6MMRPC Week 9: Bones Horace 'Action' Jackson

A predictable summer lull, and on-call requirements of work have hit my productivity this week. Single figure complete, another Reaper Bones. Horace 'Action' Jackson.

I'm reasonably happy with this fig, it's a bad picture of the eyes, it looks better in real life. This is first for negro skin tones, and I thought they turned out well (check out those abs!). Yellow is pretty challenging for me as well (not sure if it's hard in general, or the paints I use), but this turned out passable.

The base is a bit weak, and his afro isn't amazing. Hard to know what to do with black hair and not a lot of texture. There is a very light amount of highlighting, but too much grey will (and does) make it look odd. Suggestions for this type of challenge gratefully accepted.

Week 6 MMRPC: Bones Oxidation Beast, Kord, and treasure chest

The classic D&D rust monster...but in non-patented form. This was a fun bug that defied finishing for awhile. I wasn't quite sure how to avoid making him super muddy. Not sure that I succeeded, but the milliput base, and some cut up plastic weapons loaded with rust effects help break up the beasts colour, and give a bit of explanation.









A less good second picture. Obviously not his most photogenic side.











Also finished this week (and again a struggle to complete) was Kord. A barbarian. Ummmm. His axe continually creeps to an annoying bed. I forgot to paint the cord wrapping his scabbard a real colour (instead of overpaint mixed with heavy inking). Otherwise he turned out well enough. Can't say the sculpt really calls to me.






Sometimes you have to ask, what do we fight for? Treasure should be the obvious answer. For those looking deeper, the answer would be a intriguing shaped oil lamp that may grant your deepest desires (like all your minis painted).

6MMRPC Week 5.5: Bones NovaCorp Quick paint

Well.....It wasn't actually done quickly. I've been plunking away at these guys for a few weeks now. I really can't seem to focus work on anything for very long, so I often have endless half finished projects on the go. These guys were in the roster for the Caffeineforge weekly paint up (on hiatus at the moment).

 A trial model, the sergeant, was done a few weeks ago, so it was pretty easy to replicate, and bang out, the remaining guys. I botched the bright green a few times until I rediscovered what I'd used. And, typically for bones, the faces of the helmetless mooks are pretty poor castings. These guys were finished much quicker than normal for me (actual elapsed working time), so I'm pretty happy with their passable tabletop standard. Also that's 9 more Bones done, which is a nice bump to my low numbers this year so far.

6MMRPC Week 4.5: Bones Elladan & Mocking Beast

Elladan was a bit ho-hum this week, so I decided to lead with the mocking beast, and obvious copy (but copyright dodge) of a mimic from D&D. Adventurers! Always consider why there are eaten piles of corpses/bones around that pristine treasure chest!

This one was sorta fun. I got to use some of the expanded range of pink/purples I've been collecting lately. The gold in the mouth is possibly TOO gold, and the edging/metal banding doesn't pop much, but I very much like the overall effect. I tried to create a slit eye, which I think comes across most in the right photo. I also ended up sculpting a base, which is just passable. You can spot where the slathered on grey didn't quite cover the miliput, but from range it's hard to see.


Back to Elladan. Ho Hum. Generic elf ranger. Whoo. I did end up giving him pupils of the same colour as his pommels which was a fun effect. Too bad about the over paint in orange obvious in the middle shot.

I'm not super happy with his skin tones. Also, I wasn't too sure what to do with his various kit. I wanted rustic, forest, but that largely comes out as boring in this particular production. Oh well. On to the next!











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6MMRPC Week 3.5: Autumn Bronzeleaf

Yet another Bones figure done for the Caffeineforge blog lineup. In hindsight, blue is not a particularly 'autumn' colour I suppose.

Numerous critiques here, looking at the mini under the unforgiving camera eyeball. Black hair is hard to do well, without it looking shot with grey. The staff is under highlighted (in fact, I don't think I did it at all). I probably should have gone with less metallics (such as her shin guards). The right thigh is a bit rough, so makes the skin job look much worse than I think it is.

I was hoping for a very light, ethereal blue, but I suppose I lack the paints to achieve that. I'm okay with the final blue colour, but it's not what I originally set forth to do. I feel like this mini could easily be more than it currently is, but I'm not sure what I'd need to add to get there.

One more down on the Bones marathon endeavor.

6MMRPC Week 2.75 Zalash Dark Elf Assasin

My "Wednesday" mid week post is quite late this week. I've been fairly distracted with roleplaying games, and the miserable saga of my motorbike. Let me spare no encouragement to stabilize your gas if you are planning on parking a vehicle for more than a few months (let alone nearly 2 years).

I finished this fellow off, yet another Bones addition. He was in the Caffeine forge line up, which I managed to fall out of sync with shortly after the last painting challenge ended. I'm trying to work forward and back to get up to speed.

Zalash is a fairly weird spindly sculpt that I've seen more than one person criticize. He's certainly different. I sorta thought he was some creepy undead assassin, but apparently not. He may have control issues over his destiny and be fighting back by starving himself. This guy needs some counseling.

