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Quoralei the sea elf bard (03631) is one of my sculpts from several years ago that I'm finally getting around to painting. Sharing the base with her is a sea ray, one of the aquatic familiars sculpted by Julie Guthrie in the Familiar Pack VII (02948). Pics first, then some more words: Reaper released several underwater figures around 15 years ago, including Bob Ridolfi's Slithe Queen (02902), Julie Guthrie's aquatic familiars (02948) and Werner Klocke's mermaid (03078). I was inspired by the way they simulated the underwater setting and buoyancy, with coral or seaweed on the bases, dynamic poses, and floating hair and fins. I extended Reaper's aquatic offerings by sculpting a male and female sea elf in 2006. In 2007, I made a diorama of a coral reef with my 2 elves hiding from the evil mermaid and her Slithe Queen hunting-beast. I intended to populate the reef diorama with at least one of the aquatic familiars, and I prepped and primed Julie's manta ray, but I ran out of time before painting it -- the diorama was a contest entry for GenCon. (It won Best of Show even without the extra creatures!) The primed manta ray went back into my bits-box. A few years later, in 2012, I sketched a few characters for ReaperRon to review, and he liked this female bard with the conch-shell horn and a boy-shorts swimsuit. I sculpted her, Reaper released her, and Reaper's painter at the time (Martin) painted her for the online gallery. Without the pressure of painting one for the gallery myself, I left my copy of the figure unpainted and went on to sculpting and painting other things. Now it's 2021 and I'm finding new motivation to paint. I've been watching / listening to Anne's Twitch show on most days, among others. I'm clearing my backlog of figures, with the added incentive of points in the Reaper Challenge League. I painted my Frost Giant Princess a few weeks ago, for example. The casting of Quoralei had some noticeable mold-shift around her arms and hair, but I used a knife and gloss sealer to fix the problems ... not perfectly for competition-level, but well enough. She already has a seahorse under her arm, but I decided that she needed a bigger companion to fill the foreground space. I auditioned some other fishes and sharks for the part, but I came back to the ray. I did a web-search for photos of real rays, and one blue-spotted ray inspired the colors that I used here. I used many of the same colors on the elf and the base as what I had used on my Reef diorama (since I still have my notes), but my techniques and eye for contrast have changed a bit. I'm especially pleased at the interplay of the blues and browns on the base. I didn't have a result in mind, but I just put some colors on my palette and mixed and stippled and glazed for a while. The colors on the conch shell and the seahorse are also mostly accidental -- several layers of glazes and fine stripes with whatever was on my palette, until I decided "enough". Enjoy, Derek

Front: http://i.imgur.com/Y32GcCf.jpg WIP thread: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/56865-03078-pearl-the-mermaid-nudity/ So, after putting it off for a while, I finally got around to finishing this after KS2 arrived and I got some bases. The coral is actually transparent, and what's more has holes drilled up to it in the bottom. She's light-ready... but I don't have the inclination to fiddle around and make a miniature light-up system yet. If I did, it'd probably be an inductively powered LED. I like the sword myself. The photos kind of show it, but under the light it flickers between blue and bronze. Interference paints ftw.

Hi everyone, Does anyone know of a module or resource that has a pre made undersea city or palace? One of my group paying saltmarsh took up the sea elf Prince when his character drowned and then promised the support of his city. Now the party wants to visit the city and negotiate for those resources. I want them to have a good time and have at least the trappings of a city around them but I don't want to build and populate an entire city in a week or 2 for a 1 week adventure that could, potentially become a rerunning resource but might not. Does anyone know of a module or supplement for an Atlantis or similar city below the waves?

Hi there! I've started a diorama project, and I thought it would be good to post my progress here. This is my first diorama attempt- I have just been trying All The Things to see which ones I like best!- and so far, so good, I suppose. I'm one of those folks who learn best by doing, so here goes. I'll be using Reaper's 03172 Hippocampus and Pegaso's Nymert, along with some Morland Studios Sea Accessories. I've built the base from scratch using Excalibur casting stone poured into a laser-cut plywood disk, along with lava rock, bark chips, and some hydrostone...so far. I'm going to need to add some Milliput along the edges to finish the angle, and do a bit more work with the Dremel before priming. I was having a hard time envisoning how the figures would interact, despite sketches, so I decided to go ahead and start attaching the one element I'm certain of: the hippocampus. After cleaning him up a little and using the Dremel to modify his base somewhat, I glued it in. I tried to twist him a little, to give some spiraling motion that would match the nymert, but this is one tough seahorse. I am going to do a little torquing when I pin to the tail, but that's it. The nymert was a little tougher; she'll have to be pinned to a coral tower in the back, so I had to add an extra pin. I did it before cleanup, and I am crossing my fingers that I can get it to look natural in the end. As I was deciding on the final placement of the nymert figure, I realized that I hadn't thought enough about the most important element of the dio: the story. No matter how I placed her, she looked like she was attacking the hippocampus! Not what I want! So I need to add a third figure, some sort of baddy for the two of them to be fighting. But there's very little room in this design for any additions. Soooo..... Tentacles. This is a Fimo armature for what I hope will be a few evil-looking tentacles trying to trap the two figures. I sculpted it onto regular armature wire, attached it with CA glue and 2-part epoxy, and carved back into it to whittle it down a bit. I will use green stuff to sculpt the final tentacles, maybe more wire if necessary. (Also, if you look closely, you can see the hole I drilled into the lava rock 'coral' for the nymert's pin. More of the lava rock drilled out than I wanted- it basically disintegrated- so I'll need something fairly sturdy to fill it when I'm ready for final assembly. Maybe Durham's. Or more 2-part epoxy or JB Weld.) And that's it! That's how far I've come. Next week I'm going to mount the hippocampus and the nymert, I think, even though painting will get trickier; I can't really finish the tentacles until I do. Fingers crossed....

