Painting minis again: the kiddies join in too!

Well, it's been a while. I almost forgot how to do this posting thing. Looks like a month has flown by since my last one. I guess I'll blame it on summer vacations and such...why not? This is my first summer since beginning to blog, so maybe it's somewhat normal. Hitting some of my favorite blogs during this seasonal break of sorts (remotely usually via my phone), I do in fact see some that have slowed down quite a bit, while other diehards have kept up their usual impressive pace.

At any rate, I have previously noted that I wished to get back to painting minis. I haven't done so since the mid '80s! I have shown some pics of a few of my old Grenadier, Ral Partha, Citadel, and TSR lead minis from that era, but other than those, I really don't recall dipping a brush and slapping the paint on any of them since then.

I dug through some of my old painting gear, and as it turns out it almost all pretty much useless at this point. Paints have dried up and brushes have become mutilated. It was time to update my supplies and have a go.

I snagged some Reaper paints at a local gaming shop, then stopped by a local art store for some brushes, palettes, knives, sticky-stuff, primers, and finishes. I already have tons of minis to paint - tons of old lead figs, some newer lead-free ones, and some plastic guys too.

Now my son has really taken an interest in minis, and even my little girl has been known to join in some games, so I knew they would want to make a mess... err... do some painting too. So I set up the kitchen table, because that's just where you're supposed to gaming and gaming related stuff (IMO), and we all sat down to paint us some minis.


Here's my little girl's first (and last) attempt. There's something utterly terrifying about pink, glittering undead, ya'know?:


And here's my son's first go at it, same zombie fig, as I have (quite literally) 100 of them:


I figured I'd start them out on the zombies, mainly because I have so many of them (cheap and great for undead minions and mobs in general), so that if they totally hosed them up, they could just grab another and hit it again.

Well, my daughter spent somewhere around a whopping 5 minutes in her miniature painting career and retired from the hobby...for now, at least. Best part about her supplies - the pink glitter that she absolutely insisted on using is actually your basic glitter glue, which actually turned out perfect to sum up a 3 y.o.'s infatuation with princesses, Barbies, Littlest Pet Shop, etc. The artwork completely mirrored the artist in this case. Well that is, minus the whole undead, brain-eating thing.

However "the boys" stayed at it. My son's next attempt was a plastic Dwarf Crossbowman:


This fig is from that bunch of Dwarves from the Grenadier Fantasy Warriors game, as discussed in some comments of this post. I have bunches of these figs, as well as dwarf axemen, orcs, goblins, etc from that same game. They too are great for minions, or bigger groups of baddies, as well as good specimens for the kiddies to learn how to paint. Heck I even used one (a staff wielding dwarf) for one of my current 4e characters, a Dwarf Invoker - looks exactly the part for that guy. I'll post a pic or two of that mini. It was one of the first few I did in this return to painting minis endeavor. I just don't have the pics on me ATM. Ah well.

Although he chose the flesh color for the dude's beard, I'd have to say that for a 5 y.o.'s second attempt at painting a mini, he freakin' rocked the house! I am very, very proud of his work. He is too. Check him out modeling his masterpiece:


It was pretty funny when he asked across the table, "Daddy, what color are you using for your guy's face?" I replied a bit smart-@$$edly, "Uhmm....the face color. That one right there." He replied, as if nothing was strange about his choice, "Oh, I used that color for my guy's beard." Awesome. He did a great job on some of the details, like the hand-axe on the belt, the crossbow, sections of the armor, straps, etc. That face and beard swap is freakin' funky though...hehe.

As far as my own mini painting, the only one I have with me on this SD card is this Reaper Gnome:

I needed a good gnome for another current 4e character I'm playing, a Gnome Illusionist Wizard. I couldn't find a good gnome caster mini from the WotC D&D mini sets, and this guy looked a lot like how I pictured my character, so I decided to paint him up and use him for those sessions. I know I didn't do a very good job on him, but I guess all things considered it actually turned out better than I expected. It really has been a looooooooong time since I did this....hehe. I went a little crazy with the gold dry-brushing, but after I accidentally got a little bit of it on his hair, I kinda liked the glitter look (thanks to my little girl's zombie influence?), and decided that since he worships Garl Glittergold, why the F not just sprinkle it all over him. And so there it is - an excuse... err... a reason for my messy dry-brushing techniques....cool. What say ye, Garl?

"Meh."

I'll try to collect the pics of the other figs we painted that day and the next, as some of them are quite interesting. My son made up his own version of washing and dry-brushing...with mixed results. I think he did some retouching on the crossbowman fig too, IIRC, so I'll post more pics of that one, if that's the case.

