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Here are some pictures of a minotaur I made for one of my Blood Bowl teams. He's pretty big for the game, but reposing the plastic minotaur was a whole lot of fun. The colors match the other minis on the team. Here he is:

No, seriously, this is a thing I'm doing. A friend of mine is commissioning me to paint some of his minis - in exchange he's going to load me down with minis from his Bones KS I. Well, that and some paints. Anyway, we were looking for a Paladin - he's playing an Andoren Paladin in a Pathfinder game, and he handed me Judas Bloodspire. I was truly intrigued by the challenge. So, I've made only a few the actual changes. I sliced off the part of the cloak that is definitely making a bat wing, and I used superglue to fill in the eye- and nose-holes of the skulls on his epaulets and the guard of the sword. The intention is to paint them up as big blue gems. The skull on the back of the sword I think I can get to look like a crown - which is actually a not-uncommon historical pommel. I also used an X-acto knife to "de-fang" him, though unfortunately they didn't show up until I started painting the face. This is my progress so far, I decided to take a break today and get this up on the forum to seek advice - besides a really high res picture can help me see fine mistakes. I think I consider the skirts finished, though I could work on them a bit more. The armor is mostly finished but for touch ups, the sword needs real-touching up 'cause it caught paint from the skirts. The hilt and pommel of the sword are completely undone - I haven't mixed up my gold yet. The cloak is base-coated only, I plan do to more work shading there (though most of that will only show up in the back.) I'd like to call the face and hair done, but I'll definitely take good advice on these things - I've probably spent 3-4 hours painting this guy so far, and easily an hour of it has been doing and redoing the face. I've even hit it with Reaper's matte sealer (thanks Ub3r_n3rd!) to take away a bit of roughness. So without further ado, I present an alternate good version of Judas:

MR. BONES Converted to Mr. Bones II from the Bones II Kickstarter As you may recall from the WIP for this, the issue with converting Mr. Bones I to Mr. Bones II is covering the long shovel handle and giving him a lantern and bag of bones. I think I got the conversion part down and while some areas frustrated me during the painting process I feel I got the most out of this miniature and the finished product is awesome! LOL I hope you enjoy him. Check him out in the Inspiration Gallery. As well as his Halloween Contest Entry. And in true Kickstarter fashion ... if this post gets 15 pledges Likes ... I'll release a bonus photo. This is meant purely to boost my ego and inspire me to make more conversions and paint more minis as well as for fun.

So a while ago in my Bones painting at work WIP, I was painting this guy: (no, he's not finished yet. I took him home when I went on vacation, and he's still sitting on the shelf, right over there, waiting for me to take him back in and finish him...I think he's starting to get annoyed about it too.) Anyway, I mentioned the BLA (Bovine Liberation Army) from a long ago D&D game I'd run. This brought up the song "Cows with Guns", which somehow I'd never heard. Well, ever since then I've had an idea brewing in my head, and with my most recent Reaper order arriving, I was able to start working on it. I waited a bit to post about it. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do the sculpting, as it is pretty much completely new to me. But it turns out that Bones are so easy and fun to hack apart and play with, I'm having a blast, and the sculpting doesn't seem "too bad". I did take pictures along the way, to document the process. So in the beginning, there was a minotaur fig. He look kind of like the one up above there, but without the colours. Then I started in with the exacto. The first thing I needed to see was if I could give him a pair of pants. I'm going for a modern (perhaps slightly futuristic) version of the BLA, so I want him wearing some camo pants. So I hacked all the armor off his left leg to avoid making it too bumpy or thick, and applied some Grey Stuff. This turned out ok I think, although I really wanted one of those rubber tipped shaper things all the Cool sculpters are using. Picked up one of those yesterday and did the rest of the pants today. The tail was getting in the way too much so it had to be removed for now. I'm trying to decide if he needs a tank top next, or if he's going bare chested. Thoughts? So as I had so Grey Stuff left over, I started playing around with basing ideas. Looking at the pose, I thought he'd look cool with his left foot up on something. As I keep my Bones in drawers very close to my desk, it didn't take long to find something appropriate for a revolutionary bovine to be trodding upon...The Man If you are wondering where the officer got that fine pistol from, it was from this "innocent" bystander: And finally. here's a shot of all the bits. Put those together and you get an idea where I'm going with this...

