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Done with all Reaper Paints and an AP Wash

Here is the start of pathfinder red, which I’ll be doing as a Sapphire dragon, similar to what i did with the Grenadier Red Dragon II (which I did as a Ruby dragon) a while ago. Just base colors here; dark blue/black wash over his entire body, earth wash over the sand, and white statue. I really like how the blue and brown look together. The brown will be lightened up to sand, and the blue will end up a more saturated dark blue. I hope those colors will still look good together...

... The larch? Heh. No, but I want to try something very different from my preferred style in order to branch out and try new things. I recently watched Coco (um... several times) and took a liking to the alebrijes, especially Pepita. I really want Reaper to make a Pepita. So this is my way of showing how fun it could be! The plan: A chibi lion with patterns like the traditional Oaxacan Alebrijes. This means fun bright colors and an attempt at making a piece look like wooden folk art. It can be done! First step, research. ...and my personal favorite: Perfect! I wanted to practice red anyway. I ended up choosing red shadow, dragon red, big top red, seoni scarlet, volcanic orange, marigold yellow and sun yellow as my colors. Second step is to pick a mini. I supported Impact's kickstarter quite awhile ago and almost forgot I had this fellow. It's the Venetian Lion. I set forth in an effort to prep the mini. Um... it took a lot of prep. I decided to go ahead and attach one wing at the risk of making the body harder to paint. I sanded for about half a day then filled in all the bubbles and sculpted one set of claws. Er, I'm hoping their QC has improved since the kickstarter, because this piece took almost a day to prep. Oddly, I think the 3D print went into the mold un-sanded and with texture, because the large surfaces had a texturing I associate with those prints. It took several layers of sealer to smooth. But, I finally got him primed. Isn't he cute! Next, I basecoated with red shadow. why red shadow, you ask? Because red is awful at coverage because of its translucency. So, basecoat with a red brown. This will save you frustration down the road. Next, layer with dragon red. Leave a few areas of the red shadow as deepest shadows. Here's where I had to decided to commit to the wooden/statue route, because a real lion would have a darker back and a pale belly, whereas a figure in top-down light would be the opposite. Still not red? Never fear! Also, put a lot of layers of each step. Lots and lots of layers. Next step big top red. Next, seoni scarlet. I like this color. It's super intense. Very shiny. Except it's matte, but you know what I mean. Boom! Now we're in the red zone. Now, I need eyes. A miniature is lifeless until we add eyes. I like doing them early because they often help guide the rest of the project. I basecoated the eyes with marigold yellow. Then shaded the edges with volcanic orange. Then I added some sun yellow to the center. Even a chibi eye can afford some shading, otherwise the socket looks too flat. After that, I drew in the iris shape. I used red shadow and added a pupil of nightshade purple. When I was happy with the shape and balance, I filled in the eye with some terra nova tundra and more of the yellows. Excellent! I also mixed a bit of linen white into the yellow just at the edge of the iris ring. Here's a front view: Last step in eyes if adding the white reflection. I used pure white for contrast. So he's sort of a demonic cute lion. It could work, right? Then I wanted to try out wing patterns. For the last 3 days I've been wanting to get to the fun part, so I forged ahead and rushed to this step. As it turns out, that was an error, but it worked out in the end. I think. Ok, the key to freehand is breaking down a pattern into something simple. I started with circles. Filled in the circles and added some teardrop lines. added some more lines. and on and on... Until I felt like I was getting closer to pattern. It was then I realized the wing looked way to flat and dull. I needed more shading. What I should have done was make the feather lighter near the origin to add more contrast. So I glazed over the pattern. I'll just have to pick it back up again after I'm done with the shading. Here's the wing with the shading. I'll touch it up a bunch, then rework the pattern. But I think I like it better with the change in contrast. We'll see. I can always paint over it. Sigh. That will teach me to skip to the fun stuff. More later! As always, feel free to ask questions!

So I'm still experimenting with glow effects, but I'm pretty happy with this one Painted her to be used as a sorcerer in my 9th age army

My thinking when painting this guy was that his scales would all be gemstones. When D&D dragons were conceived, I think it was a big mistake to have the good dragon be metals and the evil ones colors. The evil ones should have been named after gemstones: ruby, sapphire, emerald, onyx, and opal. So here is the ruby dragon, in his volcanic home. I hope you like it. Thanks a ton to everyone in the WIP forum for advice and encouragement!

Greetings! I envisaged the prarie tick queen as a monstrous bloodsucker so I gave her a red bloated body. The markings on the body are meant to be blood vessels inside her but I think I made them too dark. Thanks for looking!!

