and the detailing is simple enough that the paint job almost works. But anyways! So, the orders of business, as per my client's requests: - Cloak painted black with green highlighting; not just dark-green - Replace the bow with a better one that's less wiggly (his one was pretty deformed - Copper skin and brown hair; the character is a wood elf I suggested doing some additional sculpting on it, which caught his ear - he was really excited by my suggestion of a black fur capelet to complement the darkened cloak. So, the finished mini! So, first off: The sculpting. I did a pretty simple swap for the bow, since I'm pants at hands - cut off the old one, cut a bow from a Reaper Weapon Sprue in half, glued in place. Ordinarily I'd pin, but with the base mini so flexible, it's actually pretty sturdy - the hand bends away from pressure before there's any danger to the bow. I fiddled with it before I painted - it's definately strong enough for gameplay, even if the mini's lifted by the weapon. Then I moved to the fur. I did the caplet, first - just a simple little thing to sculpt, work the GS in and then texture. I suggested this for two reasons: one, the sculpting on the upper shoulders was a lot weaker than the rest of the cape, more bunchy, and two, the shading I had planned for the cape works better on the billowy bits than the narrow folds, so if I could just paint those, I'd take it. That said, a professional is never less than perfect, so I didn't tell the guy that. I merely said, "Like the King in the North, but with black bear fur," and he was pumped. I also didn't really like the sculpting on the arms, and the decorative tongues on the boots, if we're being honest. So, some thin strips of greenstuff and a Xacto knife later, he was wearing fur boots and gloves. Then, one rebasing later, I was ready to talk color! I did the cape first - Walnut Brown, with Vallejo's Luftwaffe Cam Green highlights, and Pure Black used in thin lines to deepen the folds. Pure black for the fur, too - but then Nuln oil as a wash, to add gloss to the "fur pelt". Once the cloak was done, I realized that changing the color of the cloak meant a complete pallette change, too. I hate brown-on-brown clothing, so I moved to a darker green as a better fit for the cloak, with some brown trim. The pants I took from a khaki white to more of a silver-green - the color is a mix of the green and brown used for the cloak and belt, with white to shade. Although the colors I used are all pretty warm, I tried to give the figure itself a more wintery feel, keeping the palette darker and more subdued.- the sort of ranger you'd imagine slipping through the undergrowth on a cool winter morning, the sun still low in the sky, blending into the shadows of evergreens as he slides towards his prey. But, to bring in some more of the warmness of his hair and skin, I accented him in gold, which makes his weapons stand out and gives them a little more definition against the cloak. All in all, this was a great mini to paint! It was a lot of fun getting to do some of my own sculpting, since most of the minis I've painted lately have been either custom jobbos from places like Heroforge, or more exotic/expensive minis from fancy companies, where the player went and found the *perfect mini* and I just have to get the painting right! And, for the edification of anyone wondering, this guy, with weaponswap/sculpting/painting, took around 4-5 hours, and I charged the guy 40$. I still need to base him, but I'm waiting to do that with the guy, so I can get his opinion; all i've done so far is sculpt a greenstuff "earth" base.

Hey everyone, I received my first paint commission 2 months ago and I was super nervous. At the time I’d only been painting for 5 months and he wanted Tiamat done. Well I finished it up and he was so happy he said that I should post some pics to the forum so enjoy!

One of MrBoot's coworkers found out that I painted minis (apparently my husband has been, ah, talking about my skills at work ), and wanted to know if I would be willing to take a commission for his player character. He provided the figure, a Wizkids male elf sorcerer, with a neat translucent fireball spell effect surrounding one hand, as well as his character's background and some details he'd like. I asked some clarifying questions about color scheme and the base and such, as well as explained generally how much different paint job qualities would be. He opted for my "deluxe" level, which includes freehand details and a nice base, since he expects this character to stick around for awhile. His character is a half-gold dragon pyromancer, with "subtle patches of gold scales on his skin" and "gold eyes with red flecks" (I could not manage the red flecks, but did manage to get a wee bit of gold in there), as well as a "cloak with a subtle dragon scale pattern" (my suggestion to him, since he wasn't sure what he wanted on the cloak). I found this mini both a lot of fun and terribly frustrating to paint; the details were muddy or missing in some places while being oddly sharp in others, and trying to work around the cloak and staff were at times irritating. Also, I don't know what kind of plastic the thing's made out of, but it half-murdered my hand trying to remove the integrated base so I could re-base it. But I eventually finished it, and I have to say I'm really quite happy with how it turned out! Especially the fire, I took a chance on doing a couple ink glazes/washes to preserve the translucency, and it worked out exactly like I'd hoped it would! The base is from Secret Weapon Miniatures. Anyways, enough wordy stuff, here's the pictures! The lighting is darker in this one because I was trying to capture the proper color of the cloak. It's slightly more orange in person, and not quite as bright. The patch of scales on the back of his hand is visible here (I used metallic paint so it's actually shiny). And here's some close-ups of his face; you can see the shiny patch of scales on his cheek more clearly here, as well as the dot of gold in his eye. Colors used: (this is mostly for my own records) Brown liner P3 Red ink P3 Yellow ink Dragon Bronze (so shiny!) Mahogany brown Chestnut brown Ginger cookie Tanned leather Oiled leather Leather brown Spattered crimson Big top red Heraldic red Leather white Solid white Stone grey Powderburn brown Golden shadow Palomino gold Sun yellow New things I tried on this piece: *Eyebrows - those things were stupidly hard to get right, I ended up redoing them like 4 times *Freehand - I kinda just...figured out the scale pattern as I went. It's not great, but not as terrible as my usual attempts at freehand, so I'm okay with it. I'm surprised it turned out as well as it did, given that I was annoyingly shaky when I was trying it, but I was down to the wire and didn't have time to wait until I was steadier *Painting a translucent surface - I made a thin wash/glaze with P3 ink, Brush-on sealer, wash medium, and a little water. I wish I'd written down the proportions of each I used, since the resulting mixture worked great! He was SO happy with it when MrBoot gave it to him today that he paid me extra! Which was quite nice, since after I was a good part of the way through painting it I realized I had rather undercharged him for the level of detail he'd requested (I'd charged $35, thinking I'd have it done in about 7 hours), and I actually ended up giving him what I would consider a $50 paint job anyways. So overall, for my second commission, it was a very positive experience! Huzzah! --OneBoot :D

