Flowify - Blender add-on

I've recently been introduced to the Flowify add-on for Blender, by Artisans of Vaul on Youtube. It's an add-on designed to ease the process of applying geometry to the surface of another mesh, and it truly is excellent at that task.

It's quite possible to do this using only native Blender, but its is a job that can be a bit excruciating and time-consuming, and being able to have all of the hard work done for me behind the scenes is just great.

It's one of the more expensive add-ons I've installed at fifteen yankeebucks, but I think it's well worth the money.

Artisans of Vaul just put out a video on how to use Flowify to create a name plate for a miniature base, so I whipped one up for the figure of my puny but beauteous barbarian, Aedan Comarren that I created in HeroForge.

Later that day...

I printed the base and glued to it the mini of Aedan that I'd printed and painted some time ago.

I learned from this that for lettering in this scale, I'd be best off using a very regular font such as Futura, and it would probably be best in all caps.

Not a Bulette™, Honest It's Not

Next up on the painting table from Reaper's Kickstarter II is this critter, which they call 77372: Burrowing Horror and I will go out on a limb to call a Bulette.

Hail Hydra!

This is yet another of Reaper's Bones plastic figures, 77191 Hydra by Sandra Garrity. I like Garrity's work, and this is no exception, though I feel that it would be more useful as a gaming miniature if its pose were more compact, more curled around on itself. That would probably require that it be moulded with one or two more pieces, but it's already a multi-piece model so that wouldn't be a big problem — at least, not from the end-user's point of view.

Mashaaf - finished at last

I finally finished painting old maggot-breath, Reaper's Bones 77375: Mashaaf. It's a big figure, which made it a bit tricky to handle while painting.

In the first photo, I've included a figure of your friendly neighbourhood psycho-killer and vivisectionist for scale.

Just in case you haven't already seen it, I kept a work-in-progress blog here.

Bea

I've finally got around to painting the figure Annette is using for her current character in my D&D5e campaign. She's a two-sword-wielding leather girl, an ex-sergeant in the forces of the Little Sisters of Carnage — hence the red cloak.

Admittedly, at this very instant in the campaign, she, like pretty much everyone else, is pretty much nekkid and have lost nearly all their gear. However, I'm low on character figures that are mostly nekkid and have lost nearly all their gear, so this will continue doing the job until she eventually either gets more clothes and gear, or dies (permanently).

It's another Reaper Bones plastic figure; don't know the product code it's 77035: Deladrin, Female Assassin by Werner Klocke. For some reason my matte varnish refused to go properly matte on this figure, and I'm not really sure why. It was working last time I used it.

Wereshark... there shark

Here's another model from Reaper's Bones II Kickstarter.

I can't tell you what its product code is, because they haven't yet been added to the online store — the sooner that happens, the better, because right now finding any information on the Bones II models is an exercise in tedium, and sometimes futility.

Anyway, it's a wereshark, or possibly some kind of Moreau-esque shark-man.

The mottling of its upper body isn't quite as I would like it, but it will have to do.

As is my habit, I've mounted it on a great big steel washer to give it some heft and make it more stable. Now I shall have to figure out some way of using it in a game.

Reaper 91008: Desert Thing

91008: Desert Thing

Here's another monster from the Bones II Kickstarter — 91008: Desert Thing, along with an old Grenadier figure for scale.

It didn't sit flat on the table once assembled, so I mounted it on a washer, extended its nest of rocks, and gave it a gullet (and uvula, though it can't be seen in these pics.)

It will do for any of the ground-burrowing ambush critters, like trappers and what-not.

Looking straight down the gullet

Underneath - with a honking great washer for heft

Reaper Roper

I'm not sure exactly what Reaper's product code is for this; it came with their Bones Kickstarter II, and they don't appear to have been added to their store just yet.

Edit: Turns out it is 77227: Stone Lurker.

Whatever Reaper choose to call it, it's clearly a roper. It doesn't look precisely like any of the ropers described in various D&D Monster Manuals, but it's a stony pillar with six long tentacular arms, so really, what else could it be?

More toys

A new box full of figures finally arrived the other day, courtesy of Reaper's second Bones Kickstarter. It's been a long wait — a lot longer than expected — but I have to say that this time around, once they finally started shipping, my order got to me pretty smartly.

I'm not sure what this guy's official designation is, but last night he was standing in for an empty throne, because I don't have any empty thrones. I clearly need a lot more in the way of dungeon dressing for my little dollies to play with. Yay for Barbie's Dream Dungeon!

As is my habit these days, I've just given this model a very quick shade-and-highlight spray coat, followed by a dark wash to bring out the detail a bit. I may or may not get around to painting him up fully, but this is good enough for most tabletop purposes.

Owlbear

77156: Owlbear by Jason Wiebe

D&D is no stranger to stupid monsters, and this is one of them — the Owlbear. Mechanically, it's not terribly interesting; it's just a big biting, clawing monster, more dangerous than some, less dangerous than others, but with no real distinction about it. It might as well just be a bear. A rabid bear, but just a bear.

