Dankelblarg » Reaper Miniatures

Stone Golem

Dankelzahn — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:00:57 +0000

This is another miniature painted up for an Earthdawn game and was used as an Obsidiman Wizard until the player decided he wanted to play something else. This one is a Reaper fig that is larger than standard 25mm figures.

I did a better job highlighting the stone before I speckled it than I did with my first Chainmail Stonechild, so the cracks and crags stand out much better on this one. You can see a lot of imperfections sculpted on the leather skirt. This figure's supposed to be completely stone, but I wanted an obdidiman instead of a golem so I painted it as aged leather instead.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2751 - Stone Golem
Painted: 2004

Valdarynn, Arch Mage

Dankelzahn — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:00:19 +0000

I painted Valdarynn up for an arcanist character in the rotating-GM role-playing campaign that I was in in late '09. I went with a bright fantasy-esque fiery theme for this figure to match his flavor of magic and his temper. I had initially painted his inner robe yellow but it looked too much like a rain slicker. I repainted it in the gray you see here to try and evoke a little smoke to the robe's fiery color.

Valdarynn was one of the first miniatures where I finally started getting better with blond hair. For this figure I used Reaper Master Series Yellowed Bone (similar to GW Bleached Bone) as a base coat and washed with a thinned down mix of a yellow paint and GW Brown Ink, adding a little more ink in for successive washes to do the deeper shadows.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2591 - Valdarynn, Arch Mage
Painted: 2009

Ardynn D’Narg, Elven Fighter Mage

Dankelzahn — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:00:21 +0000

Ardynn is yet another miniature inspired by a character in my Earthdawn campaign- this time an NPC Warrior/Nethermancer. I wanted to stay away from the stereotypical "necromancer black" though so decided to use a few different blues as the miniature's primary color.

It was hard coming up with a color scheme that said leaned toward darker tones but didn't scream "Evil wizard!" but I think there's enough color in there to brighten it. I did go with black for his weapon sheathes, giving them a gloss overcoat after sealing for a lacquered look. The royal purple tunic was my wife's idea and gives enough contrast to keep the figure from turning into a grayish-bluish blob on the gaming table.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Warlord
Mini Name: 14046 - Ardynn D'Narg, Elven Fighter Mage
Painted: 2005

Alaine, Female Paladin

Dankelzahn — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:00:12 +0000

My wife picked this miniature out to represent her Earthdawn character - a Dinganni Warrior. The Dinganni are a darker skinned people, so the skintone on this one is a little darker than what I usually do.

The miniature was mostly metallics, so wasn't too hard to complete. The sword was an attempt to give the appearance of cracked ice on the gaming table. It's a little abrupt this close up, but it looks good at the 3-4 foot range. The armor was done in Boltgun Metal + Black to darken with Tin Bitz + Shining Gold trim. The hilt of the sword is Shining Gold.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2725 - Alaine, Female Paladin
Painted: 2004

Gord Ironhead

Dankelzahn — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:00:16 +0000

Gord was originally purchased to serve as the captain of a friend's Mordheim squad, and remained unpainted for years even after it was given to me when its owner quit playing. I eventually decided to go ahead and give him a really fast paint job just so I'd have another dwarf painted and ready for use.

Ole' Gordy's definitely not going to win any awards, but he looks good enough at 3-4 feet and that's what's necessary for tabletop use.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2384 - Gord Ironhead
Painted: 2004

Elquin The Daring

Dankelzahn — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:00:13 +0000

Elquin was chosen to represent an elven Earthdawn character, and with that character came a few color-related challenges. Elves of that world typically follow a philosophy called the Wheel of Life, where each of the five stages is represented by a different outlook on life and different color schemes of dress. Talon followed the path of the scholar, the colors of which are red and yellow.

Talon's player said he'd rather not have a red robe, so that meant it had to be yellow, a difficult color to paint. So I started with a base coat of Golden Brown, and slowly built up layers through Yellow and eventually added a few highlights of almost pure White. While the end result turned out ok, it did bear a striking resemblance to a rain slicker.

Regardless, it turned out to the player's liking, and I started picking other colors to fit the scheme, including two colors of red for the tunic and the robe lining. The hair colors were also requested by the player - purple with a few streaks of green. Neither angle here really captures the green streaks well, but they're visible.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2246 - Elquin The Daring
Painted: 2004

Tariq, Dune Ranger Sergeant

Dankelzahn — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:25:36 +0000

Tariq was a fun and relatively simple miniature to paint. Typically I pick miniatures to paint based on need for various table top games, but Tariq is one of the few figures that I purchased and painted simply because I wanted to paint it. Despite being one of my older pieces, it stands up pretty good next to many of my newer pieces.

The armor was done similar to Boris's armor - painted with a mix of Parchment and Goosefeather, washed/inked/stained with a dark brown, then highlighted back up with the original colors. The metallics were shaded with a wash of black mixed with Vallejo Smoke and highlighted by mixing in some Mithril Silver. The skin was the standard Vallejo mix I used back at the time, left a little darker than usual.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 14094 - Tariq, Dune Ranger Sergeant
Painted: 2005

Boris, Evil Fighter

Dankelzahn — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:00:38 +0000

Actually deciding what colors to paint on a miniature is usually very difficult for me. I'm a more technically minded person, and grasp the application of colors and shading much faster than actually deciding what colors go together well. However when I saw Boris in the blister at my local store, I immediately knew exactly how I wanted to paint him up.

When I saw Boris' armor, I immediately thought 'Dragon Highlord.' All you Dragonlance fans out there know exactly what I'm talking about. For the scales I chose to go with blue and metal banding. The skull breastplate screamed to be actual bone, and the spikes, kneepad, and sword haft were painted to match. The cloak and tabard were painted black as most blue dragon highlords were pictured. I decided to go with an 'evil black blade' highlighted with just a bit of blue along the edges. After the miniature was dullcoated, the sword was given a gloss overcoat so it's highly reflective in person.

Although I was happy with the miniature overall, I never did get the cloak to look how I wanted. It was left as pictured above mostly out of frustration of not getting a starkly highlighted black to work properly.

Interesting enough, a fellow player in one of the games I play in picked up this miniature and had the exact same inspiration. He wound up going with red instead of blue, and it turned out equally well. Then Thom decided to go ahead and base his miniature on a piece of rock over some lava and put my base to shame.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2938 - Boris, Evil Fighter
Painted: 2005

Amiryth Elmlighter

Dankelzahn — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:25:35 +0000

I had wanted to try to paint a female elven archer up as a Night Elf from Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III for a while. It took some searching to find one that I felt I could work with-one with enough exposed skin to practice a non-standard flesh tone. When I saw the green for this miniature on Reaper's web site, I found what I was looking for. I painted her flesh tones first as I usually do - starting with a dark purple and slowly building up layers of highlighting. Once I was done, I was happy with the result, but unsure of exactly where to proceed from there.

I wound up taking inspiration for the cloak from Liliana Troy's version of this miniature. The brown trim on the cloak was painted to give the impression that there was a leather cuff at the hem. In reality the only raised areas are the silver filigree. Though my version isn't of the same quality, it's convincing enough in person. The rest of the miniature was painted in the same manner as the flesh - building up highlights from the shadow colors.

Amiryth's bow was painted to resemble my interpretation of a moon-bow. The bright silver highlights can be seen, but what the images don't show is the bow's glossy appearance. I coated it in a few layers of Future Floor Wax after the final Dullcoating so that it would shimmer in person. Unfortunately the effect is lost in the digital image.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2711 - Amiryth Elmlighter
Painted: 2005

Lurg, Half-Orc Assassin

Dankelzahn — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:25:34 +0000

The Earthdawn RPG has races and classes that are somewhat non-standard by traditional means. One of the characters in the game I ran, Tridae, was a Beastmaster. In Earthdawn Beastmasters typically learn to shape their hands into claws. Since we really only use miniatures in battle scenes, finding something that looked as close as possible was our goal. Luckily Reaper put out Lurg here, and since Tridae was an ork to begin with, it was the best match we could come up with. The claw weapon and the dirty looking dreadlocks really helped set the tone.

