Miniatures

I have wanted to try my hand at painting miniatures for quiet sometime. Recently I had the chance to paint a few for our Pathfinder game.
We have a Necromancer, Boom Mage and Druid.

Miniatures were purchased from Reaper Miniatures, I used MSP Core and HD series paints form Reaper along with Liquatex acrylics that I have laying around.

I attempted to layer thin coats, shade, highlight etc. some things worked better than others. I found that while the MSP paint applied beautifully, when i went to layer on the washes I was often pulling up the colors I had previously put down. It seems that these paints are designed to re liquefy to some degree once they have dried. Something acrylics will never do.

Here's how they turned out:

DruidThough I tried to work on all three at once, I ended up concentrating on the Mage first and Druid last. My thinking was that I could figure it out as I went and be able to put the most detail into the Druid. But after my problems with the paint- having to walk away from the project to let things completely dry, I found that by the time of got to the Druid I was tired of this project and thus, didn't spend as much time on her as I intended.
Why is her hair turquoise? Because in game I am playing a gnome druid and yes this min is actually Seoni, but its make believe, so we're makebelievin' she's a gnome druid. Under that assumption, her skin was supposed to be more pinkish too, but I did the skin first, and then had to touch things up several times and didn't want to keep trying to match the pinkish skin tones.
I might go back and add some detail. But I'm not sure I have small enough brush or steady enough hand to achieve the kind of detail shown here:In fact it took me about 20 tries to give her 2 eyes.

Necromancer

officially listed as Bledsoe, Evil Cleric, I tried really hard not to paint everything black. His pants are actually green and hist shirt a bluish gray. I forgot to paint his ring.
Here is a version someone else did. someone who, once again has smaller brushes than I do.
He was really quiet fun to paint, I spent a long time on the cape.

Boom Mage


Reaper lists this dude as "Halmer, young wizard"
He was actually harder to paint than the other two. The cast surface seamed to be less smooth, I had particular problems with his face. The facial features were not as crisp as they looked in the photo on Reaper and seemed to look blobby when painted, though I used the same paint and did it at the same time as the other two. After 6 attempts I am still not terribly happy with his face.
Looking at other people's miniatures always make me want to go back and adjust my own. I admit, I had no idea what to do with the items on his belt. In real life they are so small they are just slightly different shaped blobs.


I now know why everyone is so obsessed with matte paint. When photographing, the satin topcoat I used looks far more glossy than it actually appears.

As always, click on any of the photos for a larger view.