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Hi all, painting a bit less infrequently these days due to this and that and the other, but just finished this one recently, a Wizard from Dennis Mize's range Children of the Night. He's a pretty small little guy, probably about half the material a modern mage would take up, pretty faithful to 25 MM: Pretty simple figure but as such rather enjoyable and quick to paint. In the photos there is a weird light reflection in his cape in the darkest recesses which is weird because there's not an unpainted patch there, just odd the way the light hit it. Anyhoos, enjoy this blast from the past, I think this is one of those 1979-1982 figures, forgot to look at the bottom.

Good evening all you Reaperpaths! So tonight I've got an old blister pack of miniatures, a mounted and and foot Lord Soth, sculpted by Dennis Mize for Ral Partha's D & D TSR series from the eighties and nineties. This is another one of the miniatures that I'm going to be selling on EBay (just listed them a moment ago), and the proceeds of the sale are going to go straight to Melissa Noe, the wife of Michael Noe, Iron Wind Metal's president. She was diagnosed last year with cancer and their bills are copious even with insurance, so trying to do a bit to help out. Anyhoos, here they are finally, first Lord Soth on foot: and then Lord Soth on his loyal steed (not saying the steed has much say in the matter really): and here they are together: I had a few problems, as I'd mentioned in my little post under the "Painting Tips and Advice" forum, where lots of the chainmail I could see little white holes that just didn't get filled, but spent lots of hours trying to fill them individually and was successful to some degree, and if not under a 3000 x 2000 pixelated photo, you really notice overly the holes. The other thing that I did was I was able paint the second eye in the Lord Soth on foot, for which I added that close up because I was so happy I was able to get it done. So crossing my fingers and hope to find a buyer for these two fellas and their horsey. If you happen to know anybody that collects Partha figures, make sure to mention to them that this is out there, just waiting to find a new owner, and that all money received is pretty much just going to straight to some medical bills for a very nice lady. Anyhoos, at the very least I hope you all enjoy the paint job! Thanks, Mark

And the last mini of the evening, this one is an eastern wizard, sculpted by Dennis Mize. Mize was a very big fan of Harryhausen movies and stop motion animation, and this was his version of one of their wizards from one of those great old Sinbad movie. I don't remember when these figures were sculpted but this, along with some other from the same genre were some of the last miniatures Mize did for Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals. As always, colors were hard to choose. The one thing I knew I wanted was for him to have that kind of cool dyed orangish beard that I've seen before in some Middle Eastern older gentlemen. Anyhoos, here he is: The hardest thing to do on this gent was his eyes because they are so deeply set. I'm still not exactly sure what they look like.

Another I found in my loose figure bin and thought he would be fun paint job.

And another finished mini this evening! So I've had a free-ish week and have been busy like a Keebler elf making cookies, painting as much as time would permit. This one is a Vampire Lord as per its original packaging back from either late seventies or early eighties. Later on when he got separated from the blister pack, they called him a gesturing wizard. With this in mind, my question was do I make him a vampire or a wizard? So I wanted to have him pale and pasty like his vampirish early concept, so here is the result:

Hello ReaperWorld! So here is a lady I just finished, one that came from the Silver and Steel series that Reaper did years way back. Sculpted by Dennis Mize, based on some Larry Elmore artwork. I think from what I have seen, the actual artwork was black and white and the box art was with her being blonde and pink clothing, so I had all my options open. So here she is:

Good evening my Reaperlangarians! So it feels like I haven't been too productive this year, got kind of stuck on painting Lord Soth, which seemed to take longer than it should have, but now that he's painted up, it's onwards to other little projects. These two I actually finished last weekend, but I always take pictures with sunny weather, but it's been cloudy all week long until today. The only time it was sunny was last Sunday when I got up, went grocery shopping really quickly to Aldis and when I got home, saw the sun. I went into the shower really quickly to clean up and then I was going to take pictures of these ladies, but by the time I got out and dried off it was cloudy again. So anyhoos, pictures finally taken and here they are, the first is a Female Dwarven Warrior, not too sure who sculpted her: and the next one is Kylie Darkwalker, a Wild Elf Thief, sculptor also unknown: I like both figures, both pretty fun. I like them especially because they are Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals figures, but I think sculpted much later in the company's history. I'm guessing latter nineties, but no way to be sure without asking. I'm a bit puzzled by my choice of colors for the elf. I figured wild elf, and though kind of woodsy elf, with brown skin (base code was Reaper's shield brown), and her top is green, but then she has those funky purple pants. She kind of reminds me if I harken back to the days of an old Olivia Newton John video, Let's Get Physical, or something like that where she has a green top and I think pinky/purply spandex pants. I actually just went to look at a picture and my memory was a bit faulty, it was a bright blue top and pink sweatpants. In any case, hope these provide moments of visual pleasure and simulation, until the next chunk of minis!

