Zulu

A player character from the Dungeon expansion. Once again, I did three for the trouble of one.

From Reaper by Bob Olley.

The Swordsman

The Swordsman player character from the Dungeon.

Another Foundry mini, from their medieval Swiss range by Dave Andrews.

Year One

It has now been one year since I took up painting again. Looking back, I'm surprised how much I've done.

I usually get about a half hour of painting done every day. Hopping from one project to another I work on 1-20 minis simultaneously which means a lot of half-dones lying around.

With these guys laid out, the funny thing is, I don't know if I've gotten a lot better at painting during this past year but I've definitely gotten a lot faster. And maybe I'm now getting more hits compared to the misses..

Anyway, as a hooray to myself, my top five pieces of the past year IMHO:

This arthropod. I'm happy with getting decent paint job onto the plastic I was having trouble with earlier. And I'm pleased with the way the light source effect turned out. I also think the pose turned out fine; the spider rearing back from the torch, probably thrown by some startled dungeon explorer who has just noticed a spider the size of a cow sneaking up on them.

This pirate. I always wanted to paint a classic pirate, but never got around to it before. Also, he was one of the early ones I did after picking up a brush again after taking a break for a decade. With him I felt like I was really getting my painting groove back on again, painting was starting to feel fast and easy, and I like the result.

These marines. Finishing a full squad was very satisfying. Also, the droids had been taunting me from my "to-paint" pile for almost 20 years. Finally done!

These watchmen. The second time a did a whole unit, and finding inspiration in classic art was surprisingly much fun.

This fellow. The paint job is crap, but he is the mini that broke the decade long hiatus!

Arachnophobia, Or A Giant Spider

An 8-legged monstrosity from the Dungeon.

I finally RTFM, and I learned to stop worrying and love the Reaper "Bones" plastic. I had a lot of problems earlier with getting the paint to stick to the plastic. The problem was water. I usually use a rather wet brush, which makes the paint flow better. But with this material even a little water in the paint caused the recesses to repel the paint leaving a very uneven coat. Simply by using a dry brush for the first layer of paint solved the problem. The following layers can be thinned down with water with no problems. The paint sticks very hard, you don't need a coat of primer and you don't need any varnish.

I also like the way the the torchlight came out. I highlighted with a light shade of the colour where the light would fall further away from the light source and then used yellow / orange highlighting close to the torch.

An Interregional Man Of Mystery, Or The Spy

The Spy player character from the Dungeon expansion.

The mini is another Reaper by Patrick Keith. With the base, the idea was that he is standing on a road with the green representing the side of the road. But the wide cape means, that from most angles you only see the green or the brown, not both. I should have painted the divide of colours at a right angle to the way it is running now.

Beware The Deadly, Flashing Blade, Or The Swashbuckler

With the Swashbuckler player character from the Dungeon expansion, I kept thinking of Errol Flynn's 1940 film, the Sea Hawk. Which, of course, is black and white, so no help for the colours from there.

From Reaper by Derek Schubert.

I had kept going with the quick black undercoat - dark base - medium tone - highlight method. I'd been taking the speed and the amount of black showing further and further, and with this one I think I took the method too far. He just looks dirty to me. But you won't know the limits of your tools and styles if you never cross those limits.

I've also noticed that there is a bit of variety in size between minis even from the same producer. Here are two Reaper minis, the Swashbuckler and the Rogue from my previous post.

The basing adds to the difference in height. The Swashbuckler has a tab and a slotta base, while the Rogue has an integral cast base and I've then placed him on a 25 mm square base for unity.

But still, even without the base, the Swashbuckler measures 32 mm, while the Rogue stands at 36 mm. Not really a problem for me, but still annoying.

Goblins!

Talisman contains a total of 5 goblin enemy cards. 2 in the basic game, 1 in the Expansion Set and 2 in the Dungeon expansion.

I have now finished 4. They are Ral Partha orcs propably from the late 80's. Once again, I didn't have the heart to change my old colour scheme, I just added the hand emblem on the shields.

A Midsummer Night's Sprite

The Sprite player character from the Dungeon expansion.

She is from Reaper by Bobby Jackson. The wings were a bit fiddly, falling off at first. I added a piece of wire that runs across her back and onto both wings. It holds the wings fast and doesn't even show too much.

I tried to make her look a bit ethereal, so the colors are light. The skin is mostly just a medium blue wash over a white base. A few light blue highlights, and I think she turned out ok.

The purple of the hands and feet was added while the blue was still wet and it blended quite nicely.

Nobody Expects The Inquisitor

This scarlet menace of the heretics is the Inquisitor player character from the Dungeon expansion.

The mini is from Reaper by Bobby Jackson. Originally he had a clean shaven face. But I kept thinking about these two fellows.

Charlton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu in the greatest Three Musketeers adaption of all time.

Cardinal Ximénez of the Spanish Inquisition, naturally.

So I had to green stuff the face of this man of the cloth with a beard and moustache. Turned out ok.

Washing Rediscovered or the Pirate

The next thing I remembered I could also do, was to apply washes for shading. This wondefully characterful scurvy sea-dog turned out quite nicely thanks to that.

He is the Pirate playing character from the Dungeon expansion. Row 3, column 2.

I used a rather light base colour with darker wash applied generously over the base colour. The wash was simply the same Citadel paints I'd been using thinned down suitably with water. Works ok, if I can get the ratios right. After that, some highlighting with a colour similar to the light base and that's it.