After feeling all good about myself for still having (some) skills, my wonderful wife served me up with this gem: "So which one did you paint and which one did Bobby paint?" And she was serious.

Laugh it up fellas. Laugh it up.

Reeeeaaaaaaal funny.

that "promo" Silver Dragon mini and some other sterling wyrms

I've been trying to stick with the (very) early '80s artwork in these recent posts (Otus, Dee, Roslof, etc), but man, I think I may have to turn in my pro-googler membership card after today's quest. I couldn't find a silver dragon by any of the real old-schoolers. I do like this work by Todd Lockwood though, so I guess I'll roll with that.

** EDIT **
Well, until I find a better scan or do it myself, here's what I wanted in the first place. I seriously couldn't find this darn thing online....jeesh! Ah well, here's Sutherland's Silver Dragon from the 1st ed AD&D Monster Manual (RE-EDITED: no longer in a horrendous yellow-orange hue):

Draco Nobilis Argentum

** END EDIT (and END RE-EDIT) **

Anyway, recently Jay asked in a comment about the Best Buy exclusive silver dragon mini that came with my Dungeons & Dragons: Complete Series DVD box set (the animated show), which I mentioned in this previous post on various Green Dragon minis.

I actually snagged the box set back when it came out, from a local Best Buy. They often have exclusive stuff with their box sets and special edition DVD releases. In this particular case the packaging included a clear plastic section sticky-tack'd to the top of the DVD box, containing this little silver dragon mini. It was labeled as a Best Buy exclusive fig. I've seen the box set at Best Buy recently, but the packaging is new. It is now in a black box (mine is the older red one) and this new version does not have the mini included. Weird.

At any rate, Jay asked for a pic of it, and I actually found one in my folder of shots I took when I was recently comparing some dragon minis (among other creatures) from various companies. Here's one I took of the Best Buy mini on the left compared to WotC's Young Silver Dragon from the Dungeons of Dread set...oh and that crazy old dude in the bathrobe snuck into the shot too:


If you've been following for a bit around these parts, you might recall that I've shown a couple shots of that bigger Young Silver a while back in a post about a heavily-modified game of Crossbows & Catapults with my son.

Regardless, you may have also seen them around in your gaming circles as WotC has released a number of silver dragons, including these beasts:

the Young Silver Dragon shown above in my pic:

the Large Silver Dragon from the Archfiends set:

the Medium Silver Dragon from the Underdark set:

Now the Best Buy mini, which is labeled on the bottom of the fig as "Knights of the Silver Dragon" 2004, was supposedly a promo for the young reader book series of the same name. As far as I can tell, and as you can see from the pics, it is just a renamed/relabeled version of the Underdark set's Medium Silver Dragon.

Googling like an archfiend myself, I also found a few more comparison shots of the Large Silver vs the promo mini. This pic is from Merric's D&D minis site, in the promos section:


I highly recommend Merric's site for some very nice info and pics on WotC's D&D figs.

Additionally, as a source of some of the other links/pics above, check out Paizo.com for some other good minis pics, stats, and other cool info. They are also a great resource for some awesome RPG loot in general. Just be prepared to part with those gold pieces...

"Come'on, I'm good for it. This is a Bag of Holding, dude!"

Jeff Dee's "Land of Umber Hulk Confusion" drawing: yep, more old lead minis stuff

"It's yet another in a long series of diversions in an attempt to avoid responsibility" - Chris Knight, 1985




As true as that description by one of my all-time fave characters in one of my all-time fave movies may be, this crap is still a lot of fun.

Here's a real cool drawing by Jeff Dee, from the pages of 1980's TSR AD&D module C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness, of an umber hulk seemingly putting "the whammy" on some poor sap:

And here's me dorking around with some minis again, doing a very minimalistic representation of that scene:

The umber hulk fig is one of my favorites from the old collection, a Grenadier blister pack which contained this Umber Hulk and a Xorn. My Xorn still has his 3rd arm as a separate entity. In other words, I never attached the darn thing. Ah well, another project for another day.

The "poor sap" in my shot is the Fighter with Sword mini from the 1983 AD&D Fighters, Rangers & Paladins box set, a set which has rewarded me over and over again.

You may notice, from the back of the TSR box that this guy bears a strikingly resemblance to a popular TSR iconic(?) fighter. Here he is cropped from that back-of-the-box pic:


And here he is gracing the cover of 1986's The Book of Lairs, a book of short adventures by TSR for AD&D:

His name escapes me...anyone? How 'bout you there big fella?

"Huh?"

