odinsgrandson

Here's a solitaire that I got to paint up just a little while ago. He goes with one of a couple forces of Harlequins that I've painted up in small batches. Each of the other Harlequins in the troupe have strong black and white patterns with one bold color added. This Harlequin has each of the other colors incorporated into it (sort of a sign of his position). Here's a link to his CMON page for anyone who cares to vote.

I feel like there have been many renditions of Medusa in miniatures. She's even become a species according to some of the older Dungeons and Dragons stuff I have around here. They even had pictures of child medusas (and it isn't like I haven't painted a medusa before). Well, Arena Rex has some brilliant artwork and sculpting behind their line, so I was very happy to get to paint up their wonderful Medusa. The client really let me make the decisions on this one, so I got to create the pallet as I see her. Here's a link to her CMON page for anyone who cares to vote.

Here's a cake topper I made for a couple that clearly believe strongly in "Forever and No Matter What." It is really great to have found someone who will always love you, no matter what side of the zombie apocalypse you both end up on. A little while ago, I made a similar topper to this one- but from the other side, the couple were still alive. I believe the cake they put them on was half white and half chocolate, and they thought it was a great idea to have the couple be zombies from one side but not the other. This couple went fully undead. I really liked matching the tattoos especially.

When I'm choosing a color scheme for my own minis, I generally shy away from the official color schemes from artwork or studio paintjobs. I'm not totally sure why I do this. You can paint a mini great in studio colors (and I often do that as well). But I really like to re-imagine the character in a very different light- and you can often fundamentally change a character simply by choosing different colors. Well, here's Bette Noir- there's a clear color scheme suggested in that name. But my client chose a color scheme that was very far from the official one:

I hadn't thought of her as an emissary, but she's work great.

I always take that to mean that you're with the right girl. If I had started these before we were married, my wife would have insisted.

Here's a Euryale that I got to paint up for a client's Arena Rex game. I really love the sculpts from the whole line- Arena Rex has some outstanding sculptors working with them. Anyway, here she is (you were warned that she's topless). And here's a link to her CMON page for anyone who cares to vote.

I get lots of different kinds of projects for Wedding Cake Toppers- themes range from Zombies, videogames, swordfighting, fantasy roleplaying, comic fandom and beyond. This couple had a very specific idea of the couple they wanted- that’s not so unusual actually. Since I’m making all of the toppers myself, I can create a lot of things that no one has ever thought of before. They wanted a Cthulhu groom carrying his Mermaid Bride- all done with a much creepier style than what I normally make for cake toppers. In fact, I actually considered a number of ways to make the scales and transitions on the mermaid herself, but they wanted something very specific. And I really love how it came out. I get to work with the best people.

Here are how I painted up my Rabid Squirrels for Super Dungeon Explore. I only have three of them here- because my wife claims half of the chibi minis I get. It is a good thing we got so many of the same sculpt here, or we would have had to fight over them (she got most of the pets...) Here they are:

I have had a lot of requests for some interesting cake toppers. Here are two sets that I created- both of the couples independently decided that they'd like to see Doctor Who's TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension In Space) on their wedding cakes. First- here's what the TARDIS looked like all by itself: The first couple wanted to be running into the TARDIS (with the door a little open). I think it is the vehicles that's taking them on their honeymoon. I like how they wanted her to seem just a little more eager to get in there than he is: The last ones wanted their clothing to show off some of their other fandoms. For some reason, I feel like crossovers with Doctor Who just work really well- I always imagine that he can arrive in any place/time/dimension that the TARDIS takes him to:

Bones is great for huge minis, and also hordes of minis. I have done a good number of PCs in bones- and they can be made to look great (I'm quite happy with my mouselings). But Bones really shines for the peasants, orcs, and especially the huge monsters and terrain. I'd be forever proxying knolls and bugbears if it weren't for bones.

Harlequins are just fun to paint. I think it is the demand for freehand that the minis have; the way they revel in having bold, colorful designs painted all over them. I mean, most minis would feel silly if they had this kind of thing done to them. But not all of them- Colette and her Showgirls or Collodi and his dolls end up looking great with some Harlequin Diamonds on them. Here is a set of Harlequins- they were painted to match a force of harlies where each minis has black and white patterns across them with one vibrant color.