Hello! I've recently started working on a diorama, and a friend of mine urged me to post here. The only thing that is missing from the pictures below is the kelp that will be behind the kraken (on the little pads on the back side of the base). It is some floppy aquarium kelp that I"m currently trying to figure out how to get it to stand up straight. Tips, tricks, C&C are all welcomed. Here is the pre-primed coral wall in varying states of sand coverage. The coral is planned to be very brightly colored. Primed base: You can see the kelp pads in the pic above. Base with Kraken for staging verification: Here is the almost finished diver, who goes in the slot in front of the Kraken. This drab, dirty human looking down at his feet while the kraken looms above is one of my favorite parts, tbh. Cheers! Valk

Hello! I'm starting a new project, an underwater adventuring party. I've ordered a group of miniatures for it: I've been mostly painting Games Workshop stuff for the last few years, so I'm hoping this will be a nice change of pace.

Love this mini, still considering basing it somehow, but for now the flying base will have to do. Rather quick job I did while visiting out cabin almost a year back. Very limited paint selection, brush selection and working space, but I think it worked out rather OK even if the blending leaves a lot to be desired.

Last week I posted a photo of a Bones II Sharkman figure that I painted like a regular shark: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/63885-sharkman-77278-from-bones-ii/ This week I completed another one of the Bones Sharkmen, but I wanted to do something a little different with this second one. The first Sharkman I painted just like a normal shark would look: so this one I wanted to do more as a creature who had adapted to life on dry land. Perhaps a desert land where all the oceans had dried up. In keeping with that, I wanted to do this one in more a brown scheme like he had evolved to blend in with the surrounding dry rocky landscape. For fun, I thought I would keep a little bit of his ancestor's grey coloring in his tail. I'm pleased with how this different look turned out. For the complete write-up on how I painted him, please see my blog: http://allbonesabout.blogspot.com/2015/08/another-sharkman-desert-version-bones.html

I completed the Sharkman figure this week from the Bones II Core Set "Under the Sea" group. I didn't like this figure at first because it is sculpted oddly, so that the whole body of the Sharkman is slanted off to one side. I have looked at a couple of these figures, and they all seem to share this quality. It doesn't seem to be a typical Bones bent leg problem, but actually the way the figure is constructed. I decided that putting something under the foot on the tilted side might help bring the figure back up into alignment. Also, there were gaps where the shoulders attach to the body that needed to be filled. My solution was to use some 2-part epoxy putty to prop up the leaning leg by making a rock for the figure to stand on. I also used the epoxy putty to fill in the gap now created by the different angle of the foot on the other leg, as well as the gaps in the shoulders. It was an easy fix, and in my opinion improves the figure. I'm pleased with how Mr Sharkman turned out. And I think the base turned out suitably so that he won't look too out of place either on land or an underwater setting. I may go back and hit the eyes with a little gloss varnish as I think they look a little flat and not beady enough. For my complete write-up on painting the Sharkman, please see my blog: http://allbonesabout.blogspot.com/2015/08/sharkman-bones-ii-figure.html

One of the first minis I dove into with the new Bones II set. I think I had bigger things planned for him, but I took some risks with little planning. I'm not real disappointed with the result.

As you might gather, I am really slow at this. Also my miniatures painting things have been stowed away for the long holiday season. But I have finally finished my first Bones mini, 77188 "Sea Lion", sculpted by Julie Guthrie. I have been intrigued by underwater photography, particularly in shallow clear water under bright sunshine where the lensing effects of the wave ridges create constantly changing lines of glowing pale green on whatever swims under them. So I tried a bit of that on this mini. I had a difficult time capturing the colors accurately in the photographs. Some of them are in front of a neutral gray card, and some in front of crumpled "Tiffany blue" tissue paper, which I thought might give a nice oceanic feel but may have too much reduced the color contrast.

This is a repaint of a fairy statue that I got from a local gift shop. For those of you following these, I actually got it from a different shop than the other fairies I've painted. I went for a strong mood with this mini- every color on her has a sea green added to it (this was a mix of Gnarls Green and Meridius Blue). I was rather pleased with how the mini pulled together in the end. I've posted her up to CoolMini for anyone who cares to vote.

Hello there! Trying my hand at a WIP thread again, I know my last couple of them died a terrible death, but I'm hoping that by concentrating on a single figure, I won't stress out over my painting not being good enough and end up with a pile of half-done stuff again. If this works, then whenever I start on a figure I think deserves a bit more effort and/or is really cool looking, I'll memorialise the project in a thread. Our first test subject is this guy, The Biomancer - Yep, he's a freaky pile of little details. At this stage I'd primed and brown washed him to better see what was what. I had a little bit of time left at the end of today's painting session, so I made a start on the basecoat - I'm liking the blue tentacles, but I think the purple on his pet octopus is a bit too dark, might try something pinker.

The 2 week long deepwars KS has started. http://www.kickstart...yss-mini-kicker Wonder if the OP can retitle this thread to be Shadowseas\deepwars as there's no real reason to start a new thread.