Lurg was actually painted pretty typically - there wasn't anything special about him. Originally his ribbed underclothing was green, but the finished product reminded me of Peppermint Patty way too much, so that had to change. The player's second choice was red, so I went with that. The camera washed out some of the red's shading, but you can still see some of it.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Warlord
Mini Name: 14043 - Lurg, Half-Orc Assassin
Painted: 2004

Inquisitor of Malvernis

Dankelzahn — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:00:23 +0000

The Inquisitor of Malvernis was originally purchased to be my healer character in a RPG campaign almost a decade ago. Given the rather malicious appearance of the miniature, I had to do some work to make it appear softer and less malevolent. The biggest issue was the face - this miniature actually has a smooth, plain face mask over its face. Assumedly the inquisitor hides his identify from the public. Since this wasn't the effect I wanted, I painted the bottom half of the mask as if a cowl covered the priest's face, and painted the top half as his head. A better sculptor than I could have carved away the face and replaced it, but I didn't think I would be able to do that successfully and this seemed a viable alternative.

The white robes were done with Vallejo White with a very slightly blue shading. Since the other colors I used on his clothing were cool colors (purple and blue), I chose to shade in blue instead of light tan to keep the motif. The purple was done with Ceramcoat Purple and adding a little white for highlights. I need to go back and add another layer of highlights at the highest points sometime - I don't think they're stark enough.

The shield on the back of the miniature is from a Games Workshop Mordheim Mercenary sprue. I cut off the spike in the middle and smoothed it over so it looked a little less intimidating.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2720 - Inquisitor of Malvernis
Painted: 2003

Rictur Diehn

Dankelzahn — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:30:23 +0000

This miniature was inspired by a version painted by Jen Haley - her paint job was the only reason I picked this mini up. Rictur was probably the first mini I felt I did a decent job on, though hers is far better. This miniatures flesh was done in craft paints way back before I started using Vallejos. The cloak shading is a little deeper in person, but for one of my earlier minis, I was very happy with the smoothness of it.

The NMM was one of my earlier attempts, and mostly unsuccessful. It's an art that's still alluded me to this day. The punch dagger and armor studs are small enough that they turned out ok but the blade's large surfaces don't maintain the illusion.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 2430 - Rictur Diehn
Painted: 2002

Stern Kestrelmen

Dankelzahn — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:58:29 +0000

This figure was chosen by the player of our "knight in shining armor" character in the rotating GM game to use on the tabletop, so I went with bright plate armor accentuated with a bright regal blue. The stock figure is armed with a sword but I swapped it out for a hammer from the Games Workshop Mordheim Mercenary Sprue at the player's request.

I thought about accenting his armor with a brass or gold color but the character really isn't one for embellishment. I also used Stern here to test the "Advanced Faces" painting guide in issue 23 of No Quarter Magazine as opposed to my normal layering method. The technique turned out ok for a first attempt but I need to experiment some more before I'm comfortable with it.

Manufacturer & Line: Reaper - Dark Heaven Legends
Mini Name: 3324 - Stern Kestrelmen
Painted: 2009

Different Strokes: Technique and Painting Speed

Dankelzahn — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:46:21 +0000

Recently I've been experimenting with a few of the techniques that the Privateer Press painting staff talk about in their recent books. It's taken a while to adapt to a new way of doing things but after getting used to it I've been able to increase the speed I can paint a figure pretty significantly.

Vice Scrutator Vindictus

The biggest change I've picked up on is how I layer cloth. In the past I've started with the darkest shadow color and slowly worked up from there layer by layer. But recently I've switched to basecoating with my mid-tone and shading down from that in thin coats, falling back to wet blending occasionally just to smooth out some of the larger surfaces.