Its existence in the D&D canon does have implications for the standard milieu, implications that are borne out repeatedly: in the D&D universe, anything can be interbred with anything else. It's a concept that really doesn't hold water in the real world, though it appears to be central to the world view of those peculiar people who think that two men getting married is going to lead to general mayhem and apocalypse. But that's a bit beside the point.

This figure does have something going for it that I haven't really seen in others. The owlbear is supposed to be fundamentally bonkers insane to its very core, and this figure does look a tad doolally.

Chesty

77048: Mocking Beast by Julie Guthrie

I've finally got around to painting the Reaper Bones Mimic figurine I got in their last Kickstarter.

I don't believe this is a monster I have ever used in any of my games. I'm not sure why, because I'm not at all averse to making my players just as paranoid as can be.

Blue Army - Command

Here's the command base for the first Blue Army battalion, front and rear. Note that all the officers get fancy-schmancy crimson pants, while the ruck and swill in the rear rank have to make do with common old dark blue.

I'm pretty happy with the way that these figures are turning out. They do look a bit terrible in high magnification, but in real life they're quite acceptable as gaming pieces.

The Dip

A mass-production miniatures painting technique that has really taken hold in the last decade or so is auto-shading by using glazes or washes of various formulations. Vallejo and Citadel both produce water-based washes in an increasing range of colours, and when used sensitively they can create excellent, subtle shading with minimal effort.

For wargames figures, less finesse is required. The miniatures are intended to be viewed at arm's length or further, so the shading results can (and probably should) be less subtle. Plus, wargaming figures benefit from being well protected from the vicissitudes of handling by a good, sturdy sealing coat.

Here are a couple of alternatives to achieve that end.

On the left, Army Painter Quickshade (Dark Tone). Quickshade comes in three strengths of tone, so you can use whichever best suits the underlying colours. This 250ml tin cost me $45, which is not cheap.

On the right, Cabots Varnish Stain (Indian Tea). This can be tinted in a much wider range of colours. The 250ml tin cost me about $25 — slightly more than half the price of the Quickshade.

However, price is not the only determining factor when one is choosing a product. How do they perform? Both, as far as I can determine, do fundamentally the same job: both are oil-based, fairly low-viscosity, tinted varnishes.

Below are two varieties of Reaper plastic zombies. Each type has been block-painted and then just dipped in the stain — a crude method of application; brushing the stuff on would certainly give you more control.

Of each type, the Quickshaded one is on the left, the Cabots Varnish Stained one is on the right.

The Quickshade gives you a much more subtle shading effect than does the Cabots, which is probably usually going to be preferable. I haven't yet tried thinning the Cabots to see if that ameliorates the chalk-and-soot effect — if it does, then its much lower price would make it a more cost-effective option. Both products do a decent job; if price is no object, my taste runs more towards the Quickshade outcome.

Both of them harden over about 24-48 hours to a a rugged, glossy finish. That means that unless you like your toys shiny, you'll need to hit them with a decent matte-coat afterwards. Some acrylic varnishes don't work or play well with oil-based underpainting, so that means that the matte-coat should probably be spirit based.

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The Next Day...

I gave the zombies a squirt of Vallejo acrylic matte varnish to take the gloss off them, and it went on just fine. It doesn't seem to be bothered by the oil-based varnish underneath, which is good.

Something I've found about acrylic matte varnishes is that they really do work best sprayed. I've never achieved anything better than a satin finish by brushing them, while the identical varnish goes dead flat when applied through the airbrush.

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Thinning the Cabots

Thinning doesn't work very well. I suspect that what it needs is not thinning, but dilution — I may get an un-tinted can and use that to get the exact degree of tint I need. However, there's not much point in that until I run out of Quickshade, and a pot does go quite a long way, especially when it's brushed on.

More Plastic Toy Soldiers

These are some of HäT's 20mm (1:72) plastic Zulu Wars British infantry, based for the Black Powder rules.

They're painted somewhat inaccurately, but that really doesn't matter for my purposes, since these particular guys are intended for one of two generic late C19th Red and Blue armies, made up of whatever figures I can lay my hands on.

HäT figures are ideal for this sort of thing, because compared with metal figures, or even with hard plastic 28mm figures, they're as cheap as chips. The Zulu Wars sets are especially good for wargaming purposes because the sprues are mercifully free of the sorts of "character" poses you tend to get in figure sets from the likes of Airfix, Italerei, or Revell, which improves their cost/benefit ratio enormously.

The only problem with them is that they're not that easy to source here in New Zealand. There's a local chap who imports them, but I keep forgetting to get his contact details, and so whenever I see him at conventions and what-not I pretty much have to just be happy with whatever he might have in stock at that moment.