I did the eyes for this one months ago. I'm going to try NMM steel on her armor and weapons (I've mostly done weapons previously). Skin is the olive triad, but i tried the yellow-red-blue top to bottom as tints, in addition to my red brick shadows and golden highlights. Hair is base coated only. Skirt has a dark shadow base, and preliminary deepest shadow layers. It will be a deep red in the end. I'll keep taking it brighter until I am happy with it. I want it to be a bit darker than some of the trim on the armor. Perhaps it will get freehanded. Not sure yet. Also... oh my gosh my paint stays wet for SO LONG. What?! How do I? I can blend the things!?

This was another ina large collection of oldies that my high school friends gave me. Trying to make the scales look like garnets or rubies. Please critique!

So, one of my personal mini projects atm is working on some of the NPCs my players in my homebrew campaign are encountering. And one of my favorite groups in that world are the Hunts - a loose-bound organization of groups (each called a Hunt) of fighters/mercenaries/warriors, each with their own specialty, who dedicated themselves to maintaining the roads and paths of Fidel during the millenia-long anarchy of the Mortal Wars. Now, what makes the Hunts distinctive from any other mercenary bands? Well, they ride BADASS FLYING MOUNTS. Gryphons, for the most part, although one or two specialize in pegasi, and a few ride more esoteric things... Four NPCs intimately intertwined with the group are members of the Red Hunt - a sort of catch-all for powerful, destructive mages. Faukner, her apprentices Formel and Tiercel, and her wife, Charr. So, I've had the Stonehaven Half-Dragon Duelist for ages. It's one of my favorite dragonborn minis, and I decided it'd be perfect for the swashbuckling Charr... It's a great mini, neat and clean with tons of personality. To give you an idea of who Charr is... Anyways, I've decided to do a WIP of this set of minis, starting with Charr's two forms. This is the thread for her humanoid form, obviously - I'm painting up the Temple Dragon for her dragonness form, and I'll try to do a WIP for that, too. So! I started off nice and simple - hit the face with some red, and decided on a blue-and-white scheme for the cloths. I'm trying to bring out some of the swashbuckler in this mini, so I like the naval colors. That said, I could use ideas for the cravat. Ordinarily, I'd paint my dragonborn's hair simularly to her scales and try to ignore it, but gonna go with dark for these dreads. They're sweet as hell. Wish DSM would give us a KS for these. And there's the face, pretty much finished, TBH! I washed it with Games Workshop's purple wash, pretty heavily so it'd sit well in the mouth and scale cracks, and then highlighted just with pure red. This is a proof-of-concept for the temple dragon, as well as a mini on it's own, and I'm pretty happy with it! Used Palimimo Gold for the eyes - something else that'll carry over!

Straight from the depths of hell, it's.........Devil Girl, Supervillain! (cue scary music!) For a change, instead of painting the eyes looking straight on, I painted them so that she was looking to the right as if she just spied a do-gooding superhero & was about to lob a fireball in their direction. The base was created using the Basius "Dungeon" stamp with the river part painted up as lava - I imagined that wherever she walked, the ground morphed into fiery molten goodness. Thanks for looking, comments & criticisms are always welcome.

I finally finished Jannus! For those who want it, my WIP is here. I decided to take the very first miniature I ever painted back in 1996 and paint a new version of him with using some of the things I've learned over time, even though I took about a 6 year hiatus from painting in the last 20 years. My goal is to show that yes, practice does improve skill. Also that if you keep painting, you can accomplish some fun and exciting things! This will be a present for our DM for years of herding us gamer-cats despite our varied schedules! This was one of reaper's earlier miniatures, sculpted by Sandra Garrity. Gotta love the tiny eyes! Here are the original and the new version side by side:

Right. This project has been ticking in the back of my mind for awhile. The story starts about 20 years ago, when I painted my very first miniature for our D&D game, our NPC cleric from the Temple of Elemental Evil module. I love that module, and I loved our cleric more, since he managed to save/raise our butts more times than I can count. Jannus came from farmer stock, and took a tough love approach to healing, all stemming back to the dreaded 1 rolled on a healing check, subsequently involving salt in a wound. Good times. It became a standing joke for years to come. I love the way our epic failures are remembered far better than the successes! Here's my first attempt at painting him: The mini is a Garrity, Elquin the Daring. I was so proud of him!! I got paint in all the right places. His base is red since he was always wading through our spilled blood to save us. I'm using this WIP as a way to explain some of the changes that have occurred over time in miniatures painting, as well as to illustrate some of the things I've learned over the years. I like having my very first mini as a reference, because it shows we really do learn and grow and improve over time, and we should embrace that and feel good about it! Keep your old minis. Don't always just repaint them. you'll be amazed at how much things change even from one year to the next. Things I didn't know to do when I first stared painting: 1. prep the mini. 2. prime the mini 3. thin paint 4. color choices I'll get into all of those, but the first thing I did with my brand spanking new copy of Jannus was to clean all the mold lines, sand the metal smooth, wash it in dish soap and prime it. Then I put a base coat down. Right away, I've decided to go with a different color scheme. Clerics of St Cuthbert tend to be depicted in white and red, so I'm changing the plan rather than using the old color scheme. This still keeps with the theme, and I think will fit the character better anyway. Plus, I always need to practice red and white. Hard colors are good for me. Like spinach. The base coat colors are creamy ivory, mahogany brown, blonde hair and golden skin.

