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We all knew this day would come eventually. The day where OneBoot tosses the very few marbles she has left into the ocean and throws herself in after them. The blank 4th spot in my lovely Goblin Challenge signature badge has been glaring at me for several months now, and my personal circumstances have now aligned to allow me to attempt this, my final Challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with Goblin Painting Challenges, started by our very own @buglips*the*goblin, here is a link to his Kaladrax thread that started it all: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/51269-kaladrax-in-seven-days-buglips-is-crazy-wip/& The short version of the rules is that I will be painting up Dragons Don't Share - 2014 edition in 7 days, using no brushes larger than a size 0. Here's the long version of the rules: You are all invited to join me in my descent into further madness! But only if you bring chocolate and gummy worms. On a personal note, out of all 4 Goblin Challenges, this is actually the one I've been the most nervous about all along (yes, even more so than Ma'al Drakar). Those adventurers are likely to prove to be 5 lovely little time sinks for me, and I'll have to concentrate very hard not to get caught up in all those beautiful details on them! But who knows, maybe it'll end up being the terrain that eats all my time and sanity; we get to find out together! My general plan is as follows: The first couple of days will focus on brown linering and basecoating ALL THE THINGS, while also putting on faces and eyes while my hands are still fairly steady. I will work primarily on the adventurers the first few days, but will take 'breaks' to work on the terrain and the dragon in between to let my eyes and hands relax a bit from the tiny work. My aim is to finish the adventurers by the end of Day 4, or at least get them to "good enough" status; fun fiddly detail bits can be added after this point if I have time, but even without those the figures could be declared done. My final day will likely be focused on finishing up the terrain, and possibly the dragon's wings. Not sure about that yet, but that's what I anticipate. Started: April 3rd 2018, 4:00pm PDT Finished: April 10th 2018, 8:17am PDT Show-off thread: Huzzah! --OneBoot :D

Not sure what her name is but she's out of the DDS2 box. Did a lot of work on shading and blending with her. I feel a little let down by the quality of my photo but I'm pretty happy with how she turned out.

The elf ranger from my Dragons Don't Share 2 group of adventurers. I wanted my adventuring party to be diverse in skin tones so I tried my hand at a Drow. I like how his skin came out although maybe a bit dark. He wasn't my favorite adventurer and you can tell with my painting as I rushed him to get him finished. In hindsight, I didn't like the colors I chose but I didn't feel like starting over on him so he is what he is. He has a cloth tied around his scabbard. I envisioned this as a memento from his lover as he left on his journey, perhaps her scarf. That is why it is a completely different color than anything himself or the rest of the party is wearing. The little bit of white at the bottom of his base is where he was stuck down with sticky tack. I have touched that up. C&C welcome!

I haven't been painting as much as I would like due to some health issues. I have painted a few things and will be posting them on show off as soon as I can get them based. Most stuff I have been painting has been for my campaign based in ancient Egypt. I was getting a little burnt out and have had DDS2 sitting for about a year so I decided I wanted to work on the ruins. I knew I wanted them to fit together but I also wanted to be able to use the individual pieces separately. I made a cork "puzzle" and glued the pieces down. My painting friend suggested making several layers so it wasn't just flat and that sounded like a good idea so I made 3 layers to the "puzzle". All of the pieces fit together as you can see in the photos. Now, I want to use something to make it look like a hill when it is all pushed together. I don't want plaster because it would make it very heavy and not sure how durable that would be. Green stuff is far too expensive to cover the whole thing in. I am thinking maybe FIMO. Not sure yet. Need to make a trip to the art store. I am going to use pieces of cork and try and find a few columns that I can partially bury in the hill. My plan is to paint them up like Roman ruins. Think Pompeii. In the little niches, I am going to paint little murals. I am considering to try a mosaic pattern on some of the floor. So anyway, these are just my puzzle pieces so far.

Okay so Epic may not be appropriate, but I'll let you judge that for yourself. I got my hands on a Dragons Don't Share 2 at Adepticon (thank you reaper Bryan and Reaper Ed!) and I decided to begin a fairly substantial diorama with it. I'm still working on an appropriate name for the piece. I'll have a narrative story to go with it, but the Idea is still changing slightly as I build this. I hope to have this ready for ReaperCon 2016. So to start, This is how one carries a DDS2 home on a motorcycle... And no he will not share with you... On to the actual Diorama! The ideas started when we purchased a Lack end table from Ikea for about $3 from their as is section. We needed the legs but not the top. So I decided that the top would make a great diorama base and it is 22" which is 2" smaller than the size limit for most painting competitions near me (and reapercon). The idea is that an army of Dwarves are attempting to take down a dragon that has been harassing their kingdom. They find the dragon in some ruins near the creek and ambush him. So with this in mind, I started to lay out how I wanted things to be situated. This was a rough test to see how the DDS2 scaled to the table top. I think it worked well. So then it was on to Reaper's website to see about finding the right dwarves for this. I knew I wanted 2 team of Dwarves with chains trying to subdue the dragon. The dragons pose even looks like he is in mid attack so this works well enough. I ordered 6 14596: Kragmarr Guard to act as the chain crews. It will be a fairly straightforward swap from their spears to holding a chin (I hope). I plan to use the dwarf that came with the DDS2 set but not any of the other adventurers. Also shown is 14607 Kragmarr Ram Rider though I'm not sure if he will stay, 14379 Shield Maiden, and 02376 Brag Ironballs. I still need to order some crossbow wielding dwarves and some rank and file dwarves to add to the scene. Plus some dead adventurers and skellys to add to the scenery. right now I have 10 Dwarves in the scene with plans to add at least another 15-20. I'll also be raising the scene on cork so that the building terrain is at slightly different levels and I can add a creek. This is where I am at so far, I have to wait until payday to order more dwarves. I'll leave a nice list of all of the Miniatures I'm using as i go to make it easier. This is an over view of where the Diorama sits now with more dwarves.... Need to re-aim this group I think... Brag Ironballs showing how he got his name... Minis Used so far... 77381: Dragons Don't Share - 2014 Edition (Dragon, Terrain, and Dwarf only) 14596: Kragmarr Guard (x6) 02376: Brag Ironballs 14379: Dwarven Shieldmaiden 14607: Kragmarr Ram Rider