My husband wanted a spell effect mini of his draconian character. It's supposed to be a radiant version of the draconian, so I figured why not, I'll try an OSL effect. I'm fairly satisfied with my OSL on the base, but the mini itself doesn't meet the vision of my husband. He wanted it to be brighter or more radiant. I'm not sure how to accomplish that. I would like advise on how to make this mini meet my husband's vision.

St. Patrick, converted from 02087, Brother Louis IV (basically I added a beard) The floor is supposed to be marble tile, with light through a stained glass window on part of it. Not sure it really works, but I gave it a shot. The freehand on the back is of shamrocks, not four-leaf clovers, in case you were wondering. Shamrocks have three heart-shaped leaves. St. Patrick used them to teach about the Holy Trinity.

I came across the start of a conversion from the last time my group played Battletech. The battlemech in question comes in several pieces and the stock look for the mech is firing platform on two leg-shaped struts: example of a well painted version in a stock pose (not painted by me) Now the idea of the mech coming in pieces is for you to adjust the pose yourself on assembly ... and of course for casting ... but really the only thing you can do without cutting the mech up is to create a "running mech" with the arms and legs pumping. However, if you look at the arms you can see that any real conversion comes from cutting and rebuilding: So, I first considered straightening one or both arms. However, upon closer inspection and sleeping on it, I decided that the effort wasn't worth it. However, I did get an idea as to how I wanted the Daishi to stand. I wanted its left foot raised onto a building's remains with the left leg straightened to hold the mech high as if it had just stomped through the HQ of the enemy. So I cut the left leg in two places: at the backward cantered knee and the toe. The knee joint is curved and sits in a groove so that was fun to cut apart. I cut the right leg at the knee and at the ankle. I built walls on the base using plastic and some putty to lock it all down. I left space around the left foot where the foot had shifted and left a partial impression. You can see the foot pinned to the base: Time to test fit all the pieces and see what pieces I would have to manufacture to get the final pose. So with some sculpey to hold the one side together I fit all the leg & torso pieces together: As you can see above I had a fairly decent gap in the right leg assembly to get the mech stable. So I built an ankle actuator around the pin above the right foot. And to ensure balance and stability I added a large piece of metal to the inside corner of the wall for the mech to stand on. After some fiddling and a series of tweak and dry fits, I finally had what I wanted: Finished parts: Final Assembly: Next we'll prime it so I can better see any outstanding mold lines or details that need fixing.

I started with a Bathalian Primarch, a Hellborn Troll, and the axe from the Kainus mini. I cut the head off the Primarch, which took some work with my pin vise and razor saw. I the attached it to the troll body by shaving the existing neck, pinning the two piece Primarch head to,it, and filling the gaps with green stuff. I also had to make sure the angle off head would not conflict with the upraised arm. I cut off the hand of the upraised arm and replaced it with a axe head (pinned and green stuffed on). I thought it woul look better, and more brutal, if it still had an operational hand. Besides, how's he gonna eat and do other mundane tasks? :-) I the also cut the face off a random mini I had and attached to he shoulder with green stuff. Then I painted and based it on a resin base. I wish I would have done more shading, but it turned out pretty nice.

For one of my PFRPG games, the PCs will be running into a group of snakemen. I prefer my snakemen to have human torsos and snake lower bodies, but most of the snakemen minis are either snake-women that fit this description, or snakemen who are just huge snakes with arms. Now that Bones are coming, conversions are cheap, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I will be combining Lindir, Elf Archer with Vandorendra Demon [warning, store link nudity alert]. 30 minutes with an exacto knife and some greenstuff and he has a new pair of legs! Comments on the conversion are welcome, but they need to be made tonight, before the greenstuff cures! Question for those who do conversions - do I need to use superglue as well, or will the greenstuff be enough of a bond? ------------------------------------------ Lindir, checking out his new pair of legs. Simple cuts through both of his legs, and a straight cut through her torso. Further cuts were made to both the torso and the snake tail to get them to roughly match up. I put a blob of greenstuff on the tail then mushed them together. I cleaned up the excess greenstuff and smoothed it out. The butt/tail area had the most gaps. Here's a close-up.

