From GeoffT: Aliens, fantasy and pirates (76 points)

Hello challengers,

I have a mixture here this week.

The first image is two alien monstrosities for Stargrave.  We have an Ursoric, a giant bear like creature with scorpion tails protruding from its shoulders.  Next is an Arsendryder, an intelligent arsenic based life form, that appears like a camel without a hump, long front legs and short back legs and a rocky skin.  These monsters are made from cutting up cheap plastic toys to match the description in the rules supplement called bold endeavour.  They appear in one scenario with a less than 50% chance of turning up.  I expect they are there for people who like making things.  With the author’s propensity to describe camel, scorpion and hyena hybrids, those plastic toys are always on my shopping list.

These are hobgoblins but citadel miniatures, from the mid 1980s.  Rescued from a second hand collection.

Next are two more second hand minis.  On the left is a very old miniature of unknown origins, probably a necromancer as she has a thigh bone in one hand and a curved dagger in the other.  The one on the right is a complete adventurer from reaper bones.

More pirates, seven of them and a ships wheel.

This weeks minis together for scale.  As you can see the monsters are quite big. About 50mm tall each.

Total points, there are 11 x  28mm foot for 5 points each, two monsters around 54mm for 10 points each and a ships wheel mini, which was pretty minimal effort to paint, so maybe 1 point for an estimated total of 76 points.

From Millsy:

Nice to see someone else giving some classic lead a bit of love mate. There's a clear scale discrepancy between the necromancer and adventurer but your top paint job and matched basing, plus a little cunning thinker base work means it's not really that noticeable if you are not looking for it.

The pirates are once again a great mob and added to your efforts thus far mean you really do have a significant collection now. Nice work!

76 more gold doubloons for your total Geoff. Love em.

Cheers,

Millsy

From HerrRobert: Dragons Dancing at the Black and White Ball (40 points)

Deep in the frozen northern wastes, the young white dragon Othimmalaeagkar stood proudly on a hunk of rock staring out over a frozen sea of ice. Whisps of cold escaped her nostrils as she surveyed the domain she would make hers, establishing a lair and asserting dominance, contemplating the treasure soon to be mined by her captive deep gnomes and hordes of succulent caribou to feast on.

Meanwhile, deep in the fetid swamps hundreds of miles to the south, a young black dragon Thriingaulzundae snorts in deep satisfaction over his acquisition of a ruined and flooded chapel, sacred to gods long gone. Having secured the loyalty of a pirate band and the fealty through fear of a tribe of orcs, he contemplates the riches he is sure to amass, the magic to hoard, and ancient knowledge to covet.

For my third entry to Challenge XVI, I take you on a trip back down memory lane, to the Analogue Hobbies Studio of Challenge XIII. While my progress through the studio was extremely limited, I did amass several projects for the various themes throughout the studio. One of these was the "Black and White" section, which seemed eminently suited to digging something out of the pile of shame.

Black & White: Paint something in grey-scale, with black and white being your colours of choice. Reconjure the elegance of the silver screen! 

What could possibly be more suitable than some chromatic dragons?

From D&D Beyond, we have the necessary descriptors:

Black Dragons: Black dragons dwell in swamps on the frayed edges of civilization. A black dragon’s lair is a dismal cave, grotto, or ruin that is at least partially flooded, providing pools where the dragon rests, and where its victims can ferment. The lair is littered with the acid-pitted bones of previous victims and the fly-ridden carcasses of fresh kills, watched over by crumbling statues. Centipedes, scorpions, and snakes infest the lair, which is filled with the stench of death and decay.

Don't you just love that sense of satisfaction sculpted into his face?

White Dragons: White dragons lair in icy caves and deep subterranean chambers far from the sun. They favor high mountain vales accessible only by flying, caverns in cliff faces, and labyrinthine ice caves in glaciers. White dragons love vertical heights in their caverns, flying up to the ceiling to latch on like bats or slithering down icy crevasses.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons gives even more options for customizing these antagonists, from a dragon naming table, to lair designs, personality traits, dragon goals and even adventure hooks. 

Both dragons are from Reaper. Othimmalaeagkar is a Reaper Bones Young Ice Dragon, while Thriingaulzundae is a much heftier metal Young Swamp Dragon. Both are multi-part kits, with the wings cast and provided separately, which made things a whole lot easier to paint.

Reaper Bones Young Ice Dragon

The metal swamp dragon

I went with a pretty simple paint scheme for both, which doesn't really befit their status as dragons, but which worked really well. Both were primed and painted in parts, wings painted separately, and only assembled after all basing was complete. For Othimmalaeagkar, I primed her black, then completely covered her in white craft paint, followed by Game Color Blue Wash, and then dry brushed with Mondo Llama Snow Flurry, while her claws and teeth were Mondo Llama Winter Clouds. Mondo Llama craft paints are all a satin finish, which worked well for this dragon.

The base is where I took a lot more risks. I used a Reaper lipped base, and filled it with Realistic Water. I was sadly disappointed since I was unable to get the water to fog up or look like ice the way I wanted it to. Despairing a bit, I turned to AK Interactives Snow Sprinkles to cover the base of the miniature, and Ice Sparkles to try and create the ice effect over the realistic water. I was afraid I almost ruined it by putting watered down mod podge on the base to lock everything in, but when it dried it gave a very nice blending. I'm quite pleased.

For Thriingaulzundae, I used Mondo Llama Fresh Pavement over a brown primer. His scales were picked out by drybrushing Folkart Metallic Black over them, while I used Delta Ceramcoat Charcoal Grey for his skin. His claws are Mondo Llama Misty Grove.