So, I repainted the dragon, and have the adventurers about 90% complete. Probably going to put flocking on the base of the ruins, and have been trying to decide if I want to repaint the stones... again. Anyhow, here is Dragons Don't Share in progress (please forgive the crappy photo) If I redo the stones, it will probably be in the theme of this:

Having grown tired of his parties getting decimated by dragons, Arathanel has decided to turn his coat. His new boss spoke a single word and waved a claw and literally his coat changed. Dragons Don't Share, but they do accept fealty. Nathvarr was paint last year, over two weeks, as I was unhappy with where he was after a week and just kept working.

Here is the mage/wizard/sorceress in my Dragons Don't Share 2 adventuring party. She was fun to paint. I wanted a diverse group so I gave her more of a Mediterranean skin tone and ombre hair. I am still trying to decide if I want to give her a spell effect in her giant hand. It doesn't bother me as much now that it is painted so not sure if I will go ahead with a spell effect or leave her as is. I tried a little freehand on her scarf/cape thing. They aren't quite even but I was relatively happy with the design so am leaving it alone. I am getting a dvd so hopefully my freehand will improve. C&C welcome!

The last of the adventurers painted for my Dragon's Don't Share 2 set is the rogue. I wanted her to be wearing dark clothing and armor but not necessarily black. Cue Nightshade Purple! All of her clothes have Nightshade Purple either as the base or mixed in with other colors. Even her blades have a little NP mixed into the shadows and glazed over. I also gave her a bottle of poison which she has coated the tip of her dagger with. I didn't notice the squashed skeleton on her base until I started painting it. Fun little detail! C&C welcome!

This is the dwarf cleric from my Dragons Don't Share 2 adventuring party. He turned out to be my favorite in the group! He is mostly painted with Reaper paints that I picked up at Wintercon and I love Peacock Green and my new favorite is Nightshade Purple! Seriously, 4 out of 5 of the adventurers has Nightshade purple as either a dominant color or mixed with another color or used as a shadow. What a versatile color! Anyway, this guy was so much fun to paint. He is being so sneaky or cautious, I can't tell which! C&C welcome!

Here is the warrior/paladin guy from my Dragons Don't Share 2 set. He came without his shield so I used one of the new ones from Bones 3. I realized after I super glued it that I stuck it on wrong. Too bad because my super glue works tremendously well! It's not that big of a deal to me so I went ahead and painted him up. I really like how he turned out and I hope you guys do too! C&C always welcome.

While I have great respect for everyone taking on the DDS 2 challenge...I'm not doing that. ;-) Since the whole reason I wanted an airbrush was to do these big figures with less hassle, I'll be using my airbrush. I've primed the dragon bits. Pics soon.

Having now finished my Kaladrax Reborn, I realised there were a few other miniatures I have painted recently that I have not gotten around to posting on the forums! Well, here they are, First up is the human fighter from the dragons don't share. This one was fun to paint, and I painted the shield freehand in what I thought was a very knightly style, quartered with a hawk/phoenix emblem in gold. Next is the bones version of Duke Gerard. He was more challenging, due to my decision to try and paint him in white armour with black detailing, again, the cross emblem on his shield was done freehand. And last but not least is Dain Deepaxe, The way I painted him was fairly typical, but I think he has come out well.

Originally I decided not to get this set with Bones2, At the time I was living in a cramped apartment and had no display areas and little storage space. I did buy most of the other dragons in Bones2, enough for a full set of chromatics. Then I moved to a bigger house with lots of room to display miniatures and scenes. We finished moving in only a few weeks after Bones2 arrived. So I found this set on Ebay instead. 65$ with free shipping. With the contest running hot for painting Maldrakar in a week I decided that the big draw for me was the deadline. Since I passed on Maldrakar, I thought I would try the same timeframe for the biggest dragon I had, and all the terrain. I wasn't going to do the size 0 brush, or the adventuring party that came with the dragon, I have plenty of painted adventures. I could spend another 3-5 painting days on the dragon, massaging the details, and perhaps someday I will. But for now I have a playable/displayable enormous dragon and terrain.