Sitting On A Gold Mine, Or The Leprechaun

This little fellow shall play the part of the Leprechaun from the Expansion set.

The mini is an old Ral Partha gnome based and repainted. I hope you can recognize that's a half-buried pot of gold at his feet.

For comparison, here he is next to some of his brethren painted about twenty years ago.

The Horde Is A-Brewing, Or The Frost Dragon

Dragons. I counted, thanks to the Talisman Dragons expansion, there is a total of 24 dragons in the whole game. That is a lot of dragons. Am I mad to think of acquiring and painting a total of 24 dragons?

Well, I'll never be done, if I don't start. Here is number one, the Frost Dragon from the Dragons expansion (row 2, column 3).

The beast is an old mini. I remember it came in a boxed set with another dragon like this one in a slightly different pose and a barbarian warrior.

I probably pooled my money with a friend, so that I got one dragon and my friend got the other one and the warrior because I don't have them and I don't think I ever painted them.

This dragon I had painted with thick enamel paints in white with silver spines. Now I added the basing and repainted the beast. An improvement, yes, but maybe not all that big at least thanks to nostalgia..

Anyway, nostalgia or not, I love the sculpt. Especially the wings, they are often a problem, falling off if handled roughly in the midst of battle. With this one the wings are sturdy and the tucked in position actually adds to the pose which to me resembles a stalking panther.

If anyone recognizes the mini and knows about the manufacturer, etc, the info would be appreciated!

Fallen Leaves, Or The Elf

For the Elf playing character from the basic game I found this fellow from Reaper by Gene van Horne.

Nothing much to do with the original illustration.

With the base I tried to achieve the effect of dry leaves blown by the wind. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.

I glued small pieces of paper together in a rising column and at first the effect looked very good. But after a couple of layers of paint, the columns started sagging and they lost their drama. Maybe if I had glued them onto a piece of metal wire, it would have turned out ok.

A Jewel Of The Desert

A Merchant Princess from Reaper by Julie Guthrie.

Nothing to do with the Project, but I posted her anyway.

The A-mazeing Minotaur

The Minotaur playing character from the City expansion (row 3, column 2) is played by this bipedal bovine by Jason Wiebe from Reaper.

He is plastic and exemplifies the problems I've had with the white, soft plastic pieces.

1. They are a little oily on the surface. They may not feel like it, but the oily residue can seep into the paint, leaving it glossy and uneven. Wash them before painting.
2. Don't use white primer on white plastic, silly! It will end up VERY uneven.
3. Even washed and primed evenly, the paint still doesn't seem to stick like on metal on resin. I now apply two coats of primer (for example black and then grey so I can see that they are both applied evenly). This seems to solve the problem.
4. Details are a bit sharper in metal.
5. They are sometimes bent, and I can't get them straight. I have tried heating them and letting them cool while held straight, but I think I haven't got the temperature right.

But plastic pieces do have their advantages also:

1. They are cheap, Reaper does a lot of casts both in plastic and metal. And at the time I'm writing this, at their online store, this minotaur in metal costs $16.99, while the plastic version costs $3.49.
2. The plastic is light, when they fall, they don't break or leave dents in the floor. Bits don't break off because of the elasticity.
3. Once you do get the paint on them, it stays. Because the material is soft, paint doesn't accidentally scrape off as easily as with metal.
4. The softness means cutting it is very easy for modifications or just removing flash, of which there is usually (but not always) very little.

All in all, very good for gaming. For just collecting and painting, I prefer metal but I do have a budget to consider.

Another Pirate

Up until I got to this lady, I had just been doing the same thing with the bases: Spread some PVA glue on top and then dip the base in ordinary sand from the yard. The colour scheme was the same green kinda-mossy-grassland-maybe.

With this Reaper sculpt by Julie Guthrie I decided to do something thematic.

The starfish is made of paper mache. Once finished, I realised the invertebrate ended up floating on the water, not half submersed, as would have been more natural. Still, fun to do something different. Sadly, no role for this buccaneeress in the Project.