Vindictus in particular only took a few days for me to do, and for me that's faster than it usually would. If it weren't for the filigree around the armor plates, I expect it would've gone even faster.

I've also spent some time on a reaper figure lately, using this technique primarily on her cloak. A lot of the rest of her is quick-work, but all in all, she'll make a good RPG figure once complete.

Reaper Miniatures #2834 Deladrin, Female Assassin

I'm still refining the techniques, but for now I'm satisfied with how the figures are turning out. Soon I'll be moving on from my recent string of Protectorate pieces to try out the wintery blues of my Legion. Between that and a few side pieces I'm working on, I should have ample opportunity to perfect the new technique.

¿Qué pasa con todo el azul?

Dankelzahn — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:31:55 +0000

My painting has been progressing slowly but steadily. Nowadays it seems like I can only spend so much time with the brush before I need a break. But I recently made progress on a handful of miniatures so I figured it was time to add to my (lacking as of late) collection of WIP shots.

Rhoven & Honor Guard

First up is Rhoven and the Honor Guard. I posted some initial WIPs of the Honor Guard a while back and since then I've made some pretty good progress. The Honor Guards have actually been sitting mostly done for a little while now while I worked on Rhoven himself.

I'm most happy with the lower portion of Rhoven's robes so far, but there's still some work that needs to be done. I'm going to repaint the stole for starters; the highlights were pretty borked when I did them the first time. That and some more general cleanup work should make him ready for sealing.

Blighted Swordsman UA

Next up is my Blighted Swordsman unit attachment, which isn't near as complete as Rhoven and the Honor Guard. I've spent a fair amount of time trying to clean up their leather armor and make it really pop but I'm really happy with the skin tones on these two.

The release of MkII has pushed these guys away from the table a little bit compared to some of the other options in the Legion army. I've been known to paint models only to have them never see the table again - we'll see if that happens again with these guys.

Reaper 60001: Valeros, Iconic Human Fighter

After the Swordsman UA is Valeros, Iconic Fighter, from Reaper Miniatures' new Pathfinder line. I wasn't as happy with this model once I got it assembled as I was when I saw it at first, though it makes a good representation for my character in my current Earthdawn game.

I'm still trying to clean up the mouth a little bit so it looks better, but overall he turned out fairly well. I think I'm going to need to weight the back of the base if I can - the leaning pose makes him want to tip over sometimes if I'm not careful. I'll be using enough sealant on him to stand up to roleplaying use though so he should be fine.

Dark Elf Corsairs

Whenever we have to hold off on a roleplaying session, my Sunday gaming group usually plays board games to occupy the time slot. Recently we've turned to Mordheim, which has been a lot of fun. Back in '01 I started painting a Dark Elf warband but never finished my Corsairs here. Even though I'm running Reiklanders this time, I decided to get my Dark Elves finished so I could field them as a cohesive force, even if it was standing in for another army.

I'm going the speed-over-quality route to try and get them to the tabletop (they're still being worked on). It's also an attempt to rely heavily on the Games Workshop washes (Badab Black and Delvin Mud) to see if they can speed things along. So far those two washes haven't been anything special, but they do save me time in mixing my own so I feel like they've been worth it thus far.

Dwarf Warriors

Last up is another GW sampling from my Mordheim days. A friend of mine left his plastic dwarf boxed set with me when he left the game. They have been sitting around for a while now and I finally decided to paint up a collection of them with different weapons for use in various roleplaying or miniature games.

The dwarves painted here are only a sample - there are three of each weapon combinations and a few "officer" types all done in a similar paint scheme. I went muted for the color scheme on these guys, and it seemed to turn out ok. The beards, though were a fun shortcut. I basecoated all of them (except those that would be black) with Reaper Master Series Bleached Bone and then used washes to tint and shade them the desired color. It was a nice time-saving technique for tabletop-quality dorfs.