Trampier's "Giant Frog vs (insert tiny humanoid-ish type here) " drawing: more lead minis reenactments

So lately I've been dorkin' around with some old school D&D/AD&D illos, trying to recreate the scenes depicted in them (in very, very simple form) using old lead minis, newer plastic minis, kid's toys, etc. Well this one here basically slapped me in the face and said "Hey punk, recreate this!"


Yep, it's a goofy one alright. A nice little ditty though, by Dave Trampier, from the 1st ed AD&D Player's Handbook, in the spells section.

This kooky pic has befuddled even the most 'nardish grognards (and BTW, that's a compliment fellas...hehe). The discussion over there at GROGNARDIA covers every angle from what type of creature the little dude on the right actually is (elf, halfling, hobbit, gnome, pixie, brownie, etc) to what the actual scene is supposedly representing (temporal stasis, time stop, shape change, etc). The post and it's comments are a very fun read, and I highly recommend you check it out.

At any rate, for the purposes of this dorky little post here, let's just say some little generic demi-human thug just said some very nasty things about a certain giant frog's mother. Here's some fun I had reenacting the scene with a Giant Frog mini (love those oxymorons) from the WotC D&D Deathknell series and a heavily used and severely abused old lead Halfling Thief from the Grenadier Thieves box set from their AD&D Solid Gold Line:

Sadly, the frog in my scene isn't quite the pouncer, but he certainly looks like he's diggin' that halfling... err... pixie... err ...whatever.

"Pucker up, buttercup!"

Biggie-sized! - a few old lead Giants (and other big folk)

I've been diggin' through some old minis lately. That exercise along with and a recent suggestion by Jay at Spell Card of using a Papo Dwarf King mini as a surrogate Fire Giant got me thinking it was time to post some old late-'70s/early-'80s lead giants and other biggie-sized minis, from Grenadier, Ral Partha, etc.

So let's begin with a group shot taken at last year's Lumberjack-Con:

Can't recall without peeking, but I believe that lineup is from left-to-right a Grenadier(?) Frost Giant, a Ral Partha Firbolg, and a Ral Partha Fire Giant.

* EDIT *
Turns out I wasn't too far off on the makers of these guys. Upon checking them at home, here's the real deal:

• The guy on the left is actually a Ral Partha Hill Giant (version 2) from 1977...yikes!
• I was correct on the other two dudes.

* END EDIT *

Here's a real nice paint job (IMO) by Herb the bitter that I saw over at CoolMiniOrNot.com of that Firbolg mini:

Very, very cool!

Next up, some recent Mall Cop applicants:

Ok, now I really need a cheat-sheet. Forgive me for any misinformation here, but I think in the shot above the polite fellow on the left is a Ral Partha Ogre, a Ral Partha Bear-rider Dwarf is the homey in the center, and on the right requesting a high-five we have a Grenadier Ape...err something. I will check these when I get home and edit things as needed here to provide better information on these figs.

* EDIT *
More corrections here, after checking them at home:

• The Ogre on the left is indeed an Ogre, but he is more correctly an Ogre Berserker by Grenadier (1988).
• The Bear-rider in the middle is actually a Dwarf Ursine Cavalry with Axe from Grenadier (1989) which was (as Jeff Rients from Jeff's Gameblog pondered...or possibly teased?...hehe... in the comments of this post) part of their Fantasy Warriors sets. I know I only have one of them, but I also know where I can get more, so a tabletop skirmish with a legion of bear-riders may be in my future.
• The ape on the right is a total unknown for me at this point. The bottom of the fig is basically unreadable. I think it says '77 and #122, but that's all I can make out. I could swear I just saw this fig on some old lead minis site, but I can't find it now. Ah well. If anyone knows what it is, please shout out so I can get back to sleeping at night, ok? Thanks.

* END EDIT *

For purposes of scale, here's a couple pics of the Fire Giant and the Frost(?) *EDIT* Hill Giant hangin' out with my (apparent) recent favorite posers from the Reaper Legendary Encounter Pre-painted Plastics line:
Most of these are all 2nd-hand figs, painted (if at all) by some other gamers of days past, which I either inherited from my old PnP buddies, or snagged at different times in the past from various shops' used-RPG sections and other forgotten backroom bins. "One man's trash..."

I may just leave them as they are, as sometimes those old-school paint jobs ...good, bad or just plain horrible... can better set that "back in '81" mood, standing proud atop the kitchen table in all of their Testors glory. But I'm thinking I'd like to try to clean them up and do some re-paints, if I ever find the time. I have tons of old minis in that "someday I'm gonna paint" pile, so these will have to get in line. I have a sneaky feeling, however, that a couple of these whoppers just might "take cuts."

a breathless Blue Dragon, a short-staffed Ogrillion and a non-green sword-wielding Troll?

