There was a break in rainy June weather last weekend which allowed me to do some varnishing; meaning it's time for a painting blog - and only 3 months since the last one too, madness!

Let's start with the cultists!

In my experience, you can never have enough cultists for any genre of RPG. They fit everywhere! Who doesn't want the heroic PC to face of against some nefarious enemies.

​Below are some cultists (and a stone circle!) from the Dark Heaven Bones range at Reaper. Obviously they're plastic but they're straightforward sculpts that were easy to paint and they look suitably menacing.

Continuing with the nefarious theme: Next up we have 3 witches!

These are metal figures from Bad Squiddo Games and bear a uncanny resemblance to some famous witches from somewhere that's definitely not Kansas.
I used a green ink on the skin tones to give them a green hue as I didn't want them to look outright green, I think I might have over done it a touch. Otherwise, ​they are  nice sculpts that were very quick to paint.

Another nefarious foe for our heroes to face and this is a very traditional vampire fellow.

It's metal sculpt that I painted ages ago and has been patiently waiting to be varnished. I have no memory of what range the figure comes from as he was based even longer ago! Answers on a postcard I guess?

Next we have something a little less supernatural.... half-orcs!

These are plastic figures from Wizkids deep Cuts range. Like a lot of figures from that range, they can have a bit too much detail which slows down the painting process and can make it fiddly.
First up are two half-orc lady barbarians and the other two are half-orc paladins.

The next orc is a female half-orc fighter, again another plastic figure from Wizkids. She is one half of pack, the other figure was painted in a previous batch.

Finally we have a metal figure known only as 'Oberon' from the Dark Heaven Legends range from Reaper.

I also painted a bunch of classic D&D style troglodytes.

These come from Crooked Dice​, although ​I believe the sculpts originate from the now defunct Otherworld Miniatures which means they were multipart mayhem to construct which involved sticking my fingers together as much as the limbs to the bodies! I'm not sure how sturdy they'll be but I intend to avoid dropping them to find out!
The sculpts look very reptilian and seem to fit with the D&D aesthetic.

There's quite a lot of texture to the skin which felt fiddly, I'm not 100% happy with the end result.
It was hard to find a good source of artwork (Other than Crooked Dice's own photos.) to source for the colours but I went for a stony grey base colour for the skin with a 'strong' tone wash over it, both from The Army Painter. I also went with the red crests which is what is shown on the Crooked Dice photos as I quite liked that colour. Finally, the chieftain had a turtle shell shield which was a new thing to paint for me.

The 8 figures consist of 2 sets of 'warriors'; armed and unarmed, as well as a shaman and chieftain.

More trolodytes, only this time from Reaper Bones Black range from Reaper.

​Reaper's take on troglodytes is a little different and to me they look amphibian more than anything else - which is fine, they are of course fantastical creatures.
Like the Crooked Dice figures, these ones have a lot of texture to the skin. They also come with integrated bases styled to look rocky, this is something I generally like. However, these bases are so big, I had to mount them on 50x25mm bases instead of the usual 25x25.

Finally we have a 3d figure printed in resin I believe. This is, I think the first 3d printed figure I've painted - although I have painted some 3d printed scenery previously.

This is a healer/apothecarist/potion brewer and comes via We Print Miniatures although as I understand it, it was design by a studio called Vae Victis Miniatures.
I was impressed with print quality here, it's much better than what I've seen previous done with 3d printing. It's going to be interesting to see where 3d printing goes in the future.

I like the sculpt, it's a slightly unconventional pose with enough detail to be interesting to paint without going overboard. From the photo I saw on the website, I didn't realise the figure has a boxy case filled with potions as a backpack! 

Time for another painting blog and only 2 weeks after the last one!

All of these figures were painted for GameBlast25 which I ran back in February

​These figures below are all ones I have painted before but I needed duplicates.
Short Round and the pilot figure are from Pulp Figures while Tintin and the Continental Op are sleuths from Copplestone Castings gangster range. 

The elf on the left is a plastic figure and comes from WizKids Pathfinder Deep Cuts range and obviously from a D&D styled figure, she was used to represent Tauriel from The Hobbit movies as she was the best matching figure I have.

On the right is a recognisable, excellent Sallah figure from the pulp range at Crooked-Dice and is part of the Stalwart Sidekicks blister pack. 

Three time travellers, also from Crooked-Dice.
More excellent figures from Crooked-dice. I was worried they might not like right but they look recognisably like what they're meant to look like.