So far I have enough infantry for about twenty stands, half a dozen artillery pieces, and a couple of dozen cavalry. Those in this picture are HäT late C19th (Zulu Wars/Sudan) 17th Lancers, but I have a box of Revell Waterloo-era British Life Guards that I'll also press into service. The horse-drawn artillery limbers shown here come from the Revell American Civil War set of Union artillery. At a pinch, I could even throw in some HäT Peninsular War British infantry, though they might start looking just a teensy bit out of place amongst the pith helmets.

Bugs Galore

These are some of Reaper's Bones plastic miniatures — 77130: Vermin: Beetle Swarm, by Bob Olley.

I got them amongst the first Bones Kickstarter, and in truth they're not the sort of thing I'd normally spend any actual money on. You'd get much the same effect by printing pictures of swarming beetles and sticking them to tiddlywinks or something. However, I've got them, so I thought I might as well make use of them.

I haven't yet looked at the vermin swarms in the new Monster Manual, so I don't know how frightening they're likely to be. I'm imagining something like the swarms of carnivorous scarabs in The Mummy, which could be fun. Though I may need a few more beetle-swarm-markers.

It's a TRAP! A tiny, perfectly-modelled TRAP!

Here's my collection of painted, human-sized undead (plus three or four skeletal pooches... awwww!). I have a bunch more, still unpainted. And I have various giant-sized undead mummy lords or cyclops skeletons or huge horse-headed skeletal things. Plus the non-humanoid undead things, like skeletal snakes or zombie dragons or what-not.

And that's just the undead. Then there's all the other monsters and characters I've collected and painted over the years. And I have boxes and boxes full of unpainted figures as well.

And yet, I never have enough of the particular type of figure I want for the particular encounter at hand, or if I do, they're buried somewhere in amongst the giant figure pile and thus something of a hassle to lay my hands on at a moment's notice.

Sure, I could substitute one figure to stand in for another kind of critter, but that seems to me to kind of defeat the purpose of having a whole bunch of different figures at all.

That's why I'm beginning to think that it would be better to just use cheap plastic chess pieces of various sizes as markers, whenever we feel the need to use figures on a map layout. If I needed anything more as a visual aid, I could just show the players a picture of what the chess pieces represent, but for the most part I think a description would be sufficient.

Contrary to what people might think, considering my abiding habit and hobby of painting up these little bastards, I'm actually not all that interested in creating little dioramas on the tabletop to play with my little dollies in. Not that I'm morally averse to such things; in fact, if somebody else is doing it, I find them quite appealing. I just can't be faffed putting in the time or effort to do it myself.

At game time, the figures, to me, are purely functional... but I find the wrong figures distracting, somehow.

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Next day...

OK, so I bought a couple of cheapish chess sets of different sizes because it seems nobody just sell chess pieces on their own any more. It used to be that you couldn't move for boxes of plastic chessmen for a couple of bucks, and now I can't find them anywhere.

I hate change. Unless I like it, then I like change.

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Later...

It occurred to me that Scrabble tiles would make ideal markers for situations involving lots of monsters of the same type. Assuming you don't need more than 26 of them, you have individually marked tokens that the DM can use to keep track of exactly which monster is where, without the risk of note-taking confusion that can so often arise when using non-unique markers.

I think it's possible to get Bingo tokens too, which would be labelled 1—99, for those REALLY big fights. Where you'd get them from though, I do not know.

Wash Bird

 This is a Games Workshop figure I believe. As far as I can recall, it came with a goofy-looking "elf" that was supposed to be riding it.

This is a semi-experimental paint job, inasmuch as I wanted, as far as possible, to paint the whole thing in various washes over a white undercoat. Apart from the beak, face and legs, that's what I did, and I think it turned out pretty well.

And it was quick too — from start to finish, the whole paint job only took about half an hour. Sorting out the base and perspex flight stand took a lot longer than that.

This painting technique wouldn't have worked half so well, of course, if not for the excellent incised detail on the figure.

Eyeball Tentacle Monster complete

Here's my eyeball-tentacle-monster, all finished bar the painting. I've included an old Grenadier figure of a magician for scale.

Figure Scale Comparison

Some guy on some forum was asking about the comparative sizes of figures in various scales, so I thought this might be a useful guide.

Hydra - progress

It's time for another update on my Mountain o' Reaper painting odyssey. Next up: the Hydra.

I quite like this sculpt, though I think it would be more useful as a tabletop gaming model if it were more compact — not smaller, exactly, but maybe curled around itself a little more.

I've airbrushed the whole thing in three brown shades, a cream yellow, followed by raw sienna, and finally burnt sienna. Then the whole shebang was given a dark sepia wash.

Now, on to the detail painting, starting with the heads. They're a little awkward to get at, being all cheek-by-jowl with each other, so I've begun with the open-mouthed one which is a little more separate than the others. I can experiment on it more easily, and then, when I've sorted out the colours and processes, I'll finish off all the others.

I'm reasonably happy with this head, so now... onwards and upwards!