My brother in law made a pathfinder character which looks like savage dragon, and of course there are no savage dragon minis. So he requested one of me. Goldar ended up being a great mini for him, just added a fin (which I've been getting practice at), switched out his axe for a spear, and added a naga head to his belt. Whatever species the character is worships nagas, and his guy is evil, so he killed one and carries it around as a trophy. Unfortunately the camera washed out the colour on him. The green is much brighter, and has more highlights, and the naga head is a bit grayer. Cause it's dead and decayed. Comments, critique, suggestions all appreciated. Before I send it to Wyoming.

Hi guys. I recently got back into making mini's. My first one is making a Dwarf Fighter for my DnD RP Sessions. The problem I'm having is, I don't know where to start. I have a basic idea on what I want, but I just, can't push forward with it. Do you guys have any suggestions on how I should approach this and where I can start? I'll even take suggestions on what to do. I'm just to frustrated to think. Any help or tips you guys give me is much appreciated. Thank you. P.S. Here are a couple of photo's of what my mini looks like.

I haven't seen a thread like this here, so to kill the impatience before the actual minis arrive: What are your plans for converting particular KS Bones miniatures or using them straight in different games? I'm especially interested in the Vampire set. Give me your inspiration! :> Please put your list in 1 post and update it instead of adding more posts, to avoid cluttering the thread! My current list: rats - converted into Malifaux rats for Hamelin Chronoscope gunmen - Kaeris' Gunmen or something Guild (Malifaux) Zombie from Undead Horde or George the Zombie - converted into Essence of Power (Malifaux) We Be Goblins! (Pathfinder) - converted into random Gremlins? (Malifaux) Oxidation beast - some Exrah drone (Infninity) Rosie the Chronotechnician - Moderator hacker/Clockmaker (Infinity) Also: a full Magic Realm hero mini set, Wiz-War wizard set?, Descent townsfolk/bosses and probably any fantasy skirmish game for the next 5 years :)

I bought an extra Bones gnoll warrior with flail to convert to carrying a spear instead. Pretty simple conversion, I just cut the flail off above and below the paw and drilled through where the remaining haft was gripped in his hand being careful not to damage the fingers. Then I took a length of Evergreen brand plastic rod and forced it through the resulting hole. It gripped it so well that I probably could get away without gluing it at all but I did put a small drop of CA glue just to be sure. Then I drilled a hole in the tip of the pole. Next I dug up a piece of spikey frippery intended for a 40k Chaos Rhino and cut one of the spikes off. Then I drilled a hole in its base. I glued a pin made from a paper clip in the hole on the end of the pole and then glued the spike on the pin as a spear tip. This spear is pretty chunky but since the Bones gnolls are a bit larger than the gnolls I already own I am planning to use them as Fiendish gnolls to lead the others so I think it appropriate that he's carrying a massive skewering spear. At any rate, I'm pleased with the conversion and it took all of 15 minutes, including digging around looking for something to use for a spear tip. This conversion was easy enough and turned out well enough that I'm sorely tempted to pick up 3 or 4 more flail gnolls for conversion to spear carriers. On a side note, I only took pics of the finished product because I had a devil of a time getting the Bones material to show up with detail rather than as a white blob. The pics I finally settled on are still pretty crappy but at least you can see what's going on with the conversion. Ironically, I screwed around trying to get pics to post longer than it took to do the conversion.

OK, just so everyone knows, this is the Harbinger... I didn't paint this or assemble it. I just like the picture so everyone can have an idea of what I have to work with and what the miniature is intended to look like. Also, this is in the 26mm scale. Here's my idea for the conversion. I'm going to lose the banner and banner pole, the sword, and probably the shoulder pads as well. I want the figure to have her arms raised high, both hands on a sword held above her head, with the point straight up to the heavens. That's not the hard part though. The hard part I need help with is this: I want to use a piece of crystal, glass or plastic for the sword. I want to run a small fiber optic cable from the hilt of the sword to and LED, and I want to connect that LED to a batter so that I can make the sword glow FOR REAL! Additionally, where should I go to purchase these sorts of paraphenelia? This will be my first time playing with this kind of thing and I was hoping that all the people here could help me out. Ahead of time let me say, "Thanks for the help, I'm gonna need it!"