All the following figures are from the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang range at Artizan Designs.
They all have a 60's flavour and were used for the part of GameBlast25 adventure that took place in 1969.
They are very well sculpted and were enjoyable to paint, with enough detail to keep them interesting but not so much to become overly fiddly.
They are also just generic enough to be usable in a 70's game.

Some more varnishing has been done!
Other than the last 2 figures, everything was painted by mid-February but a mixture of being busy and bad weather meant that I didn't get a chance to varnish anything until Thursday past.

The 12 skeletons below are all lead figures from Midlam Miniatures. They're pretty standard designs but there's nothing wrong with that, I thought they were perfectly acceptable and the sculpts were good, especially since I was looking to bulk up my skeleton count and they were reasonably priced.
They were undercoated with a Army Painter bone coloured spray to make the painting quicker. The simpler figures such as archer and two-handed sword skeleton were quick to paint but some had a lot more detailing that needed quite a bit of re-undercoating before painting. So in terms of quick painting turn around. it was a bit of a mixed bag.
Overall though, I'm happy with the results.

EDIT: So whilst looking for something completely different I discovered that these skeletons were originally produced by the now defunct Metal Magic Fantasy back in the 90's when I was starting out painting!

The next 4 figures are cavemen from the Reaper Bones Black range.
Since they're plastic, the sculpting for their fur clothing can be quite thick, luckily though, that isn't readily apparent and overall they look pretty good. I like how burly they are.

Finally, the last 2 figures are definitely not Lara Croft and Alice from Resident Evil - specifically not Alice from the Resident Evil: Extinction movie.
Both done for a friend, Tim.

They're both lead models, now produced by Hayland Terrain.
Initially from the now defunct Studio Miniatures, they're both good sculpts though.

However, they were triply stressful to paint.
Originally I thought they were out of production and if somehow damaged would be very hard to replace.
They were painted for 'somebody else' which is something I'm not used to doing.
They were referencing 'real' sources which I needed to replicate.

Having said that, I still enjoyed doing it and am happy with the outcome.

2 posts in 2 days!
What's the world coming to?

Despite being cold, today was sunny and good opportunity to do some varnishing.

That's all 30 of my Pulp Figures Melanesian figures now finished and varnished.

From Midlam Miniatures are 3 Red Hook Horrors, only one of which I painted red! However, I find the idea of flesh and poo coloured monsters appealing. These were painted earlier in the year and are now varnished.

18 more pulp personalities painted and varnished.

That's all of them done, unless they're some more lying around that I haven't spotted. Which is quite likely!

2 of them are wearing kilts, I've hidden them in the back. Painting tartan is something that eludes me still.

The figures here are a mixture of Copplestone Casting's 'Back of Beyond' figures, Pulp Figures, Artizan Design's 'Thrilling Tales' figures and a couple Bad Squiddo figures.

Finally it's time to make a start on those WWII Soviets.

I've been slowly but surely painting since my last update 3 months ago.

Today I varnished 21 pulp personality figures.

They're a mixture of Pulp Figures Pulp Heroes & Personalities, Copplestone Castings' Back of Beyond Adventures and Footsore Miniatures' Irish War of Independence figures.

I'm now about 75% of the way through painting all my pulp personalities.

After that I have to move on to WWII Russians and I need to varnish some vehicles I've got laying around.

There was a gap in the weather on the 21st February that allowed me to varnish the last 9 figures that I'd painted.

It took me about a week to paint all 9 - which is quick going for me.

Painted and varnished 18 figures for Gameblast, various pulp figures and the like.

Unfortunately, the photos I took looked crap! So may some more at a later date.

Well today I threw a mini in the bin, actually I threw it against the painting shed door first (And it left a dent!).

It was a WWII German motorcycle rider from Foundry and I just could not get the stinking handlebars to stick to the bike.

I'd managed to do it with the first 2, but the 3 was too much.

This is only the 3rd time I've ever given up on a mini ever. :(

That's right, 2 painting blogs... in a month.

Today I just varnished 15 German soldiers that I've been painting throughout January. Now ready for The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot.

All of the above figures come from Artizan Designs' Germans in Greatcoats or German Infantry ranges.
​
Strictly speaking I doubt any of these are very 'early war' German, but the soldiers in greatcoats are fairly generic so can be used easily throughout the WWII years.