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Hello everyone. Here it is, I completed my chimeric aberration. At the heart of the barren wasteland, during a cursed journey to redemption, the champion met a limping chimeric aberration. It has the main features of a giant hound, a vulture head stretches out of its right side and a hulking insect head sits on the left side. Every part I used are from Reaper Miniatures. The main body is a 02817 Moor Hound sculpted by Ben Siens. The two extra heads are from 03069, Hooked Hulk sculpted by Michael Brower which are included in 03440 creature components pack 2. The spiked tail is from a 14456 Mastema sculpted by Julie Guthrie, included in 03334 Creature Components. The wings are from a 03641 Gunslinger model sculpted by Bob Ridolfi. I finally swapped its left side paws for claw and a palmed foot at the back. These parts are part of the 03440 creature components pack 2. The colors are all Reaper MSP paint. I was inspired by the Cù-Sìth from the Scottish folklore for the main body. The additional heads have traditional vulture and praying mantis colors. Due to the large size of the monster, I built a 50mm wide base. I plan to create the stats for this monster and build a surprise encounter for my fellow D&D player. Let me know what you think about it. Here is the link to the WIP. More pics under the spoiler.

From Bones 3: Gug "It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped with formidable talons. After it came another paw, and after that a great black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms. Then two pink eyes shone, and the head of the awakened gug sentry, large as a barrel, wabbled into view. The eyes jutted two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs. But the head was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally." H.P.Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath Ahoy, my dream enemy! Have at you! Also, this one will be a part of the Kings of War Nightstalkers army. 77524 Gug, Eldritch Horror from the Bones 3 Mythos expansion Reaper Miniatures 2016 Sculpted by Michael Brower Classic Bones 40mm base

In Bones 2, Reaper had several large sea monster creatures, one of which, the Goroloth (Reaper’s answer to the Aboleth), came in the Expansion 2 set. This was one of the figures I was least interested in, and figured that if I ever got around to painting it, it would be because I was trying to finish up the set. Primordial evil fish monsters just aren’t my thing. Of course then my DM decided to introduce one into her game… so… Now I’m painting an aboleth. My inspiration from the 2e Monster Manual. After digging it out of my boxes of Bones minis, I did my usual washing in hot soapy water and scrubbing with a toothbrush. Mold lines were minimal, and ignored, but I did notice that the plastic on this guy was much softer than I’m used to. Reminded me a lot of Kaladrax’s head. Along with assembling, I went to the 5e Monster Manual to check on the size of an Aboleth. Large, aka a 2” base. Far too tiny for this mini, so I upped it to a 3” base. I glued the flying stand to the bigger base, and then covered it with blocks of cork attached with hot glue. I was picturing an underwater ruined palace. Sadly I don’t have a good statue that I could have ruined on the base. Once the mini was all assembled, I primed it with Blue Liner, and then blocked out the colors with Deep Ocean Blue, Oceanic Blue, and Marine Teal. The bony bits were painted with bone, as were the stripes on the tentacles, while the gills and suckers on the tentacles were painted with Monster Maw. The many eyes were painted with Heraldic Red. I then gave just about everything a wash with GW’s Leviathan Purple. It seemed appropriate. Returning to the base I primed it with black craft paint, and then dry brushed it with Mountain Stone, with more and more linen white added to it. I then applied dots of Jade Green to look like sea moss growing on it. I still need to bring the highlights back up, but this is where he's at now: Gonna call that ready for game!

Super quick paint job for these guys... My son wanted them for the Dragon Rampant army I'm painting him for Christmas, and I've still got a lot more to do so I everything I do in the next while is likely to be a bit rushed. Base coat was Vallejo Model Air, Armour Brown, then drybrushed heavily with Desert Stone, lightly with Dirty Bone, then a little more heavily again with Olive Drab. The Olive Drab doesn't really show up in the picture but it's pretty decent in person - not overpowering, just enough to make them look more like old trees.

Here's a few pics of my Bones Great Worm, completed during my July paint binge. Here's some pics of rats. I especially like the cow patterned one. WIP is here:

Reaper released a few minis in Bones before taking them to kickstarter the first time. Here is one of them: And what a beauty it is! That head would take pride of place in the monster hunter's wall of stuffed trophies! I really don't know why I have not painted one this earlier. It is a great piece, really three dimensional and wiggly as it were. And this would be maybe a fifth of it's total length. Too bad about the prominent mould lines and my early days inept removal of same with a knife. The resultant cut flats are especially noticable down the back. 77006 Great Worm Reaper Bones, pre-kickstarter sculpted by Michael Brower Bonesium PVC 50mm base

There is a dude who hosts an online painting and chat time through Google Hangouts. It's tons of fun. I have attended several, and met quite a few characters in the process. Overall, they are great group of people who share in my hobby of painting. Here is one of the pieces I was working on while chatting tonight. Its part of a desert theme I have been working on. There is also a scorpion, a group of gnolls, and a group of kobolds The worm will be a boss of sorts, offering my players a hefty challenge. He is still a WIP, but so far, I am really liking the way everything is coming out. The white specks are going to be colored in, but I have at least 1-2 more layers to add for some highlights on the skin before I dive into the details. CAH

Stefan d'Marque moved through the abandoned town quickly. The large holes in the ground disturbed him greatly. Could that be where townsfolk had disappeared to? What manner of creature could move through the rock and dirt in such a manner? His answer came quick and sudden, as the ground beneath his feet shift. Into the air he went, though he was not thrown. The bone crushing, flesh tearing pain surged through his body. Stefan cried out in pain, stabbing downward. It was all for not, as the great beast beneath him swallowed his torso. Stefan took his last gasp of air... his vision blurred, and went dark. The great beast disappeared into the earth, its appetite sated... for now. This one was so much fun to paint. Though I had the idea of a purple worm when I started, I kind of had the joker in mind when I started putting paint to mini. I am very pleased with the end result. CAH

So I am embarrassed to say that my daughter has painted more minis than I have but the work she does has been pretty awesome and I hope she continues to enjoy this hobby. She turned 5 at the end of last month. Showing in the order she completed them. Vanja, Fire Giant Queen - This one I got for her around July when we took a trip to Reaper and I had her pick a mini out. She finally got to paint it around November. I helped only with the skin. She was tired of painting by the time she got to only the skin and so I slapped the color she wanted on there. Fire Dragon - This mini was bought during the Reaper Artist Con I think. She painted it the weekend of her birthday. I talked her into letting me show her what a quick wash of black would do to it. Great Worm - This is one of the minis she got from my mom for her birthday. It was the easier of the two for us to set up so she could paint right away. She picked the colors and just went crazy with it. I even let her use my detail Reaper brush for the teeth. She has already been picking out things in my Bones II stash she wants to paint but we may tackle her other birthday gift from my mom first, Nethyrmaul the Undying. One day I will find the Pathfinder Red Dragon in stock and she can paint it. Edit: Forgot to add tags

Painted up 77006: Great Worm after NomadZeke requested a nontraditional monster for the 2015 Summer exchange. (It's really fun, you should join) Been trying to work on more range in my shadows and highlights so I tried out the technique from How to Blend by olliekickflip. Still need a lot of practice but I call it a success. All of the shading was done only by starting with a white base and building up the paint.

So neat byproduct of entering your minis into the ReaperCon Master Series Paint Contest is that they take really nice photos of your minis. Did these a few years ago but I've never entered before and they were one of the few painted pieces I inadvertently brought to the con. Several of the other forumites strong armed me into entering and I'm glad they did. These guys did suffer from the "Hey this is Gloss sealer, not Matte!" but other than that I'm still pretty proud of them.