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And here is 60067, Nyrissa. At long last. The base is from Micro Arts Studio. There's a WIP thread. I was trying to follow the reference art for this important Kingmaker NPC fairly closely. It turned out okay, although I just this second realized that her feet are supposed to be orange like her hands. Blast. Well, I don't think they're getting fixed now, because I am so done with this mini. The gradients. THE GRADIENTS. DEAR GOD, THE GRADIENTS! It turned out okay, but I think this takes my personal award for Most Annoying Mini. It just felt like a slog to get through it.

I'm working on 60067 Nyrissa. She's a major NPC in the Kingmaker adventure path from Paizo. I'm trying to follow the reference art from the cover of the AP pretty closely, though I've checked other threads on the forums for inspiration too. So far I've got a base: The base is from Micro Arts Studio. I gouged a slot in it for the tab at the base of her wings. It's coming along okay, but it's awfully muted. It needs more contrast -- particularly brighter highlights. I've base coated her wings. The wings are 3:3:1 Pine Green/Linen White/Pale Saffron. The vines are in Formula P3 Wurm Green, and the interior petals are your basic Fire Orange. It doesn't come through in the photography very well, but in person the blue in the main wings is a LOT more noticeable. I need to push it more towards the yellow end of the spectrum -- I want them to be the pale, nearly yellow green of fresh leaf growth, before it's had time to mature and darken. I don't quite know what I'm going to do about that. I don't really have any pale green paints -- I generally like dark greens, and have a wide selection of those. I may need to mix something custom. The interior petals are off to a good start, but need to shift red in the deepest parts, and yellow at the edges. I'm less worried about those. I haven't even primed her body yet. I'm not quite sure how to handle it, frankly. It's a lovely sculpt, but difficult to work with. She has a little nubbin between her shoulder blades that fits into the hole you can see in her wings up above, leaving her hovering mid-air. Literally every other part of the mini needs to be painted -- there's no place to hold the part while I'm working. Ordinarily I stick the figures to bottle caps with poster putty (as with the base, above), and I just got that fancy Rathcore mini holder thing that I'm using for her wings. But neither of those will work, because any part of the mini I stick in putty isn't available for painting, and if I stick the nubbin into the cork, that leaves her back inaccessible. Plus I worry that the pressure of the cork might deform the nubbin and cause it not to fit its matching hole properly. So I may need to paint her body in two different phases, first her torso/arms/head, and then her legs. I'll take notes on painting procedures as I go so I can match them on the second half.

So with my ongoing RPG game heading into a new chapter, one that has a rather extensive focus on trolls, it was only right that I start painting up some of everyone's favorite regenerating, pyrophobes. So starting out with (from left to right) Lardgulp 2Headed Troll 02657 by S. Garrity, Bones Marsh Troll 77152 by J Wiebe, and the Bones Cave Troll 77004 by B. Siens. As you can see, the cave troll has already received a layer of blue liner to prepare for the rest of the paint job and has had his broccoli cut off to prepare for a rebasing (which will be a first ever attempt for me for this particular style of base. I do have another cave troll that might get added to this thread if time permits. I also have some Hordes trollbloods that will be used in the campaign as well, but will create a separate thread for them since they are a completely different company. Hoping to make some good progress on the cave troll at least today, though it is absolutely gorgeous outside, so will have to see. :)

Finally finished this guy up for my current campaign I am running. This was a real labor of love for me. I absolutely love the model and loved working on it even though it seemed as though nearly everything that could go wrong, did. From missing part (quickly replaced because Reaper is awesome) to paint cracking, to one antler wanting to continuously fall off, to problems with the basing (caused mostly by my trying to rush last night to get it done in time for today's session). All in all I am pretty happy with this guy considering my current skill level (not very high). My only regret was not noticing that the right eye socket (left as you look at it) on the helm had a bunch of extra metal debris in it until it was too late. Couldn't get it off without risking breaking the model and unfortunately that prevented me from giving it the green glow that is in the other eye socket and where the nose would have been (to represent magic in the helm). I do wish I had more time to better base the model but I just ran out of time. I also realized the value in basing it first and painting the model on a separate holder (cork, bottle cap, etc.), and will definitely be doing so with future models! Regardless, he can now die with honor this afternoon! At any rate, thanks for looking and as always I appreciate any comments or suggestions for improvements. I am always looking for new techniques or ideas on how to improve my current techniques since I am still so new. WIP can be found here. Special thanks go out to @Xherman1964 for all his suggestions as I was painting this guy up.

