Painted Miniatures, Terrain & Dungeon Accessories
I finished the other half of a large commission and I had a ton of fun painting all the quirky ghosts, heroes and skeletons! There a many conversions amongst the pieces and a few surprises to paint :)
It was a fun commission and it is always nice to paint something converted and unique :)
We decided to wait with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition until the Starter Set is released (about 6 months+ delayed so far), so until then we are trying out 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. We played D&D 4th edition 5 years ago for 1½ years or so, before we went back to WFRP and our homebrewed ruleset!
So until we get the starter set and the next campaign book, which is probably another version of Enemy Within by Graeme Davis, we will settle for D&D! Which means a lot of new miniatures both monsters and humanoid races and creatures.
Our current campaign is Curse of Strahd, which has pretty good reviews and we are really enjoying it so far!
We needed some new heroes for the campaign and as a sharp contrast to WFRP which is pretty low fantasy, we decided to go for some high fantasy heroes. We love them so far!
We went with a good classic setup: A rogue, a wizard and a Ranger (melee version)
From left to right: Varg – Half-Orc Ranger, Rook – Tiefling and Magnus – Wizard of the Conjuring school with his familiar – the owl Percy
I had a blast painting these, and finding miniatures proved to be a real challenge!
Varg, our Half-Orc miniature, is actually Valeros, a human fighter from Pathfinder. painted green with tusks!
Rook, our Tiefling, is the “Female Demonkin Warrior” from Dark Sword miniatures which we modified with daggers and a different pose.
Magnus, our human wizard, is the Luwin Phost, dungeon dweller from Reaper Miniatures. His owl familiar – Percy is from the Owl Basing Kit from HQresin.
My hero is Magnus! I always find it fun and challenging to play a much different character than the real me! And a 60 year old man with magical powers is quite the opposite of me :-D
Okay, so recently we decided we would join the annual Tabletop World competition with a building in their single building category (there is also diorama) and we decided their Townhouse II as our entry.
Since their houses are barely 28mm scale, we chose some miniatures from Dark Sword’s George R.R. Martin Masterworks (Game of thrones) miniature line. Tom Meier doesn’t sculpt in heroic scale like Reaper, Games Workshop and Dark Sword’s other lines (heroic scale is larger heads/larger hands etc) and his miniatures tend to be a tad bit smaller than the other sculpters, so they fit perfectly into the building. For the interior we chose Irri – Handmaid and Female Courtesan, and for the bottom of the building sitting on boxes we chose Female Mage on Stairs sculpted by Patrick Keith, and she is quite bigger than the other 2 ladies, but we figured it wouldn’t matter :)
It’s the first time I ever take part in a painting competition, and I have no hopes what so ever of winning, but as I wrote in a previous post, you get 20% discount code just for participating :D which I will need for my river terrain board.
It actually started out as just being 3 beautiful women in a house, but when my husband decided it needed a bench with a book on the balcony, the only book that looked good was a book with a chaos star symbol on it. And so the story of the Alluring Sisters were born! They are actually witches luring men into their cozy townhouse which always smells like fresh baked pies (wonder what is inside the pies!!)
It wasn’t initially part of the plan to paint the interior, but we decided it would be cool to show the theme of the project. So first off is the middle floor with a nice desk and furniture from Tabletop World, a large candleholder from Tabletop-Art, a Grandfather Clock from Zealot Miniatures and a cat from the set Edna, the Crazy Cat Lady from Reaper Miniatures.
Last but not least, the attic! We all have a creepy attic ;) and these ladies sure know how to decorate the top room of the house!
My husband really outdid himself with the altar! He used a ton of skulls for the base and half a table from Grendel for the altar. Book, candlesticks and most of the skulls are from Tabletop-art.
The wooden spikes are from Grendel aswell and the chain/heads are from our bits boxes.
I had a blast painting the altar, the summoning circle and the small table. The walls are painted with a mouldy effect, which gives the room a very eerie look!
We really wanted to paint the bottom room of the building too with a cauldron full of meaty bits and fresh baked pies, but we ran out of time and finished the day before the competition, so maybe some other time, who knows :-)
The past week I have made posts about townsfolk for our RPG, and I thought I’d squeeze in a few more, before I call it a day!
I’m going in for surgery this week and will be needing some time off afterwards :) nothing too serious, though. But probably for a week or two! Lots of time to play Divinity Original Sin 2 on our TV, and Gloomhaven Boardgame :-D
First off is the Middenheimer Young Blood. I already painted one of these with blonde hair and red dress and removed her weapons as an Npc crowd agitator. But I wanted to test my skills with subtle colours.