Wyrmgear is the large new steampunk dragon to be released as part of the Bones Kickstarter of 2012. http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/previews/latest/77177 It's a pretty fun figure, a Victorian-style mechanical dragon. Elsewhere people have been discussing how they plan to paint and decorate it when it arrives as part of the Bones Kickstarter next spring. While musing over decorating approaches I recalled a source I found of masses of teeny-tiny watch gears and parts. http://www.amazon.com/Lisa-Pavelka-2-Ounce-Crafting-Silver/dp/B0053GA0DI They are dismantled watch innards sold by the half-ounce for jewelry crafts. These are random assortments, but they usually include a lot of gears and some oddly shaped bits (not watch hands, generally). The scale of the parts is very small. In fact, some of the Amazon reviewers complained (rightly, I think) that the parts were too small for most jewelry applications. Which makes them the perfect scale for minis (Well, large minis like the dragon. They are probably still too big on average for human-sized minis.). I got some and I think the smallest gear in the assortment I got was 1mm across. I think 1/2" is about the biggest size gear I saw, although there occasionally may be parts up to 3/4". The watch parts are sometimes a bit tarnished or with some patina. I trust this will not put people off what really is a very useful gear and bits assortment for steampunk minis conversion.

Chronoscope #50165, "Decker Lugstampf, Steampunk Hero," painted up as a steampunk "White Knight" for a "Wonderland No More" scenario. Just for pure silliness, I took a spare plastic Warhammer Fantasy barded horse head from my "bitz" box, and hollowed out the base with a conical Dremel cutter tool, so that I could fit the head as a helmet over the "White Knight's" head. I left it as a separate, removable piece, though of course all it takes is a light bump of the table and off it falls! (I suppose that's not entirely out of character, considering the White Knight's canonical depiction in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. But then, there really isn't anything else "canonical" about this guy.) I used this fellow for my "Avarice in Plunderland" scenario for Necronomicon 2012 (in St. Petersburg, Florida -- http://www.stonehill.org/necro.htm), ostensibly acting as the "ship's engineer" for the sailing vessel Snark Rider. No, this particular sailing vessel did not actually have an engine. I suppose, given enough time, the White Knight could cobble one together, so that he could justify his own employment, but otherwise he was quite capable of earning his own keep by whacking enemies with that wrench of his, or simply taking over one of the ship's cannons. The base is a resin War Cast Studios "industrial" 25mm round base (http://www.warcaststudios.com) that I opted to paint up in a red-and-white checker-square pattern, in an attempt to tie into the "Chessman" theme.

Pewter miniature manufactured by Reaper Miniatures (Dark Heaven #02644, Demon Thornwort, sculpted by Bob Olley), modified and painted by myself for a game scenario. This was originally a winged pig-demon figure (for when pigs fly?) holding a big sword in the right hand. I left off the wings (separate pieces) and snipped off some spikes on the back, then used some Apoxie Sculpt epoxy putty to fill in the gaps, give him a "razorback" mane to obscure what was left of the spikes, and to give him some pants and a bandanna. I had a couple of plastic "Ogre Kingdoms" (Games Workshop / Warhammer Fantasy) flintlock "bitz" that I got from a local game bazaar, and used them to replace the right sword with a flintlock, and the left hand with a new hand (and flintlock). I would have preferred to give the pig a couple of pepperbox pistols, but I have nothing like that on hand, and this was a much faster conversion than building them from scratch. (Time is a factor here, as I have a game coming up in a week.) I replaced the base; the "wood plank" base and barrel are resin-cast pieces from War Cast Studios (http://www.warcaststudios.com). The character is meant to represent a pre-generated hero, "Mister Pig N. Pepper," the ship's cook on a Wonderland ship crew from my "Avarice in Plunderland" scenario for Necronomicon 2012 (http://www.stonehill.org/necro.htm). This is a one-shot scenario that is something of a mash-up between the pirate genre of Savage Worlds RPG with the "Wonderland No More" setting (http://www.tripleace...rlandNoMore.php). I'll be running this on Sunday, October 28th, at Necronomicon (a gaming/fantasy/sci-fi/horror convention) in St. Petersburg, Florida. In game terms, Mr. Pig N. Pepper is a Gourmancer -- or a maker of magical foods, all of them with pepper as a major trapping/ingredient. The name is inspired by one of the chapter names of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" -- "Pig and Pepper." The backdrop scenery consists of a modified Mega Bloks "Captain Cutlass's Stormstalker" toy ship, with new decks made from mat board and craft sticks.