So I'm working on this guy as a gift, and I finally think I've twitched the purple on the body into something I like. For the most part, I also like the red in the mane, tail, and bottom of the legs. However, I am somehow hitting a brick wall when I try to think of what to use for bright highlights on the mane and tail. I don't think any of the reds will be contrast enough, I really don't want to go pink, and I'm hesitant to try yellow for fear it will look too much like flames. Should I use something really far off, like the Sophie silver I blended into the horn? Or something else? Suggestions please!

This is Reaper's 03681: Nazera Bloodraven, Vampire. I love her sculptural forms. Whichever way she is turned, there is some interesting movement going on. Bobby Jackson did a lovely job sculpting her. I used iridescent interference blues and violets on her armor. I am thinking about discussing how I paint reds. WIP thread here.

I am getting ready to tackle Cinder, as the name suggests should I go with red, or go with green due to the fact it resembles blghtfang who is a green? ahh help I am undecided.

Hi guys, next up is another dragon - the great Fire Dragon from Sandra Garrity. Painted in the traditional D&D red dragon color scheme of an adult dragon and encountered in a ruined keep. I think I'll go darker for an ancient dragon (Dragons don't share set) as they are supposed to get darker with age in Faerun. Please click on the images for a detailed 1000px version. C&C welcome!

Hi guys, first mini after a 6 month lay off. Just saw the X-men and decided to give my take on Nightcrawler. Any comments to help me improve would be much appreciated.

I present for your amusement, the Mint Chocolate Dragon Familiar: As an avid gamer, I have a few sets of dangling dice sticks to hold my hair up. Since I have been spending so much time painting minis the last couple years, I thought it was time to add something painted to my hairstick collection. And of course... Cute little dragon.... Anyone who knows me knows I bought at least two. Here he is flying in for his closeups: Edit: Autocorrect Fail.

My first dragon. A little practice for KS3! Enjoy edit: So I have to admit I got a little exited playing with new toys last night and rushed the picture process. But I just wasn't happy with how dark they turned out. After another read through of the Miniatures Photography 101 I think I did a much better job today. Now You can see all the detail good and bad!

HerzogBrian talked me into this color scheme. I guess it works for an evil cleric.

I have a lot of minotaurs. I share them with you here. You can share yours too if you like. This one is big, 50mm toe to brow, nearly 100mm total height. Believed to be from Games Workshop in the '90s. Base is hand-built from wood, sand, and acrylic gel. I meant for the color to resemble a black Angus bull, but it turned out more like a gorilla. WIP More angles:

So I'm working on a miniature for a a player in my game. She's a Half-Orc barbarian. I couldn't find one I really liked, and since I had just gotten my Norsgard KS rewards I decided to paint up the Mistress of the Hunt, since her face was covered and she had a greataxe like the player is using. I wanted to make the skin greenish, enough to look not human, but not comically green. I figured I would start with Clear Viridian along with a bit Ruddy leather for the base. I hoped the strong base would shine through and tint it. There are a lot of thin little strips of flesh between the leather straps, so I basically painted everything with the green base: Then I used Alien Flesh and Bathalian Chitin mixed with Viridian for the layers. I do like how the skin turned out, even though the colour is a little too close to the head: So the original plan was to paint the straps a darker reddish brown, but they actually look interesting green. I'm really torn over sticking to the original plan or finishing them green. The cloak is going to wind up white, the boots a darker brown, and the black on the leg will be metal. Any suggestions?

Made this for someones' birthday. :)

My take on the Pathfinder Red Dragon. I wanted to go for a temple ruin in the middle of the Jungle vibe.

I've been a long time lurker and haven't been really good about tracking my painting, but I figured it was time. My current project is a Reaper Bones Red Dragon. So far, I have most of the base coating down (sans base and claws). I've been attempting a bit of wet-blending on the wings, but I think they need more work. Looking at the picture, I also see some more mould lines that could use some work. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the progress. Colors used so far (my base is my darkest color): Body: Blood Red Wings: Dark Elf Skin triad Horns, teeth, etc: Bone Shadow Belly: Tanned Leather