Here is another selection of photos of a set of Gladiators painted for a commission from a friend in work. Not sure of the game but these are the only models and he wanted some more colourful then the light grey plastic. The plastic is a bit similar to bones but a bit more flexible. I kept the pallete simple and quite limited in colours. The facial detail wasn't great on a few and this is the reason why I didn't do any eyes. As always comments welcome.

The final model for this Confrontation commission. He took a bit longer than expected, due to the details - about 8 1/2 hours on this one. In total around 26 hours for the group. Glad to have all these guys finished so I can work on more of my own stuff! And a group shot:

I think I got the majority of the tags. Right, so, last Saturday one of my fellow gamers ambushes me with a couple of miniatures and asks if he can throw money at me to paint them. Naturally, I said yes. Because I work better with small groups, I am also painting the Holy Vindicator, after some .. um .. appropriate modifications. Anyway. I found Baron Blackshield in the Bin o' Shame, and offered him as an alternate, for the original miniature. This was accepted with glee and, I can only assume, much anticipation. Mr. Moonwalker is going to get a bit of a Mad-Max-style makeover (.. okay, as best I can manage. I may stage a raid for rust-effect stuff). He will, however, keep his hat. His Grace the Baron has had his sword swapped out for a staff (Dragonlance wizards don't get swords). If I'm feeling punchy, I may even make him up a base. The unsuspecting Holy Vindicator is going to lose his sword arm and gain a mace hand. This may involve green stuff.

I just started my miniatures painting blog a few days. There still isn't a ton of content but I did post about my first miniature painting contest. If anyone feels so inclined drop by and give it a read: http://dethstruck.com Or if anyone wants to follow my page on Facebook: http://facebook/dethstruckminiatures

Like I said in my last post, I've been busy! Lots of commission work coming in. Which is great! Just today my wife told me that we have paid off our 2nd mortgage with help from me painting. I feel blessed to be able to do this for people and for my family. Here are 3 minis from Reaper's Pathfinder line. Hope you enjoy them, and please feel free to comment. Thanks!

Hello again! I've just wrapped up another commissioned work, for which I should get another lot of Bones. At this point, I don't really need the Bones, but hey, I'm enjoying the challenge and the experience, and I'm learning a lot from each. This is for the wife of the guy I made "Judas the Just" for. She likes playing various fire casters, so he gave me "Pharess" to paint up for her. It's a very creative mini, I sculpted some additional fire for the base and mounted her on a washer. I actually mounted her on two - she fit on a 3/4" base, but I decided I wanted a bit more base to play with so I put her on a 1". I made up the difference with two-part epoxy putty - she is now a pretty solid piece of metal. Incidentally, I pinned her arm but didn't quite line it up right - so her left arm is a bit high and her shoulder looks a tiny bit padded. I will also say this mini has some really hard places to get to - the dragon blocks the right half of her face (and there's something strange going on there, maybe I got a miscast, or maybe there's a nose chain or something?) and her legs block a lot of her waist. I also ended up blocking one of her feet with the fire. C'est la vie. As I said - learning experience. I have not sealed her yet - if anyone has any comments I'll definitely contemplate fixing it. I'm not going to put a lot more work into her, but I'd love the feedback regardless. Pictures! Here are some from a different angle, so you can see the base work - the base was covered with playground sand, which I painted up as coals at her feet. This is actually easier than it looks - I painted them a sort of orangish red, drybrushed them in black, then drybrushed them very lightly with light grey.

I just got back from taking a brief hiatus. It actually lifted last week after I decided to repaint my level 32 Warblade and a friend commissioned me to paint his character (he tried to pay me... I refused. I hate taking money from friends :) They always get FREE commissions! :D My specialty! I just like seeing them happy :D) Anyway, the first is Freja Fangbreaker (the bone version). This is the 2nd time I've painted this figure; the other being 3-4 years ago. She has an enlarge insert with both an earth magnet in the base itself and in the miniature base. I've been doing the enlarge inserts for a few years now; so much more appealing to the eye than just black bases! Both this and the commission were speed paints.. enjoy! Now here is Broderick Alt Pose, Crusaders Captain. He's my first serious attempt at NMM. It's not great, but pretty good for a first time, I think. I know that I need deeper transitions; but again I had a time crunch. My friend was very particular on the colors and pretty much everything for him. Here he is with his enlarge insert (he's a 32 barbarian warblade). It was pretty nice to dip my toes in again....

Here is a link to our latest video showcasing some of the projects that we are currently working on