I used the same colour palette throughout the process. Darkest leather, shoes and fur is Muddy Soil, highlighted with Basic Dirt and Brown Sand. The dress is Brown Sand highlighted with Driftwood Brown, Stained Ivory and Yellowed Bone (and a bit of Khaki Highlight too) I used Tanned Skin mixed with Burgundy Wine for sharp contrast. All Reaper paints! I wanted her to look a bit dirty and not very polished and I believe I achieved that :)
Next off is “Lady Olenna “The Queen of Thorns” from Dark Sword Miniatures.
I took the opportunity to experiment with texture, and this is a rough example. I didn’t have much of a plan with this miniature, only that I wanted an old cranky noblewoman, and I got what I wanted, hehe :) The Base colour of her dress is Deep Red highlighted with dots of Fuchsia. The purple cloth is Violet with Sandalwood highlights. The golden embroidery is Walnut with dots of Victorian Brass and Citrine Alchemy. Dots everywhere! All paints used are from Scale75.
I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the miniature apart from the dots, but she worked out okay. Not a masterpiece (like Jennifer Haley’s version which is absolutely breathtaking) but she looks great on the game board, as the dots intertwine from a distance!
Dark Sword Miniatures creates so many awesome miniatures, but few halflings and dwarves. Other than their DiTerlizzi line, there are only 2 halflings. Both of them sculpted by Derek Schubert, one of my favourite sculptors! Derek painted the product pieces himself, and I was heavily inspired by the colour palette.
First off, the Female Halfling Ranger with Bow:
This one was painted mainly with Reaper paints. The Cloak was my favourite paint Burgundy Wine highlighted with Pale Violet Red. The greens were Olive Drab highlighted with Ghoul Skin and Pale Olive. Great miniature to work with!
Next one is the Halfling Rogue with Daggers:
I used the same purple colours as the ranger on his vest. The coat was Muddy Brown, highlighted with Earth Brown and Leather Brown, while the pants were one of my favourite paints, Ancient Oak from Reaper’s Bones Paints line highlighted with various greens :) Daggers were painted with Heavy Metal and Emerald Alchemy both from Scale75. Hair on both minis were painted with Muddy Soil and Highlighted with Shield Brown.
I really love these minis, and I hope they will be of use in our RPG :)
A while ago I painted an Arcane Ranger for an Italian customer, which I really enjoyed painting! And I couldn’t turn down another chance of painting this guy, when an Australian customer wanted one for an RPG!
The miniature is the amazing Male Elven Ranger with Bow from Dark Sword Miniatures (yeah, their miniature names aren’t that inventive!) Sculpted by the talented Jeff Grace.
This time I pushed the envelope and he turned up great! I painted him in a black/silver colour scheme using mainly Reaper and Scale75 paints. I dabbled with both NMM and some Alchemical paints from Scale75 which looks a little like metallic paints, but with a super fine pigment that dries in a satin finish.
Again, it is a little hard to see on pictures, but he looks amazing in “person” and I’m pretty proud of how he turned out :-)
He arrived safe and sound, so that’s a relief. People really underestimate the nerves artists have when shipping miniatures this fragile around the world! I did manage to seal the bottom (this one was painted without a plastic base) dozens of times, just to be sure! And his cloak, dagger and bow were also sealed many times, and I am happy that the many layers didn’t decrease the overall look :)
Only 4 days left for Christmas (in Denmark we celebrate Christmas/Jul the 24th) Here is the final result of the Diorama!
Santa’s facial expression perfectly matches the situation and we are very proud of our Diorama!
We learned one thing this year though, and that’s the walls. We used a thick plaster on styro and it ended up looking a bit too messy. Next time we will file down the layer and make it much more smooth, especially when using colours on the walls. It looks great in our lighted vitrine however, and will stay there all year (every day is like Christmas in our home!)
This has been our second Christmas Diorama and we plan on making a new one each year! Next year it’s either the Frog Christmas or the Spooky Diorama (with a creepy santa!)
Once again my husband and me have made more progress on the Christmas Diorama – Click here to see the entire project
Below you can see a couple of pictures from the latest project update. As mentioned on the Projects page, we’re almost done with the full diorama now, we just need to add the final touches and of course post the progress pictures here!
We have made more progress on the Christmas Diorama – Click here to see the entire project
Below you can see a couple of pictures from the latest project update.
The Santa Claus miniature for me and my husband’s Christmas Diorama has been picked and painted! Read more about the full project here!
