Queen of the Baddies

Been another bit of a break and I've got a backlog of models to photograph, but before I can get round to showing you them I've got to share the last of the campaign models I painted. You've seen the King of the Uglies, but while a gigantic beast is a fearsome opponent for your DnD characters it takes an enemy that can outthink you to be truly terrifying.

Meet the Queen of the Baddies:

Striking a confident pose, adorned with jewelry and holding a sceptre that sugests some magical power, this is the enemy that you really have to worry about. She might even be the one controlling Zombiesaurus Rex!

This model was an absolute joy to paint. It was an interesting challenge to paint her skin - I wanted similar tones to the rest of the campaign models but I also wanted to make her somehow softer overall, and I tried to focus a lot on the zenithal highlighting which I think I captured pretty well. My only criticism with the model is the breasts - even giving a little fantasy exaggeration I would have preferred them slightly smaller. Trying to imagine her running to attack some spellbound protagonists just seems comical to me - I'm prepared to bet it would be very uncomfortable without some serious support, too.

What made this model really fun to paint though is that she's actually two models! Not only is the Queen of the Baddies scary because she can work to outmaneuver her enemies, she's a monster in her own right - a medusa!

Everything that was fun about painting the first model was fun here, too, with the added bonus that I got to add some cool snakes and a subtle red iris to show off her petrifying stare. Looking at the photos, I tend to forget they are actually two separate models - I keep expecting the first one to take off her wig and reveal her true form! I guess that means they're a convincing pair, at least to me.

Now I'll leave my DnD painting adventure behind and move onto the rest of the models I've been working on in the last couple of months. There's quite a lot to get to!

Until then, happy painting!

King of the Zombies....Zombisaurus rex!

Finally! We've seen the goodies, the baddies, and the uglies, but now it's time for the pièce de résistance - the King (of the uglies).

This guy was a blast to paint, if not to put together. He's a resin model so he needed a fair amount of green stuff to plug gaps. I took advantage of the fact that he was a zombie to not worry about whether or not the gaps were filled completely smoothly - decaying flesh isn't expected to be ready for a Dove ad, after all. A couple of claws and teeth had to be sculpted, too - less room for error there, though.

For painting I had originally intended to make him more brown, a kind of brown with hints of olive. I got a bit carried away airbrushing greens, however, and he wound up being more of a fantasy creature with less of the natural browns I had wanted. Using washes I tried to put some brown into the model, but it just made him look dirty (which is fine for a zombie) rather than making him look brown. Lesson learnt: make sure you start with the colour you want, and don't get carried away working through your collection of greens. Still, he looks really nice and he was well recived, and presents a fearsome, boss-level opponent for the characters in the DnD campaign of which he will be part. I hope he eats someone!

Until next time, happy painting!

Campaign Characters

Every DnD campaign needs some protagonists, and the most dedicated protagonists need fantastic models to represent them. Here are two!

This character comes from the tribes but he's taken up adventuring for reasons best known to himself. Maybe it's the impressive amount of gold you can acquire by slaying monsters and raiding tombs in the jungle. He was painted mostly with Contrast paints and because of the funny angle of his pose is really hard to take a suitable photograph of!

This dwarf has a wandering spirit that has taken him far from his mountain home. This was one of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure of painting - an absolutely stunning model packed with character and beautifully proportioned. I definitely want to get one for myself at some point. While a lot of people like dynamic poses of the jungle barbarian above I'm a big fan of more static, classic poses like this dwarf. Like the above, he was painted mostly with Contrast paints, which are great for browns. I think I mentioned this before but if you want to paint wood, leather, or anything that calls for a lot of different brown tones, then Contrast is a great tool to have.

I decided to work on my non-metallic metal for both of these guys. I used contrast paints for the gold but the steel was ordinary brushwork, and is my favourite NMM silvery metal I've ever done. I'm especially proud of the barbarian's sword and can't wait to do some more!

Anyway, I hope you like them. And I hope the players whose characters these will represent like them too.

Until next time, happy painting!

Zombies!!!

A while back I posted some tribal warriors I painted for a jungle-themed DnD campaign. Well it's not just hostile natives that the adventurers have to deal with - there's a plague of undeath running rampant through the jungle, too!

These guys were a blast to paint. They've got colours to match the warriors they probably were in life, and were mostly done with Contrast paints. I can't stress enough how great the browns in the contrast paint range are - really enjoying them! It's also good practise for my own zombies, of which I have about a 100. Sadly, as my zombies are for my vampire army, they won't be as colourful as these guys.

Anyway, I hope you like them. Until next time, happy painting!

And we were doing so well!

I guess the run of regular and frequent posts had to come to an end sooner or later. We shall remember that shining period fondly, but as the old saying goes: "You should absolutely cry over spilt paint - that shit's expensive".

Nevertheless, here we are with another post (just in time for the end of the year!). I have not been idle the last while, just extremely busy leading to not as much painting as I'd like and even less posting about it. But I have a few items to show you and without any further preamble here they are!

These are some tribal warriors from Osprey Games, painted and based with a Mesoamerican theme for a commission I took on a while back. They're going to be figures for a roleplaying game and it was a lot of fun trying out dark skin tones, vibrant colours, and muddy, jungly bases. I'm very happy with how they came out, and so was the recipient.

This is just the first installment of the miniatures I painted for this campaign - still to come are some more enemies and, of course, player characters. There will, however, be a small delay posting about them as I want to ensure I don't spoil any of the Dungeon Master's carefully-designed plot.

Until next time, and, indeed, next year - happy painting!