I feel like I ought to have given his weapons some sort of glow or poison effect. Maybe some more highlighting on the leg wraps? I dont' really think he should 'pop' so much, but I feel like he is missing something.......can't put my finger on what that something is though.

6MMRPC Week 1.5: Bones Nova Corp Sgt

This is yet another submission to the CaffeineForge weekly bones mini painting.....blog? It's certainly not a contest, more a friendly pressure to paint and share results. Definitely motivational for those of you with unpainted bones figs (and who doesn't have a lot?).

In about 2 weeks there is a speedpainting version, where we try and bang out as many of the other novacorp mooks as possible. With this in mind, I tried to go for an easy paint job. I also wanted to have some sort of sci-fi forward colour that really makes no sense as a modern bit of kit.....hence the purple. I used the opportunity to fill in some gaps in my paint collection as well.

I'm not entirely sure about using the leather colour for the straps, but it is fairly high contrast. Grey was already getting used for the between armour sections (possibly not very noticeable) and other gear, so that was out. I tried to re-iterate the colours of the limited pallete in the base as well. The nice thing about all the novacorp figs is they have similar bases that will really pull the group together.

6MMRPC Week 1: Bones Undertaker & Flesh Golem

Going with the theme of 'finishing things off', I've completed these two figs, who were in partial states of work for a while. Indeed, I've own the lead version of the undertaker or *years* with no work on him. The lead version will now be retired to the 'get rid of' pile.







I was hoping to create some semblance of 'belonging' with these two figs. Hopefully the common dark red, and the glowing pulls them together. Obviously the undertaker is sourcing the tissue for the creation of the flesh golem. I tried to use all my skin tones for this repulsive creature. Who knows if there is another master of the dark arts who breathed 'life' into the beast.....


To critique the figs, I'm not a fan of my basing colour. Luckily this is pretty easy to go back and fix in the future. The eye sockets of the golem are a bit too light (flesh tone), and the darkest flesh tone didn't highlight up very well. I had contemplated trying to make some angry red borders between the various skin tones, but time defeated me, and I was afraid I'd run an otherwise decent paint job. Otherwise, I'm fairly pleased with the two. 

Reaper Bones: Pirate Team including Gruff Grim Cleaver & Hajad

I fell off my posting scheme to get through these guys this week (the dangers of stretching out your progress). The last two figs are definitely a bit weaker, mostly due to painting, but I'm not super impressed with the sculpting of the treasure chest toting fellow. Perhaps it's more realistic proportions vs 'heroic' models that are so prevalent.

Hajad, the treasure bearer, I think had some fairly decent skin tones done. I painted his eyes which were okay, but I don't think the brown spot of colour for the iris was the right decision. Too similar to the skin, it seems to detract from the eyes. Perhaps no iris would have been better. 
The metallics on the chest edging could benefit from a highlight as well.

Grim could have had some colourful food splatter put on his chest. He also has a small apron I left black (behind the pouch on his belt). I was a little out to sea (haha) on what to do with it. The wood stock on the gun is so large, I'm not too happy with the uniform brown I ended up with. And the dew-rag could pop a bit more with some highlighting.

All 4 figs were completed on a pretty tight schedule considering I had family staying here for most the week/weekend. Once again, they are bones, so I'm happy to consider them good enough.

Reaper Bones: Barnabus

I've decided to try working back in time to the caffeine forge blog reaper bones painting schedule (hopefully that makes sense). I'm trying to keep up with the weekly fig, but I decided to start catching up with the other folks by going back and doing what I've missed.

My first hop backwards (skipping one fig for now) is Barnabus. Obviously a pirate sea captain of some means. What the heck are the bevy of skeleton keys for? There's also a hint of a leather jacket under his coat to help him survive those pressing melee's on the high seas.

I rather like the sculpt of his sea coat and it turned out quite well. I passed up white and red striped pantaloons, but it was probably the right decision. I was undecided about leaving his hair black with no highlights, but I think it turned out well enough....a young and hungry captain this.

I think my biggest disappointment was his hand gun. The molding was a little wonky, and the colours didn't turn out super great.  Also the basing as stone instead of wood decking, for such an obvious naval man, was a bit weird. Oh well.

Reaper Bones: Ghoul Queen

I managed to while away most of my time this week fairly unproductively painting wise (Video games and roleplaying games were pretty successful though). At the end of the weekend, racing a deadline of getting enough sleep for monday (and losing an hour by the time switch thief!), I managed to bang out this mini.



 I did some editing of the figure, as I didn't like her floating sword behind her, nor the strange whispy things coming off her back. I suppose it was supposed to be a floating sword of something, but I lopped it all off, and the head of the sword as well, and firmly jammed it into the scabbard.

I took out her little horns as well, but left the strange bony mantle thing. I suppose it appeals to me from a warcraft esthetic.

I'm fairly happy with how the skin tones came out. I think the model looks a bit better in person than in these pictures. I ran out of time to make the back look better (a simple wash would have helped, and I feel now I should have highlighted the leather, and put a dot of colour in her eyes. Maybe even some colour to the lips. It's possible I'll go back.....but more likely I will keep forging ahead. There are a LOT of bones I need to do.

6MMRPC: Week 26.5 Reaper Bones Grandmother

My weekly submission for the Caffeineforge Miniature Monday (a weekly Bones mini paint up).

This week it was a civilian, which was a fun change. My colourations obviously don't suggest a grandmother, but a younger domestic. The eyes I was quite happy with because eyes are so fantastically difficult.....and they are looking the same way, and the dots are dots. My wife helpfully noted that she has creepy eyes. This, unfortunately, is true. Bah. I'm still happy with the technical results, if not the final result.

Free handing the white trim was fin, although with all the ruffles I don't think it's perfectly accurate. There's also a few smears of overly thick paint, but it came out pretty well.

I'm relatively happy with the colours. I note now that I missed painting the band on the broom head, and her blonde hair doesn't pop quite enough (probably need to end with a tiny highlight of white). The ground was painted grey to suggest a slate or tile floor that would make sense to sweep.

A fun little mini here that was an easy project to paint.

6MMRPC Week 26: Bones Stone Golem

Final Week of the 6 Month Mountain Reduction & Painting Challenge! I'm sure I'll get up a post later in the week on that. I was, unfortunately but perhaps in common with large segments of the population, laid low by sickness this week. In a late week rally I managed to get 2 figures done. This guy, and my submission for Caffeineforge's Miniature Monday which I'll post Wednesday (don't want to pre-empt the reveal on Mondays).

This guy is another one of the Bones miniatures which I have recently (much delayed) started on. They are sorta fun in a way as I have but a week to do them, and I try some new (to me) painting techniques on them. I also didn't really 'choose' them, so there are lots of figs I probably wouldn't have bought on my own. Fun stuff.

I was hoping to make a jade type colouring scheme. One recipe I found on the interwebz suggests highlighting in green on the lower ridges (sorta an inverted highlight), which suggests light transmission. I tried this....and probably should have done more gradation. I didn't have time or the commitment. I think I'd need to experiment with blending which I haven't been brave enough to face.

I tried to free hand an eye of osiris on the belt buckle, but it's pretty much too small to see in real life, never mind this picture. 

My wife was lukewarm on the effect, and I'm a bit uncertain as to my results this week as well. Comments welcome!

Postscript: I tracked down the Caffeineforge results from the same mini here. I must say it's quite interesting to see how many people chose to do a similar green scheme. One of the most interesting parts of the weekly submission is seeing what others have chosen to do.

6MMRPC: Week 25.5 Large Earth Elemental Reaper Bones

Another posting over to Caffeine Forge. As mentioned in my last post, I was a bit disappointed with how my painting turned out this week. I found it a bit challenging to avoid painting this guy a single colour, yet find enough 'realistic' colour tones to use. I tried to bring some bright colours down with inking and then couldn't be bothered to highlight so many different seams and colours.




I suppose I'm fortunate that I have a deadline for this, or I'd be inclined to let this one sit until I could figure out how to 'fix' him. You know, indefinitely. I'm sure lots of us do this from time to time. Anyway, definitely ends up on the 'whatever, fine enough' pile. But completed nonetheless!






The mini itself is well sculpted with lots of character to be taken advantage of. My favorite part is the fossil embedded in the upper right hand shoulder. I didn't get a great pic of it, but you can get the idea.

6MMRPC: Week 23.5 Vaeloth Reaper Bones

Inspired by David (Tower of the Archmage) I broke out some reaper bones that I have collecting dust in my closet.  Caffeineforge does a regular weekly posting of a single miniatures (with the order determined more than a month in advance) painted by multiple different painters. Their skills seem around my own, so it's quite a treat to paint something, and then see what other folk have done with it conceptually and technically.

I managed to find about the first 10 of the bones in the list, wash them up (apparently the release agents can do weird things to your primer and/or cause the paint not to stick for long), prime, and paint the first one. It was a bit of a race on Sunday to try and get him finished, and pictured before the deadline.

David (another one!) at Caffeineforge only posts a single pic, so I had to download GIMP (a free photoshop program) and futz about to get a single picture with 3 views.

Unfortunately, the figure has no nose (this is not too uncommon with bones) so his face looks a bit funny. I decided to make his wolf pelt that of a hellhound, and contemplated trying to free hand a wolf muzzle on the shield. I didn't feel up to it and went with a classic chaos sign from the warhammer universe.

Red and bronzes go well together. I didn't want to overpower the fig with metalics though, so I stayed with a leather for the armour (despite the fact it's entirely nonsensical to have leather over metal rather than vis versa). I even tried to paint the eyes...which went about as poorly as expected, but without experimenting, you won't get better. Overall I'm pretty happy with this one.