Alway wanted to paint him as it brings back memories of my days playing Pool of Radiance on the computer. My first thought was to paint him in brown colors that I remembered in the game but when searching for pictures of Ormyrr's they were all blue, thus... When I had gotten him the swords on him were broken and were way to skinny to pin and glue back in place so replaced. Unfortunately, after looking at the pics, I just took I should have just used the blades and taken off the hand guards but oh well as they say hindsight is...

Good evening all and happy new year! First finished miniature of the year, a Ral Partha thief with sword and dagger. These photos might be a little dark, so apologies for that, but here he is, probably sculpted some time back in the eighties if I'm not mistaken: The only part I really didn't like was how the dagger came out in front. The back cam out just fine, but the front of the dagger was a bit bumpy and odd. Anyhoos, here is it, enjoy and Happy Slappy New Year to everybody!

So through the winds of destiny, I had found out about this miniature and even had a really poor, squishy nosed copy of her. I really didn't know where she came from, but as I was wandering around EBay recently as I was doing auctions for Melissa Noe related to her cancer, I came upon an auction that I found rather interesting. It was a whole blister pack of these little ladies, whose origin was rather mysterious, at least to me. This is one of the miniatures whose existence I was aware of but didn't know in what context she fit in the whole Ral Partha pantheon. Well, I ended up winning her bid, and was the only one who did actually bid at 15.00 plus shipping, so got this delightful pack of six identical ladies: Come to find out, at least as per the Lost Mini Wiki, she's a part of Ral Partha's old Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age line, sculpted back then by Dennis Mize. The miniature itself is stamped with 1979 on her base. So, now before I had one cruddy copy. Now I have six copies, and it looks like they all have noses and such, so life is good. I've had these about a month and just painted my first copy of her: This is the first version of her and hope to paint a few more over the next few months/years when I get so inspired. The other thing that it worth pointing out is this little lady is really small. She's from a 25 mm line when 25 mm really meant something. I took a few photographs so you could see what I mean by petite, first picture of her up against a Reaper paint bottle: Sorry the picture is so dark but at least sizewise you can see how petite she is, and then the other picture shows her against a beautifully sculpted Werner Klocke hobbitess I painted many many years ago: That picture can help with notions of size creep and just how small some of the old miniatures used to be. So this is one of my Holy Grail miniatures that I was wanting for a while, but never knew enough that it really existed that I could actually try to hunt her down, and now I have six of them! My other Ral Partha Holy Grail is the Children of the Night Brontotherium and Rider, not so much for the Brontotherium, as that figure currently exists on Ral Partha Legacy's web site, but the actual Rider, who is this little cave check mounted on this prehistoric beast with a spear in her hands. One day hope to get a hold of a good copy of her too, and then I will have all my Ral Partha desires fulfilled. Then comes the hard part, have to paint them all. Oh when will it ever end? Hopefully never....... Anyhoos, a little bit of material for your reading and viewing pleasure, enjoy!

Good afternoon chaps and chapettes, here are a few woolies, sculpted by Tom Meier in his Sparkle and Savage range, when he had his own company Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures. These have been nowadays related at Ral Partha Legacy: and they come as a group as well: Imagine all the fanciful colors you could make these if you had a big group of them!

Here's another one I just finished, also from Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures, The Slug Eat Your Face, conceptualized by Theo Meier and sculpted by his dad Tom. Easy and quick miniature to paint once you decide on colors: The pupil in the big eye is a little weird as Mr. Meier basically just put a hole where he thought the pupil might be so that's the black part of his pupil and the other little eye was so deeply sculpted in, and also the pupil was sculpted inwards, that it was a little hard to reach, but a fun miniature to paint just the same!