During Reaper’s Bones Kickstarter, it became apparent to everyone that one of the best uses for Bones Plastic material is to create massive minis that are relatively inexpensive. It is great for the slightly large monsters (I’d rather spend less on ogres and bugbears) but it is particularly great for some of the absolutely massive minis that in the past have put me back hundreds. Here is Khanjira the World Breaker- a fantastic monster that resembles the Pathfinder Terrasque. To me, he looks just right to be the Iron Kingdoms Chimera- an insane dragon whose shape keeps changing. To go with this interpretation, I used a sort of “Everblight” composition for him- light colored skin with dark colored armor plating. Overall, I feel this approach worked quite well. Have a look:

I tend to look at painting with a more NMM style world view- so rather than putting glitter onto the mini, I'd paint on the shine. A sequin dress will reflect the light in basically the same places as a metal will- but the biggest takeaway is to get the contrast just as high as you would with a NMM object. To make sure it looks like sequins and not metallic fabric, you need to texture your painting. Rather than highlighting in strokes, stipple the mini- make tons of little dots as your highlighting. If you get enough different layers and enough contrast, you will get a really cool sequin effect.

Here are a couple of my Relic Knights characters that I've painted up. I guess the force colors are showing pretty strongly here. I don't know that there's a whole lot to say about them, so go have a look:

Here is another Arena Rex mini I've gotten to do recently. I've had quite a few of these sent my way- at this rate, I'll need to make them their own gallery. This is Gaius Pallidus of Legio XIII:

Thanks. I think I decided to do the eyes this way based on the way Dark Sword's painters do their critters line (he guinea pigs are so cute). The eyes really work when they match the cute little animals.

I have a three year old little girl (she'll soon be four) and she has a good imagination. Naturally, we'd like to steer this in the right direction, so I've been GMing once a week with my family. Right now it is just a homebrew system that we're keeping quite simple. We'll be moving up as we go. Our first hero is Drella. Her character class is definitely Princess, and while her normal tactic is to use either scorching ray or fireball, she also tends to pull a sword out of hammer space when things get rough. And this is Ella, my wife's spellcaster. She's very helpful on adventures Last is Prince McGuffin. He mostly gets kidnapped by ogres, sorcerers, dragons and such. Our heroes have noted his aptitude for being captured, and have started keeping him from going out by himself for any reason. Last time our heroes sallied forth, they started out by locking him in a closet until they come back. I expected this campaign to mostly feel standard (we kill the monsters, save the prince and everyone is happy). But then my little girl realized that some of the monsters can talk- and if they can talk, they can be talked into doing things for them. My favorite was when they convinced an ogre that the dragon would be tastier than eating them, so he came along (all the time threatening to become too bored or hungry and start eating the party). Here are the three of them together.

Just a little while ago, I got a commission to paint up a couple of McMourning's ladies. The bases are green stuff creations. I don't think they need any further introduction:

And here's a second set of them. The main themes were the same, but this time less rivers of blood/lava. The white lion is on a the "plain of feet." This is a little call out to one of the hunt events- it can result in almost nothing happening, but it might end with the party finding the bottom of the world and falling (upwards) to their deaths. I did a different composition this time, but I still used the concept of the acanthus plant growing out of a cracked stone face. The butcher, Kingsman and the Hand are on graduating bases (the Kings Hand wasn't glued onto the base at the time I took these photographs). I really feel that these ones are a good baseline for that the plain of faces looks like. The Watcher and Phoenix weren't completely assembled (just enough to get them centered on their bases). I decided to create a cracked base, maybe from an earthquake or some other monumental event that acts as a harbinger for the Watcher's arrival.

Here are a couple cake toppers I got to make recently. Their love will survive a nuclear fallout in a world ridden by radioactive mutants. Anyway, here they are:

Corvus Belli make some excellent sculpts for Infinity. The detail is excellently sculpted for some all together terrific miniatures. I was definitely excited when I got a chance to paint up a Japanese Sectorial army. My client had me paint them with a cherry blossom theme to them (and I'm already considering a variation on this for some Ninja All Stars minis I've got coming). Without further ado- here is the force:

Here's my Blindwater blood bowl team (lizardmen- although I think they might be getting a more angelic title soon anyway). I had posted some of these before, but I never got around to posting the finished team. So, here they are:

I'm not sure if it is best to post this here or in the showcase. I think it is somewhere in between. A client of mine wanted the monster bases from his Kingdom Death set to more closely match the awesome setting in the plane of faces. He also requested places that he could make into lava or little streams of blood (especially blood flowing out of a mouth that the Butcher is standing on). Here are the greens for these bases. He'll be painting all of these himself, so my work here is done.

Here's a cake topper that I made a little while ago. I really loved creating these characters and arming them for combat: