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The last 2 weeks I've rushed (after work) through a set of bones Anhurians - my samples from Bones 2, and 1 pack of each of swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen, and crossbowmen. I needed fantasy soldiers eventually. First off a class photo. More photos of each to come - I just have to crop them and get them off my phone. I tried a variety of skin tones, but there wasn't much distinguishing 3 of them. I was originally planning some freehand on the shields, but decided not to after testing out my plans. I may revisit that at a later date. WIP kinda

Guilty confession: the Anhurian soldiers may well be my favorite models Reaper puts out. Simple men-at-arms, they have the world weary air of soldiers down in the muck and grime, grimly doing their jobs in hopes of making it home alive. I was one of several noisy advocates hollering for Anhurians in Bones plastic during the last Kickstarter, and when our wish was granted I knew they would have to be some of the first - if not the first - minis I painted when the Kickstarter delivered. And as luck would have it, I also had some primed metal Anhurians laying about... So, here we have our round-shielded soldiers, ready for war. I used a modified version of the instructions from the first Learn to Paint Kit - the metal one, not the Bones replacement - for these guys, taking advantage of paints and techniques that weren't provided for. Flesh Wash and Armor Wash instead of making my own paint and ink washes, HD Dragon Blue with a Payne's Grey wash rather than Sapphire Blue with a Walnut Brown wash for the clothes, &c. Since these are line troops, I refrained from attempting freehanding on their shields - it didn't seem appropriate, and to be honest I doubt I'd be able to pull it off. And here's a group shot with their brethren I painted from the first LTPK (and immediately after): And perhaps most importantly, here's what they look like without all of the zooming - at tabletop height, in other words. Thanks for looking!

Got to thinking about this when I was at Reapercon, and got the idea from someone to paint up a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser. Y'see, I love me some fantasy literature, especially the kind they just don't make any more. I got into it in a BIG way back in the seventies, when the testosterone was startin' to rise, and it's terminal; my love for the genre will be with me until I die. Which brings to mind, for me, the old "who'd win in a fight" argument. Someone mentioned it on a Facebook group, and I thought I'd throw it out here. My choices: *CONAN is the go-to guy for fantasy barbarians, and perhaps the most overexposed, both in his haberdashery and in the media. I'm goin' with the books. He was a fine swordsman, and pretty good with an axe as well, but often tended to depend more on sheer ferocity and brute strength. I have an old Reaper Barbarian, sword pointed skyward... mounted on a rock I took from Robert E. Howard's front yard. *JOHN CARTER, on the other hand, was very good at "weaving a web of steel" between himself and his opponent. However, he generally did this on Mars, where his earthborn reflexes and strength gave him a distinct advantage, even considering the Green Men of Mars' longer reach. What'd be a good model for John Carter? *FAFHRD and the GRAY MOUSER: These two had it goin' on, being the acknowledged best swordsmen in Lankhmar; Fafhrd, being a barbarian and rather huge, used a bastard sword onehanded and a poniard as his main-gauche, and was strong enough to FENCE with the flippin' things. The Mouser, on the other hand, preferred the rapier and a slender dirk. Both fought twohanded, and were as likely to kill you with the little blade as the big one. That, and the fact that they habitually fought together, often back-to-back, and were EXTREMELY familiar with each others' styles, made them pretty much death on four legs unless you had a wildly unfair advantage! Picked models up at Reapercon for these two. *RED SONJA, the original chainmail bikini babe, as drawn by Frank Thorne, was lightning death with her longsword; canonically, the only man who ever beat her was Conan, and he did it by literally knocking her off her feet with a blade beat, a trick that doesn't really work unless you're a huge muscular barbarian wielding a very large, heavy sword, and you're willing to risk killing the person whose blade you're beating. I'd give her props. Chainmail bikini swordswomen used to be a lot more common in miniatures than they are now, for some reason. *INIGO MONTOYA appears as a side character in "The Princess Bride" but is described by the Dread Pirate Roberts as an artist and work of art equivalent to a stained glass window, as far as his mastery of multiple techniques of swordplay. I wish that Inigo, as portrayed by the awesome Mandy Patinkin, had been a pulp novel character. They'd still be publishing him. I love him to pieces, but, regrettably, in his one canon appearance, we see him fence exactly twice, and he loses the first one to the mysterious Man In Black. He does stage quite the comeback, though! Love to see Reaper make a not-Inigo, preferably if they also made a not-Fezzik and a not-Vizzini. *ELRIC OF MELNIBONE is another go-to character in fantasy literature, and I still wonder why nobody's tried to option him for movies or a TV series. Regrettably, his physical condition required powerful magics and/or potent drugs to allow him to do much of anything except lay there, and most of his adventures involve his magic sword, Stormbringer, which made him nearly unbeatable. However, in the first book, he does not yet have Stormbringer, and fights instead with the ancient sword of the hero Aubec; he's able to hold his own against his evil cousin Yyrkoon, who is described as the best swordsman in Melnibone. It's worth noting that in the old Marvel Comics Conan series, Conan and Elric actually met, and fought to a standstill. I do not regard this as canonical, due to Barry Windsor-Smith's portraying Elric in the most ridiculous hat ever seen on a fantasy hero. *CEREBUS THE AARDVARK is the first nonhuman candidate on this list; despite his short stature, lack of reach, and use of a short sword as his main weapon, Cerebus generally won his duels and killed anyone who annoyed him sufficiently, except for Red Sophia, Elrod the Albino, and the Roach, who were all simply much too funny to kill off. There have been Cerebus minis, but none currently in production of which I am aware. *DRIZZ'T DO'URDEN, dark elf scion of Menzoberranzan, and the model of the "noble outcast of an evil race" character template that's been beat to death by roleplayers ever since. Fights twohanded, with a pair of scimitars, and Bracers of Speed laced to his LEGS, to speed up his footwork. Another of the "you're dead before you really had a chance to warm up" opponents that can be faced in fantasy literature. Being as he was based on a fantasy game, I think Drizz't has more legitimate AND knockoff figures than any other fantasy hero, with the possible exception of Conan and Red Sonja. So... who'm I missing? Any contenders? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Here is one of three of my orcs that I am working on. Hello, Gorgeous! I'm thinking on the next one I'll paint the skin a lighter grey and the last one will be a lighter grey but with a touch of green.