"I'm so confused..."

Allow me to explain.

As recently witnessed, I have failed my save vs. The Papo Pit, also known as the following aliases: The Safari Snare, The Schleich Seduction, The Target Tangle, and sometimes even The Dollar-Store Deadfall.

After (subconsciously ;^]) looting the idea from Christopher B at A Rust Monster Ate My Sword and posing the old-school-ish Red Dragon with some even older-school lead figs, I decided I needed more of these "toys."

So I made my way to a local miniatures shop (models, games, terrain, etc) and initially added the Papo Blue Dragon (winged and sans fire-breath, in this case), and the Papo Ork (which is...well...an "orc"). He actually kinda looks a little Ogre-ish to me, or maybe even more so Ogrillion or Orog, but whatever. Here he is chillin' with a veteran lead Druid/Shaman/WildMage/Wizzie/etc (info on the skull-topped walking-stick later):

I will most likely use him for an oversized Ogre, or some orc/ogre/goblin deity, like this Jeff Dee rendering of Maglubiyet:

Regardless, this "Ork" fig was in their clearance bin (50% off) because the fork at the top of his forked-wooden-staff/stick was broken off. Big whoop! I mean, first off these figs were priced at $5 (or less) anyway at that shop, so at $2.50, I couldn't say no to the big green guy. Here's his broken shaft (ouch!):

And here's the quick little mod my son and I came up with for an impromtu photo op:

I won't permanently affix that skull, as that's the head to the Plasma Kreaps Ghoul (basically a very cool winged skellie), and we like that fig way too much to eternally behead him. At any rate, it's a thought starter and for some pics it's kinda works.

Next up, the fire-breath-less Blue Dragon fig. I'm not sure if it was another fig-injury or not, but the shop wouldn't take clearance price on this particular fig. I tried to tell them that it was "missing" the fire-breath (as other Blues in the same shop had it spewing from their mouths) but it wasn't going to happen. So I just snagged it anyway at $5.24 or whatever. See, I was gonna cut off the flames from a normal Blue anyway, as we all know (heck even my 5 y.o. son knows) that Blue Dragons breathe lightning, not fire. I guess I could have bought a normal Blue fig, and saved the flames for some other mod, but whatever...this way I didn't have to cut the poor cerulean wyrm. Here's a closeup of him/her in all his/her flamelessness:

Now I just need to find a cool plastic/rubber bolt of lightning to glue to the back of it's throat. Any ideas on where I can find one?

Paired up here with the original Red in this shot, you can see their slight differences, including big wings vs tiny wings and flames vs no-flames:

Now for some comparisons between these Papo Dragons and some offerings from the WotC line of D&D minis. Again, I don't have the massive, colossal, gargantuan, just plain huuuuuuge WotC Dragon minis to compare, but then again $40-$300 vs $5.24 isn't a fair fight to begin with, eh? Anyway here's some side-by-sides of the Papo Dragons vs WotC Basic Game and Against the Giants boosters Dragons:

As much as I am totally pimping these Papo Dragons for some old-school feel, I must say I do also like this new WotC Red from the AtG boosters. It has a very proud look to it, which seems right. However in the end the Papo fig wins outright for me. It just hits me too hard in the Moldvay box set gut. I will do the reverse mix here for a sec though and throw in the new WotC Dragon vs my old 1983 TSR "Fighter with Platemail" from their Fighters, Rangers & Paladins box set:

Still lingering in the local shop, I couldn't leave without snagging this guy for $2 or $3...can't recall. Papo calls him a Troll with Sword, and that might possibly be in the Three Billy Goats Gruff "mean dude under the bridge" theme, but it's certainly not the stinky, green, pointy nose, must-use-acid-or-fire type that the term "Troll" conjures for me (and you I presume).

Names aside, I dig this little Papo Troll (uhm ...with sword). I think in an old-school themed game, he could play the part of some generic brute. He has a look that to me seems to be a mix of ogre, orc, hobgoblin, and maybe even a tad bugbearish ...sorta ...dunno. He looks fun though, especially with that shortsword jabbing ya in the face. Doink!