Hello my Reaperleapers! So I wanted to repaint this figure, that I had probably already painted ten years ago, because I never liked her left eye, thinking it was too big and bulbous, and I thought it was due to my actual paint job. So I painted the eye, as it's small and hard to get gauge with a line instead of a dot, so maybe it looked to me for that reason a little bit odd as well. So fast forward a decade and I decided to repaint her with a different color scheme with the hopes of repairing her eye, but with the second time around, I realized that the sculpt of the eye was just big and round. So here's my new version, different color scheme and with the thought of eye reparations that didn't apparently seem to work out or matter: and here's the original one from who knows how far back: and here they are together: I think I actually like the coloring on the first one better, with the white and red. I think maybe the metal turned out better on the newer one (even though I still think the axe head is too blue) and I tried to do some bronze/brass/who knows what color on her grieves and the thingy that goes around her throat, but who knows. I'm still not that satisfied. Are we just doomed to never be satisfied with some of our little projects?

Hello all you Reaper Acolytes! So tonight going a little demonic, just finished painting these three Demon Women, sculpted by Dennis Mize. I'm not so sure how good the photos actually are, they end up being a lot smaller on detail because they've got those big, tall wings. I'm also kind of wondering about their faces. With my thought of "demon women", I thought they'd be a little more natural, not tons of makeup, so I didn't put in any eye shadow or even eyebrows. I also did eyes without pupils. I wanted to do some different colors, so the red one has yellow eyes, the white one green eyes, and the purple one has light blue eyes. I'm. not so well though these translate visually, and I'm vaguely considering painting them again, but not so sure because once I finish something I'm usually moving on to the next project already. So we'll see. The white lady's eyes seemingly were a bit more pale than I wanted for example, and the red one's eyes seem too flat. The purple one's eyes in the photos actually look to me more white than blue. So maybe I'll update. who knows.... As always, apart from thinking of how the eyes turned out, the biggest issue was choosing colors. I knew the skin colors I wanted, but the clothes were another story all together. Eventually had to choose some color, and I knew I wanted the lava-ey bases, so hopefully they all turned out okay. So anyhoos, enjoy!

Finally, some time to paint! I wanted to take a break from my ongoing mini projects, so I painted up these guys. Ral Partha & 70's kung fu movies, that's a perfect combination in my books. So here is the result of what I fear was my last painting session in 2022:

Hello all you Reaperphonics! So today's mini is a Druid, originally sculpted for Kenzer and Company under a miniature line they had for a number of years and afterwards sold to Iron Wind Metals who produces him nowadays. I have no idea who the sculptor is, maybe somebody else does. I've always liked this figure. Like so many of the Hackmaster figures, he's kind of a bit chunky and "raw", but he's got a goodly amount of personality, and was enjoyable to paint. I did notice that I've been painting a lot of purple pants lately, need to stop doing that.

So continuing my barbarian, slightly-avoiding copyright infringement miniatures, here's a random Barbarian Warlord with Great Sword, or is it just a great sword? Anyhoos, he may or may not resemble some great square jawed barbarian, only you and Crom know for sure: He's got a crazy, exaggerated helmet, but I'm guessing it's ceremonial? Or who knows, maybe he uses it when he's samba dancing.....

Hello Reaperboreans! So here's just a straight off basic old fashion barbarian, who you may vaguely recognize from the movies:

Happy weekend to all! So this figure I'd painted I don't know how many years ago, and over the last years or two wanted to paint her again because I felt I could do a better job on her with years of experience behind me. So here is the updated version of this figure with different colors and hopefully better highlights and shadow, different color selection, and with this on I really didn't do much more than a green stuff flattish base because the figure itself is so small that when you start putting stuff in front and behind it covers up that ground level detail, you hide the hands for example. Also with this newer version I think I found things that I didn't notice in the first figure, I think two rings on her hands and in the shoes, she actually had some open space where skin was exposed that I didn't notice the first time. I have to say that both of these versions were horribly difficult to photograph so don't know how well they came out, she's small and has some odd angles to photograph. Anyhoos, here's the newest updated version: And here's the original version that I'm guessing I painted I don't know how long ago, maybe ten years earlier? She's kind of a weird figure too, because assuming she has that chainmail under her shirt and then over her pants, it kind of makes me wonder how well that was actually thought out or how it would work, but equally it's not actually chainmail, but just some fabric and I've been perceiving it erroneously as chain mail all these years. Anyhoo, which version do you like better? Let me know what you think!

I started another beast of the old FanPro range. It is now cast by Ral Partha Europe. It is a Mix of lion, man and Scorpion. After painting character models I wanted something more straightforward. And hairy beast are a good way for doing that.

Good morning all you Reaperphonics! So this morning a miniature I just finished, and for this, so many different little elements, I just kept choosing and choosing and choosing colors as they were painted because I had no idea what I wanted to do, just that I wanted him painted finally after so many years of just sitting there and mocking me. I really like this little guy, love his little, tiny familiar on his shoulder and the open potion bottle, extremely fun. Sculpted by Richard Kerr in 1992, so 30 years old (just went downstairs and checked another copy I had to him for the year). Beyond a traveling wizard he almost gives me kind of a pimpy vibe, struttin' his stuff, but maybe he just pimps out lady demons on the side. So anyway, hope you all like him, let me know if you think there are too many colors or if it actually ends up working!

So, finished this one up over the weekend and got some pictures taken. I didn't really realize it but I've been painting a decent number of magic users recently, and here's another to add to the list, a "wizard with staff", sculpted by Julie Guthrie, probably back in the latter eighties, fun piece. I didn't want him to look too old with a white beard, so went with a darker color. One more down, thousands more to go!

Hello again all you fine Reaper folk! So a few months back I did an EBay auction to help out Mike and Melissa Noe, the president of Iron Wind Metals and his wife, as Melissa has been diagnosed with cancer and the bills I imagine are going to be quite considerable. I'd painted and sold a rare Molydeus miniature, from the Ral Partha TSR Planescape range, and it did okay out there. I wanted to try to see if I could I could continue on with this idea of painting for charity, so I've painted another one for Mike and Melissa, whose proceeds are going to go directly again to them so they can pay off medical bills. With this one I wanted something again old, rare and classic and I still had one of these old lead monsters hanging around, so I've painted up Tom Meier's three headed troll again: Bizarrely enough I've painted this figure before already twice, once maybe around 2015 (?), and again back in 2005. I found the old photos actually both in my old Reaper posts: 2015-ish or earlier: and this one I think from around 2005 or so: So I'm apparently not very original, as I keep using the same color scheme but hopefully over the last 17 years or so I've improved a tad, which honestly don't see much improvement between the second and third version, but as you all know we're our own worst critics. Anyhoos, if you ever wanted a reasonably nicely painted version of this mini, knowing that all the money made from its sale is going to a good cause, please feel free to go out to EvilBay and place a bid, or tell your friends and neighbors, spread the word. I actually sold that first and oldest 3 Stooges troll aeons ago on EBay, thinking it would go to a Ral Partha collector, but apparently the guy that bought it was a fan of the Three Stooges, who would have thunk it? Anyhoos (again) thanks for having a look, hope you enjoy!

Good morning all you folk of the Reaper persuasion, who maybe should get their own pronoun, re. So I just finished this evil wizard up, sculpted way back in the eighties by Dennis Mize, I think to replace an earlier Citadel model. Tried to keep him dark, and originally thought about starting all black and just use different highlight coloring for the cape and for the cloak, but then kind of wussed out and thought nothing cries evil like a man with a pink cloak (a la Roose Bolton) so here he is for your viewing pleasure: Enjoy all of his fashion glory!

Hello All, so hopefully after my anthropomorphic cat, this one won't be a disappointment! So probably already about two years ago, I sold my original version of this mini for an amount that I just could not refuse (and was in fact instrumental in giving me funds for Bones VI), and figured I'd just paint her again. It took forever to get around to it, but now I've gotten my second rendition of her, and she is underneath: I am reasonably satisfied with her but the issue I have is with her eyes. Even though live it doesn't seem she has them, she has in the photos at least large dark lines under them. Here is the original version of this chick that I painted maybe around 2018: where I like her eyes a whole lot better in the second blue version, or actually the first original version. As I go back to an unpainted version of this gal, I'm a bit confused because the actual eyes are actually rather large and circular, more akin to the pink dressed lass, so not what sure what has happened. All in all though, being I do have another unpainted version of her, I almost feel obligated to want to try again until I'm 100% happy. Does anybody else ever have this issue? I'm not sure when I'll get around to version number three, but I'm guessing it might frustrate me to have it done in 2023 sometimes amongst all my little other projects.