Search the Community

A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm! Every meal is a banquet. Every paycheck a forture. Every formation a parade! I love the corps. So, I've been hitting these a little at a time since the game was released. I haven't played the game (as I mostly want to recreate the old Leading Edge Games game), but I'm sure I will eventually. On with the show: These are from images I posted over in Off Topic. I just realized last night that I'd finished (or nearly so) over half the box! The eggs and facehuggers were done in batches. I could have done them all the same, but I wanted there to be slight differences. I wasn't able to find a lot of information on the actual prop eggs used, so I kind of winged it based on what others were doing. The eggs were Forest Green, Grass Green, and Jade Green--according to my notes. I think that I started with Pure Black on the bases and drybrushed the Forest Green and Grass Green. The fleshy bits were done in Golden Shadow, Golden Skin, and Golden Highlight for three closed and one open egg and one facehugger. The other set of eggs and facehugger were done with Tanned Skin, Tanned Highlight, and Fair Shadow. I am finding that I'm starting with a triad and then "bumping" it up (or down) to keep the colors "together" but add some variety. The first batch of crates are Stormy Grey, Cloudy Grey, and Misty Grey. Second batch of crates is Chestnut Gold, Palamino Gold, and Buckskin Pale. I am really pleased with the dirty look they have. The sealer was still drying on them, so they were still on the caps when I took the picture. The Weyland-Yutani logo is Pure White and Sunlight Yellow over Pure Black. Still six crates to go (2 will be red, 4 in blue or green). I've already made up some sort of weird rules to allow me to justify using multiple (non-grey) colors, also six computer terminals, and two sentry guns. Those have already been started, so will be quick to finish (hopefully). I've seen some folks do some great things with the terminal screens, but that won't be me.

A breezy, cool night in the high desert. Heat lightning crackles on the horizon. Gusts of wind bring the faintest scent of far-off rains. The full moon illuminates a strange crater in the parched earth. Was that there yesterday? All at once, a rumble. The earth quivers and vibrates. Grains of sand begin to dance about near the lip of the hole; then, pebbles. A frenzied writhing that sets the land in tumult! A great roar, the sound of it almost a solid thing, impossibly basso. Again, and again. There is a faint reply on the desert wind: an echo? or another of the unfathomably great burrowers beneath? It's hard for you to tell, but eventually the titanic bulk subsides and the desert is quiet once more, save for a faint shifting of sand and a ripple on the dunes heading for the horizon. This was an old project I never posted; painted back when washes were almost all the paints I had. A great sculpt, dynamic and expressive. The purples are alternating layers of midnight blue and a sort of pinkish red. I should go back and add some razzamatazz to that belly, now I'm seeing the big photographs. While a lot of people think purple worms are D&D cribbing Frank Herbert's sandworms as it did Margaret St. Clair and John Wyndham's fungal underdarks and dark elves--and they ARE pretty rad--I'm convinced that the genesis of both was far earlier, in a 1929 David Henry Keller short from "Amazing Stories." It's called, appropriately enough, "The Worm," and is worth the few minutes of your time to track down and read. Come to think of it, this story might have also partly inspired Ray Bradbury's "The Fog Horn," though the tone of that story is much more wistful and melancholy and less increasing dread. And without THAT, and another tonal shift, monster movies and kaiju movies might have been very different indeed.

Another mini from the Scourge of the Slave Lords set. I really like the way this guy came out. Although doesn't strike me as very Assassin looking, maybe Ranger.

This is one of my favorites. My friend has me painting this whole set from the module The Scourge of Suderham and the requirement is to have them all painted close to the way they appear on the box.

crooked resin staff. I snapped the top part trying to straighten out. My friend grabbed and almost broke the bottom part trying to straighten out, thinking it was metal. It doesn't bother me too much, almost looks animated in a way.

I actually finished this guy a few weeks back, but I didn't have a good set up to take photos of larger miniatures. Then, I realized the recently arrived game mat from Ganesha Games "Axe and Brimstone" Kickstarter would make a great backdrop for the larger pieces. So, here's the Storm Giant Royal Guard from Gale Force 9's "Dungeon & Dragon Collector's Series". Feel the thunder, friends.

Finished up a group of drow this month. I'm running Out of the Abyss for a group of my coworkers, so these should get some tabletop mileage pretty quickly. Thanks for looking! Rogue Archer Warrior Mage Warrior

Also recently completed are a group straight out of the swamp. To start, some group shots, which nicely show how darn tiny the Stonehaven Grippli and Hengoyokai are.

I finally got the confidence to paint up my GF9 purple worm. Beautiful sculpt, but not fun to put together for such a simple design. He had a lot of gaps, and nothing seemed to fit together snugly. What do you think?

I painted up the third Dragon Cult leader from GF9 for the Fifth Edition D&D adventure, Tyranny of Dragons, the ambitious human supreme leader of the cult, Severin the Red. He joins the sly half-dragon, Rezmir the Black, and the treacherous elf, Talis the White. One more to go from this four pack of resin miniatures.

I managed to finish 2 miniatures this week to basic table top (for me) standard. Both are intended to do duties in my DnD games. First up is Razmir, one of the villains from the Hoard of the Dragon Queen module for 5E that I'm running at the FLGS (so good to have one again). She is a resin model produced by Gale Force Nine. Second up is the Bones Tomb Guard, ready for use as an advanced mummy when needed. :) The mummy is on a Back-2-Base-ix dungeon base and Razmir's base comes with her.

Right, so while I wait for my Bones I'm going to attempt to do a WIP for the stuff I'm working through. I'm generally useless at taking progress pics so this will be a new experience for me. On the table at the moment I have my SDE monsters as a distraction and this... The first job was / is cleaning and assembly, so after a good scrub in soapy water I started to put together the main body. The fit was pretty bad and to assemble the 3 parts that I have already I had to boil and bend a few sections so that the sides and the spine meshed together even remotely. There are some gaps in there still but I intend going back in a filling them from the inside. The model comes with a clear plastic flying stand as well as a scenic resin one, so I'm going to use the resin on as otherwise whats the point? Here's the whole kit, minus the flying stand, awaiting my attentions, I've undercoated the inside of the mouth so I can paint that prior to assembly, I'll seal it off when finished with a light coat of varnish and then paint the rest of the fig when its all assembled. A dry fit of the parts has shown theres a hell of a lot more filling to be done once the 'face' gets put on, so I'm hoping my meagre putty pushing skills won't stand out too much on it. Its a pretty daunting job for me at the moment Still not sure what colour to paint it, I like the red scheme but I'm tempted to do a different route, maybe a deep black / purple up to a red highlight, not sure.... As I only get to paint at night I'm scared to get going on it as tired eyes make mistakes, maybe it will become a weekend job.