Here's a closeup of that ugly mug:

And one more shot of him going toe-toe with that venerable Shaman/Druid/humma-humma from the earlier "Ork vs Oldguy" scene:

Ok, one final fig before I left the local shop a little lighter in the gold pieces bag. This guy is what Papo calls a Dwarf King, but as Jay suggested in this comment to this post over at Grognardia, I may use him as a Fire Giant. BTW, it appears from Jay's comments and links to pics of his figs, that he tends to dig the Reaper minis too, especially the one I use a lot for my 4e Cleric of Kord and other holy warrior stand-ins in games and pics...cool! Anyway, I'd say this Papo Dwarf King could also be used as some Dwarven God, Aspect of Moradin, etc. but I kinda like Jay's Fire Giant angle. Maybe add a little custom paint job, mixing in some blackened skin look, etc. Dunno. Here's a shot of him just about to cleave our (apparent) undefeated world champ, "Old Guy in Bathrob with Cane" in half:

Ah well, toys they truly are, but useful props in future games I hope they will someday become.

BTW, I also snagged a few others from another shop (some of which I bought for trying some mods and paint jobs), but have yet to take pics of them, so I'll save them for another post. Fun!

"Invisible Stalker" lead mini by Grenadier: Now where'd I put that darn thing?

Ah-ha! There it is...

Backstory:
So I took my son to a local gaming convention this past weekend: MichiCon 2009. It was held on the campus of Oakland University, here in Michigan, a pretty common spot for some of these local gaming/comic cons (well, besides the Motor City Comic Con...that's been in Novi, Mi for a number of years now).

At any rate, these guys (Metro Detroit Gamers) put on some nice get-downs, IMO. They are usually pretty quaint, but they had a particularly nice offering of tabletop fun this time around. There were several setups of wargames in some gaming systems I had not heard of, a couple rooms of RPGing (a Savage Worlds version of the TV show "Heroes" was one that stood out), and a few decent vendor booths to which I immediately flocked.

Overall we had a great time. My son got to see some pretty heavy duty miniature gaming in action, and we also got some pretty decent loot, and most of it was at a very nice (cheap) price. I may post some of it in a separate post, as some of you might dig a few specific items. But for now I'll just throw this dude some blog-love....ewwwwww!

Here's a little better shot of the intense and intricate detailing on this "Invisible Stalker" fig by Grenadier:

Silly? Yes. Fun? Sorta. Gotta have? Not really. Wanna have? Yep!

$1 later and he was mine. That may sound stupid to pay a buck for a little splat of lead... ok you're right, it is stupid. Still I've spent $1 in many, much more stupid, ways before, so I figured WTF?

See, I already have Grenadier's 1988(?) Comedy Lords box set in my collection, and allegedly this Invisible Stalker fig was a special free bonus fig? Dunno. I truly don't recall that being the case, but I found that claim as I was googling it. So as we all know, everything on "the internets" is true, so there we have it.

** EDIT **
I checked my own box set and insert sheet when I got home tonight, and it most certainly does state "SPECIAL BONUS INVISIBLE STALKER FIGURE" right there on the sheet, although it doesn't show this little base/fig slab that I pictured in the post here....weird.

It's seeming more and more familiar, as I think I read that a while back when I got this set, and just figured that it was a joke (ie, no figure, just that statement). It wasn't until I saw it at the con this past weekend that it started to jive.

Regardless, I'm glad to actually have it now, so I can box it with the rest of the set. Cool!

See?, the internets really don't lie. Really!
** END EDIT **

Anyway, here's a shot of the Comedy Lords box cover:


And here's the insert sheet showing the figs:

I don't recall the exact naming of each fig there, and I don't have my box/sheet in front of me at the moment, so I'll save that listing for another post or for a late edit. They do include some along the lines of "Halfling in Fullplate," "Half-an-Elf," "107th level Fighter," and "Napoleon Bony-Parts," to name a few. Again, those names may not be exact...I just can't remember and I'm tired of googling...ha!

** EDIT **

Seeing how I checked the insert sheet in my box set when I got home (see above edit), I figured I'd add the list of fig names, according to that insert sheet. Here they are, top row L->R, then bottom row L->R:

• Half Orc Slime
• Napoleon Boneyparts
• Undead Gamer/Game Board/Undead Gamer
• Half Elf
• Armored Idiot
  

• F19 Pegasus Fighter Bomber
• Wererat
• Halfling in Full Plate
• 107th Level Fighter, etc.
• Pizza Deliveryman

** END EDIT **

Anyway, some of these are very funny and cool, others are kinda just...well...dorky. I snagged this box a while back in some clearance sale, so maybe the "Invisible Stalker" was missing from the box set that I bought, or maybe he's still hiding in the foam packaging....hhmnn.....

Oh Stalker.....where are you?.....Stalker? STALKER!

                                                            
You hit the invisible stalker.                              
You hit the invisible stalker!                              
You hit the invisible stalker!                              
The invisible stalker hits!                                 
You die...