I also used this as an opportunity to experiment with swamp bases. I started with my usual drybrush of Mississippi Mud and Teddy Bear Brown fraft paint, followed by a wash of Ghille Dew speedpaint. More realistic water followed, tinted using Woodland Scenics olive drab and brown tints to the realistic water. At first, I was concerned that I'd poured too much in, but it gave a really great effect of wet ground surging up on to shore. I then added Army Painter Swamp tufts, some Woodland Scenics foliage clumps, and lichen cut and torn to size. 

So there we have it, two young dragons ready to establish themselves in their new territories, and some solid celluloid from back in the vault.

Scoring is a bit difficult. Both models are a bit larger than a mounted 28mm figure, and comparable to an armored car I posted in a previous entry. However, a full 20 points seems a bit much, unless I can eke out 5 points per for the bases, so I'm going to claim 15:

Scoring:

• 2x 28mm dragons @ 15 points per = 30 points

That puts me at 70% of my very modest 100 points goal, with most of a month to go. I might just make my goal!

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Sylvain: Very nice paint job on these dragons. The work you did on the bases really makes them come alive. The description of your painting method is really instructive. Since I scored 20 points per dragons for my own submission yesterday, it's only fair to grant you the same amount. This will also get you closer to your 100 points target. Bien joué! 

 

From SylvainR: 28mm Big and Huge Monsters for D&D (200 points)

 

Our little reference heroine in a horde of big monsters, hard to spot like Waldo, can be found in the red circle. 

Because I was so close to complete a big project, I put the pedal to the medal last week and was able to finish the last of my D&D miniatures. There are lots of pictures in this post and I would forgive you if you want to skip to the end to see the photo of the whole D&D project finished. But let's get the ball rolling...

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Batch 1: an owlbear, a winged gorilla, a unicorn and a cockatrice. Since the unicorn doesn't have a rider, let's count it for 5 points. Let's count all the monsters here for 5 points each for the sake of simplicity. You will note that the owlbear is drooping, touching the ground with its arm, but the miniature was supposed to be standing on one leg. That's what happens with vinyl; the effect of gravity makes the models, especially big ones, droop over time. I used gloss varnish on the big eyes of the owlbear, increasing its "cuteness" by a factor of 10!

 

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Batch 2: a bulette (or "land shark"), a slaad, a war troll and a gorgon (or "brass bull"). Let's count the tall guys as 54mm figurines (10 points) and the 4 legged ones as 28mm cavalry without riders (5 points). I decided to paint the land shark as if it were construction equipment, kind of yellowish. For the gorgon, I used "patina" wash to enhance the brass look. I used the same recipe for the brass dragon that you will see later on.

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Batch 3: two ugly ogres (one is two-headed), a stone golem (or "earth elemental") and a treant (or "ent" or "wood spirit"). Let's count them all as 54mm figurines (10 points). I glued some flock on the stone golem and the treant to simulate moss. 

 

  

 

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Batch 4: a griffon, a wyvern (or "jabberwocky"), a black dragon and a chimera. Let's count them as 54mm models for 10 points each. I decided to use blue hues for the "feathery" parts of the griffon and I think it turned out OK. Again, the weak vinyl is causing the model to droop heavily. Eventually, I might have to add a little nail for support, as I did for my river troll. For the jabberwocky, I wanted to achieve a "weird" look with raspberry and pink colors while highlighting the teeth and claws with coral white.

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Batch 5: the heavies, a silver dragon, a gold dragon and a brass dragon. I would like to count them as 28mm vehicles for 20 points each. Note that, because dragons are known to cause devastation, I created bases with scorched earth and burned tree trunks.  It also helps emphasize the dragons themselves since there is nothing else to look at. No, I haven't become lazy with my bases (sweating heavily). For the brass dragon, I used the "patina" recipe trialed on the gorgon. It creates the effect that the dragon seems quite ancient.

 

 

 

 

 

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The completion of the 3 dragons also means that I have finished my D&D project. I want to thank again JeremyM for the great exchange of models, a few years ago. Above, you can see the whole collection of heroes, NPCs and monsters, most of them were featured on the painting challenge over the last few years.

 

Before I sign off, I just want to showcase a model from the collection that is special to me because it was a retirement gift from the bargaining team of which I was part. We were negotiating a new contract for our colleagues but my retirement day came before we could reach a final agreement with the administration of the university. My team knew that painting miniatures was my hobby and that I was a D&D player, so they bought me a "Nightwalker" from Wizkids. On the box, over the name of the miniature, they put a sticker stating: "Human Resources" (because we were negotiating with HR for the new contract). Ha ha! Very funny! Anyway, I wanted to paint this huge demon in a unique way, as if it was from a "negative" universe. The painting scheme looks weird and if you look at the base, it seems dirty, but a "negative" image reveals the expected normal colors and shading for the demon and the base. Just another fun way for me to spend my retirement... 

 

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Points claimed: 

Batch 1:  4x 28mm foot @ 5 points = 20 points

Batch 2:  2x 28mm foot @ 5 points + 2x 54mm foot @ 10 points = 30 points

Batch 3:  4x 54mm foot @ 10 points = 40 points

Batch 4:  4x 54mm foot @ 10 points = 40 points

Batch 5:  3x 28mm vehicle @ 20 points = 60 points

TOTAL: 190 points

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 Wow Sylvain, you must have most of the whole Monsters Manual by now.  What a fantastic collection of DnD foes.  Love those dragons, excellent work on the metallic tones.  I also love hoe batch one appears to be taking some demented aerobics class "give me 300 reps".  I also love the HR figures, although I've found that HR can sometimes be tamed and become an ally if you approach them properly.  I in a generous mood so I've round you up to an even 200.