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Technically this is a WIP since the base is unfinished, but the figure is done-ish..

It has been a year since I have put brush to miniature, and while I was going to wait until I got some more kit (pin vices, scalpels, more paints, etc.) I had enough skin tones to start a small part of Vanja tonight. And I had the urge, the urge to paint dammit! She still has mold lines but didn't have any on her face so I felt okay starting to paint that first.

Oh... my. I'm done. The first WIP of her appeared here in November 2013. Holy cow was she difficult to paint. I started her before I was really good at cleaning mold lines, as well as when I was really trying to go NMM for her. The final result is a miniature I'm very happy with, minus two gaps in her armpit area, and one mold line along the top of the spear near the "back tip." The base is greenstuff, cork, and some liquitex fine sand medium.

Vanja was supposed to be a quick tabletop mini to relax with after I finished up my exchange piece. As sometimes happens when painting Bones, she turned into an experiment along the way. Some parts were in fact done in a quick tabletop manner, namely the metals and gems, but for the rest of her: Since she's a fire giant I decided to try and use the Scalecolor Indian Shadow to make her skin inhumanly red. In order to make her skin believable though, I followed Jen Haley's advice to highlight to a normal human color. In doing so I think I turned it into a quite human dark skintone. Ah well. After that I decided that since she was a fire giant I should play around with fiery hair. This of course took some time just because of the sheer amount of colors that I broke out in order to paint fire. With the hair out of the way it was time to decide on what creature furnished her cape. I was thinking dragon but I discarded red and green just because of her existing colors. After some thought it became obvious that as a fire giant she probably killed a few of those pesky white dragons that like to settle in the snowy peaks of a dormant volcano. Even though I figured it wouldn't work too well, I made an attempt at drybrushing with Scalecolor white. It didn't drybrush well. Lastly for the base I thought about keeping a snowy scheme but decided to take a stab at obsidian. While in reality obsidian is not necessarily totally black, I decided to keep the rocks mostly black just so it would "read" properly at scale. After my experience with Johnny last week I decided to take some pre-sealing pics this time around. Her hair is VGC and thus a bit glossy compared to her skin, but the dullcote should even that all out. I also tried a "tabletop" angle, which should show off the top of her head a bit better. And lastly a closer shot of how the skin worked. I liked this model quite a bit, but there were some areas that were obviously soft on the detail. I may have to pick her up in metal eventually and aim a bit higher with my painting.

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

So I finished the Bones version of Vanja. I also tried a few backdrops ( just printouts from the internet). Hope you like her. EDIT: forgot to mention this earlier, don't know if it shows well in the pics. The armor is red mixed with silver to get a metallic look, later i added more silver for the highlight parts. And with a more neutral back drop. I'm new to this...must make a lightbox soon. These were made in the garden.

Just my WIP photos from start to finish! I have a bit of an unorthodox technique thus far and I'm still experimenting. :P Critiques are welcome, as always! Vanja Crossbow Dwarf (Rescued) Beastman of Chaos (Rescued) Nagendra Stalker

Alright, guys! I went out on a whim last Wednesday and decided to buy a mini to destress myself before Horror Hound Weekend. I've never painted a mini in my life, though I do paint (most of my work is 2D.) I had a bunch of acrylics on hand and have decided to go the cheap route and just use what I have already. The only colors used were the basic red, blue, yellow, black, and white for Amsterdam acrylics (and some gold craft paint I had lying around) and mixed from there to get what I need. Critique is more than appreciated, as I am a lowly n00b at the hobby.