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So these are a couple of "mantis warriors" which I'm painting up as thri-kreen, the insectoid race from the Dark Sun and Spelljammer D&D settings. They are Reaper's 03552: Klichik, Mantis Warrior (the taller one), sculpted by John Winter, and 03142: Zizzix, Mantis Warrior (the squatter one), sculpted by Michael Brower. Here they are for scale (and unassembled) with Reaper's 03155: Vandora Waverunner, Pirate, sculpted by Bob Ridolfi. Straight out of the package they have a very flat silhouette. Here they are assembled, primed, and washed with thinned-down Burnt Umber. I gently bent some of their limbs forward to ease the flatness a tad. One source said all thri-kreen were golden brown; another said they were earthy shades of red, yellow, and sometimes green. I decided to paint the taller one red and the shorter one yellow. I mixed some dull, opaque colors using Iron Oxide Red and Yellow, each mixed with a greying-down blend of browns and white, and brushed them on thinly. As god is my witness, this thing is not so pink in real life. I painted this same yellow on both of the creatures' bases. Then I washed over them with some thinned-down Burnt Umber. To be continued!

In our last spelljammer game Hubby set us up to attack a lone space orc asteroid base. Supposedly, there's someone in it that needs our help. There's a medium sized asteroid, with an unknown number of scro ships docked at it. We just have the one ship, with two miniguns. Our crew is 14 members, with all roles accounted for. We don't have any smaller boats, we don't have anything like jet packs, and we aren't a stealthy ship. But I am completely stumped on how to get onto the dang asteroid without getting us killed. The best I could come up with was approaching from the sunward side, in the hopes that it would blind them. But still, they have more firepower than us. Can anyone help me with ideas that aren't completely dumb? I've got the dumb ideas covered

This was originally a birthday present last year, a fairly simple German resin ship kit for a medieval-style cog. Since I was playing a Githyanki in Dungeons and Dragons at the time, I modeled, painted, and sewed the vessel up into a more or less spelljammer, since named Black Moon's Bane from events in the game. There is a fairly detailed Work-in-Progress thread for this ship, if anyone has questions about materials or techniques. Or you can ask here; that's fine. A list of materials: Resin ship's hull model, wooden dowels, bamboo chopsticks, bamboo kitchen skewers, acrylic paint, brass wire, silk organza, silk taffeta, wooden furniture peg, jewelry findings (barrel clasps, jump rings), jewelers chain, metal necklace charms, glass seed beads, waxed linen bookbinder's thread, waxed linen carpet warp, silk buttonhole thread, cotton twine, metallic polyester yarn, nylon cord, screw eyes, 1/2" zinc fender washer, various glues The bowsprit (left) is a bamboo chopstick painted and wrapped with brass wire. The hatch on the deck (right) looks down over a forested landscape. The ship's rails are painted with (imaginary) red runes on black, then washed over thinly with silver metallic paint. From some angles the rails look silver and the runes are invisible. From others they show clearly. The ship's wheel (visible at the upper deck on the stern) is a charm bracelet charm with the hanging loop filed off. I nailed and glued it to the post (made from a furniture peg) so that it spins freely. It is mounted on a small fender washer so it can be moved around the ship. The runes around the door to belowdecks are imaginary. I may think of more stuff to say later. Right now I'm a little dazed.