Next up in my painting journey for my current Pathfinder game. The Stag Lord, a.k.a. the first Big Bad that the party will encounter (likely at the next session, so I may need to speed up the painting process near the end to get him done). This is also proving to be my first "Moby Dick" mini, or perhaps "Murphy's Law" if you prefer. When I first opened him up, I learned that he was missing his bow arm. While it's certainly plausible he'll lose that arm when he encounters the PCs, it seemed a bit premature to me. :) Fortunately, Reaper Customer Service is awesome and even though it was months after I had placed the order, they still replaced the entire mini for free, which is doubly awesome since as a newbie painter I don't have a lot of random extra bits lying about for basing materials, conversions, etc., so getting a full package was pretty sweet (even though I'd have been thrilled with just the one missing piece). Next thing I noticed as I assembled this guy was that he required a lot of gap filling. The helm was a rather loose fit and the cloak didn't really line up in back either. Ironically, this actually didn't bother me much since i saw it as a chance to practice my gap filling which I have not had to do too much of to date. So with that out of the way, I set about priming and getting the base coat on the skin done. Can't really see it here, but I then noticed a weird issue on the skin. For some reason, the paint on his skin began to crack. This is puzzling to me as I am not sure what could be causing it. I had used the same bottle of paint very recently (like less than a week ago) with no problems. Any thoughts on what could have caused it? I've gone over it with another coat and will see how it holds up, but hopefully he won't need a Simple Green Bath. That said, I'm open to suggestions here. The initial plan from here is to go with kind of a dirty bone look on the helm, gray for the cloak, and Coal Black for the armor pieces. Haven't quite decided what to do with the leggings yet, but I'm thinking possibly a darker brown, but I am very much open to suggestions as I freely acknowledge I only have a basic grasp (if that) of color theory. Anyway, thanks for looking and please feel free to provide C&C as I go. I am always looking for pointers, tips, etc. as I continue to slowly improve to a somewhat passable state. :) Ultimately I will be aiming for Table Top quality which I don't think I will have too much trouble achieving (well my version of TT anyway).

Kobolds! Who doesn't love the cute little guys? So these guys were a really quick paint job for my ongoing Pathfinder campaign, and I know what you're thinking. "Gargs, that sorceror is purple!" True, he is, but that's he is described in the module. :) Anyway, for a quick paint job at my relatively newbie level, I'm actually pretty happy with these guys. In retrospect, I probably should have chosen a different color for the shirt on the sorceror, but honestly, wasn't sure what would contrast well with his dark skin. Any thoughts for future reference? Eventually, I may go back and add some OSL to the sorceror as well, but trying to tackle two different flame effects was definitely a bit intimidating to me and I wanted to get them done in time for game day. Biggest fear I had was trying to figure out the color of the OSL effect given that the flames are made up of multiple colors themselves. Anyway, as always any comments, critiques, advice, etc. are always appreciated! Thanks for looking!

So I'm playing in the Kingmaker PbP run by Vil-hatarn. My character is an exiled Chelaxian noble (well, he's been disowned so I guess that's former noble), and because I like to rationalize my mini purchases (it's not a disorder damn it!), I am trying to find a figure to paint up to represent him (as characters that have painted minis roll better). Alexi Dromange is Shelaxian as I have said but has been training to be a Aldori Swordlord (fighter type). His main weapon is the Aldori Dueling sword (a curved longsword) and he does wear armor. He doesn't normally use a shield or a second weapon in his off hand. He tends to be well dressed. I havn't decided on facial hair, most likely clean shaven (if bearded a neat goatee or trimmed beard). I ideas I have had so far: 2144 Eric Swift Blade: Pros Curved sword, clothing could be fancy. Cons: no armor (but maybe his about town wear?) and I'm not digging the 'do rag. 2186 Alfred Redlute: cut out the lute, curve the sword, could work 3065 Kellen, Nobleman Adventurer: cut out the dagger, paint the armor fancy maybe (Alexi will most likely wear heavier armor but could come close) 3556 Ashlan Fell Thrush: Looks great except for the shield. Cool guy why do I not have him? Added to wish list. 60119 Andoran Steel Falcon: Is the shield on his back a separate piece. If so a weapon swap and he can work. 60127 Hell Knight Captain: Ohhh, this could be the one. No conversion needed clean cut (as long as I don't paint stubble). 60148 Sandru Vhiski another useable figure So what do you guys think? Anyone I over looked? I'm fine with other manufacturers as well, I'm just more familiar with Reaper.