Taking on the Bones Pile

One thing Reaper Bones is great at is big monsters.  This gigantic spider is a good example.  Big, great detail, and doesn’t weigh a ton.  This is one of the Bones Black minis if I’m not mistaken which isn’t as soft as the original white plastic.  Holds detail a lot better and with a figure like this spider, has less bending of those thin legs.

Not sure if this creature has an actual name but I think it’s perfect for a wandering monster or Stargrave encounter.  Another experiment in natural coloring using Contrast Paints I did a few yers ago.

This is one of my favorite of the Bones minis to date.  I painted it years ago but it still holds up, both the sculpt and paint job.  I had originally planned to add him to my Vampire lead Kings of Wrath Undead force but my regular opponent moved away.  Since then this fellow has perched on my bookshelf keeping an eye (he only has one left) on my painting progress.

When we decided to play Forbidden Psalm a few years ago I knew I would find usable characters among all the various Bones minis.  Sure enough I found five fun minis that looked desperate and deadly lead by a fat noble in ensorcelled armor.

I know this looks more like an Alligator but since he came with the set of African Were-Animals, I’m calling him a were-croc.  These were a fun set to paint and great for experimenting with naturalistic color schemes.  Looks like he could give a full grown hippo a run for it’s money and an excellent reason to avoid the river bank at night.

I really liked these African Were-Animals.  Decent sculpts but they are fun to paint and great for working on natural color schemes.  Not sure what game I would use them in but I loved painting them.  I’m sure i will find a fun use for these raucous fellows.

I have no idea what this thing is but it perfect for my collection of science fiction minis.  It is about the size of an ogre and looks quite threatening.  Reminds me of some of the creatures coming out of Mantic’s Dead Zone universe.  A quick and fun paint job overall.

Not sure if these were originally called Were-animals but that’s how I think of these anthropomorphized animals.  They were fun practice with natural color schemes.  Today’s is the Were-Armadillo. Just look at those claws!

At this point I can’t remember which of the Kickstart campaigns this fellow came in but it was one of the first cast in the grey Bones Black plastic.  This is much better for strength and holding detail.  This guy is taller than an ogre so quite a big boy. I’m fairly certain I painted him soon after the rewards box arrived.  I loved the sculpt with clean, well defined details and I really wanted to paint blue skin.

I tend to take pictures of all the minis I paint.  One of the leftovers of my Photography background, I guess.  I tend to document everything though most of it doesn’t get posted.  A lot of these minis go back to Bones1 or are just odds and ends I was inspired to paint at the time.

Another wizard figure.  This one was a 45 minute warm up.  I will often use Speed Painting requirements (45-60 minutes to finish a figure) as a warm up or pallet cleanser, no pun intended.  This is good for keeping a steady hand and practicing fast base coats but really helps me fight the Analysis Paralysis that often cripples me.  With a limited time I have to make quick decisions and deal with them.

Way back a campaign or two, may even have been one of the Egyptian themed Add ons, was this huge rhino beetle.  It was one of the first times I used color shifting paints.  I believe it was actually one of the test/learn models.

I love role playing games and like Gerry, can happily play them theater of the mind.  Being an artist I will always at least sketch my characters and as a minis painter I love have minis that represent my characters even when we aren’t using them.  It helps me think about who this person is and what brought them to adventuring.  With this wizard I had rolled up a high level wizard with a pseudo-dragon familiar for an expedition to the City of Brass in the elemental plane of fire.  He was a fairly quick paint job with some of the details matching his magic items.

So a friend’s recent project inspired me to paint my squad of what I call Star Troopers.  Yes, I know Reaper has given them a name but they are my Star Troop Squad.  As with most of my recent pieces, I wanted these to be quick and simple.  I planned on using Contrast paints for the base coats but knew they need a primer coat with Bones plastics no matter how much you clean them.  Since some spray primers will trash the early white Bones plastic I usually opt for a thin coat of Citadel’s Screaming Skull or Ulthuan Grey Layer paint.