Later this month, on Sunday, October 28th, I will be running a Wonderland/Pirates mash-up of Savage Worlds RPG at Necronomicon 2012 -- a sci-fi/fantasy/horror/gaming convention in St. Petersburg, Florida. (http://www.stonehill.org/necro.htm) I call it "Avarice in Plunderland." :D Why? Because it seemed like a good pun at the time. (It was late, and I was right up at the deadline for submitting my game schedule.) I've been working on a mix of figures for the pre-generated heroes, combining "Wonderland" themes with a "pirate" spin. Our heroes take to the high seas, as they've been dealt a bad hand by the murderous Queen of Hearts. First up, I figured that I'd start with one of the more nautically-themed characters from Wonderland as (loose!) inspiration for my Mock Turtle Pirate. My best bet was to start with a minotaur, and give it a turtle shell ... plus a few other things. Reaper 14007: Minotaur, Mercenaries Monster (Ben Siens) - converted The figure has been re-based on a War Cast Studios (http://www.warcaststudios.com) "plank" base (meant to suggest the look of a ship's deck). I replaced the minotaur's original arms with a couple of ogre arms I got as part of a "bitz" grab bag deal, from a Warhammer Fantasy "Ogre Kingdoms" sprue. (The cannon came attached to the arms, and I thought it would be amusing to have a minotaur mock turtle carrying one.) I used Apoxie Sculpt two-part epoxy putty to add the tricorn hat, eye patch, pants (very important!) and turtle shell. The background scenery consists of a converted Mega Bloks "Captain Cutlass's Stormstalker" play set, with a new deck and cabin features made from mat board and craft wooden "popsicle" sticks.

Conversion of 65105: Talanka, Female Ogre Shaman into a hill giantess. The club is from the staff that was originally in her left hand. The drinking horn started as one of the tusks strapped to her back.

So I was planning on trying to do a rotpatch model, but after looking at it on the site I am not so sure how well it would look on the table. Got to thinking though that if I was able to modify it a bit so that his pose does not look so "derpy" I could live with the model. I have green stuff on the way and the wires at the ready. I was planning on taking the limbs off to re-do the different parts for a much more dynamic pose. Like instead of his current "gotta pee" pose make it look more like he is stalking towards the adventurers or something. if anybody has done this model before I was wondering what other tools I would need to complete the model? Also what size of a base would he fit on? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

So, I'm trying to take this swashbuckly guy and replace his head. http://www.coolminio...ay-blade-1.html I'm willing to behead any mini I can find, but I REALLY want to finish my wife's Elf bard/Swashbuckler. I don't need it to even be Elven. A slender human would be ok too. Ideally, It would have medium to long hair pulled back, but short hair would do. The one major requirement? He needs to be smirking. Can anyone suggest a smirking face?

I converted two Reaper Miniatures (Achiah, Male Angel, and T`Quan, Skoli Warrior), both by the very talented Sandra Garrity: Here's how the model looks so far, after 5 hours of painting (click to view larger): (I'll post updates here as I go, but you can find more detail in my Blog). Thanks for looking!

I replaced their daggers by axes taken from the 02455 weapons pack IV They were sculpted by Jason Wiebe and the weapons are by Werner Klocke. You can see examples of the original sculptures with the daggers HERE and HERE.

Here is a converted Warhammer Ogre Kingdoms Slavelord that I completed a year ago. I started up with a GW Ogre Bull and added some bits, green stuff and chains. The huge cleaver, the leather mask and the skull artefact are some of the features I crafted. I wanted the base to look like the orange sand from an Australian desert. The Slavelord has always been an inspiring character to me. Known to the Chaos Dwarves as Ghrask Dragh, literally ‘corpse-slaver’. The Slavelord are infamous to enslave their prey in death as well as life with a Soul-Binder chains. Much more then a Butcher, it represents the most fearsome Ogre.

02757, Gastaroth the Vampire sculpted by Werner Klocke riding a 02739, Dire Bat sculpted by Jason Wiebe. I changed the blades of his two swords for new ones from the 02455, Weapons Pack IV, by Werner Klocke.