Switching Gears – Painting RPG Miniatures

Dankelzahn — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:35:04 +0000

After the rush to get my army painted for Hardcore and the disappointment of not being able to play, I decided to take a break from painting Privateer Press miniatures. I'll come back to them soon enough but I spent the past couple weeks finishing up a handful of models for our weekly roleplaying game.

First up are a couple of Reaper figures that I picked up for two of the players. The first for a hammer-wielding fighter type. As our "knight in shining armor" I went with bright plate armor accentuated with a bright regal blue. The stock figure (Reaper 3324, Stern Kestrelmen) is armed with a sword but I swapped it out for a hammer from the Games Workshop Mordheim Mercenary Sprue.

I thought about accenting his armor with a brass or gold color but the character really isn't one for embellishment. I'm pleased with him overall, thought he needs a little touch up before his final sealing. I also used Stern here to test the "Advanced Faces" painting guide in issue 23 of No Quarter Magazine. The technique turned out ok for a first attempt but I need to experiment some more before I'm comfortable with it.

Reaper 3324, Stern Kestrelmen

Next is our party arcanist. For this figure I went with a bright fantasy-esque fiery theme to match his flavor of magic and his temper. I had initially painted his inner robe yellow but it looked too much like a rain slicker. I repainted it in the gray you see here to try and evoke a little smoke to the robe's fiery color.

Valdarynn probably needs the most work out of all of these models before getting "finished" - his hands need highlighting and I have to clean up his fire and smooth out his robe. I'll probably also add a few highlights to his outer garment. The blond hair turned out fairly well though - I used Reaper Master Series Yellowed Bone (similar to GW Bleached Bone) as a base coat and washed with a thinned down mix of a yellow paint and GW Brown Ink, adding a little more ink in for successive washes to do the deeper shadows.

Reaper 2591, Valdarynn, Arch Mage

After Valdarynn we have the Mercenary Assassin from Confrontation. I picked this figure up a while ago and was holding on to him until I got inspired enough to paint him. When I dug him up while searching through my bare pewter collection for a good figure for my rouge/assassin type character I figured now was as good of a time as any.

I really wanted this figure to have an overall shadowy feel to him, hence the various grays that were used as the primary colors. Even the browns for the leather were done in a muted tone so as to not stand out. I realized that I needed something to make him pop, though and decided to paint the cloth mask a bright red as an accent. Once I clean up a few areas and paint the lantern on his back, the merc assassin will be ready for his final sealing.

Confrontation Mercenary Assassin

Even though I'm posting my merc sprue soldier last, he's actually the first of the models I did for my game. We had a few of my older figs that stood in for everyone except the axe wielding hedge mage in our group. Before I knew I was going to be picking up a couple Reaper figs, I dug through my bits box for pieces from the Mordheim Mercenary Sprue to put together this model.

I did a quick 2-day speed painting job to get him finished and on the table as quick as possible. The result wasn't as high of a quality as my other work. If I knew I was going to be painting new figures for most of the party I would have taken more time but he was already completed and sealed before I made that decision. Still, he's a solid tabletop-quality piece and works well for us in our RPG campaign.

Merc Sprue Soldier

I'm including the last two characters of the group below, even though they're not new paint jobs. I painted this first figure back in 2003 to use as a priest-type character, the same type of character it's getting used for now. This was back before I started cutting the broccoli-bases off my Reaper figures - I hate those things.

Reaper 2720, Inquisitor of Malvernis

The archer is another GW Mercenary Sprue figure I put together for my friend's archer in an Earthdawn game I ran back in 2004. That same player is playing another bow-wielding character in our current group so it seemed fitting to re-use the same figure. He's from my pre-basing days, so he's just on a plain black base. One of these days I'll go back and add some basing to him.

Games Workshop Mercenary Sprue Archer

So that's it for my current gaming group's party of characters. We're trying a few things different this time around with regards to the game itself which are working out for us. I want to talk about them some time in the near future but I'm going to wait until after we get a few more sessions in first.