Miniature Monday – Catch Up Bones I+II
Look what the griffin dragged in! This week we have a lot of great projects to show, which can finally join the ranks of a monday miniature!
(posting by Antonia)
Ok, right, technically it’s tuesday again. But there are so many pics to follow, you will forget about time 😉
As promised, I painted the griffin from Bones I:
When I planned the paintjob, I thought a lot about the species of cat and bird I’d choose for this project. I wanted something unusual (as usual), so I finally settled for snow leopard and harpy eagle. Those animals don’t even live on the same continent, but they share a rather monochrome coloration so they were perfect for this.
The sculpt itself is gorgeous, the feathered wings are great (so why didn’t you add a sprue of them for Bones 4, Reaper? Why not?). I sculpted a longer tail with a rounded tip, which is characteristic for snow leopards and used the rest unchanged. The spotted fur was fun to paint, the wings too, fortunately I had a lot of reference photos. For the base I used basing snow (I think by Army painter), simple but effective. Overall I like the mini a lot, especially the head and the inside of the wings, and the snow residue on the bird feet is a nice touch.
Dirk shows off with a whole diorama this time:
He used the old wizard Galladon from Bones I to portray Gandalph on his quest through spidery woods, with some awesome paintwork on the trees (which are just plain smooth sticks, all the structure is painted) and two Bones I spiders lurking above! I love the beard and the wizard’s annoyed expression, but of course the highlight is the scroll, showing “The Hobbit’s” dwarven map of the lonely mountain! And since the dwarves of Middle Earth usually draw their maps East up (not Noth as us humanfolk), Gandalph seems to be confused as how to read it properly :p.
Paul contributed a mini for the first time, this great Ankheg:
He wrote that he replaced the eyes, which look very realisticly faceted now, and gave the creature scythe blades for mandibles – very effective conversions, they fit in nicely. I like the color scheme, like a real insect and still very bright, and very smooth brushwork too! As I always have an eye for bases I have to admit that the “breaking through the floor” motif is driven to perfection in this version, including floor tiles! Did you use putty for the pieces, or polymer clay perhaps?
Brian was out of town but still resurrected a mummy:
The Mummy Captain from Bones I is ready to strike for his (or her? since the defining bits are missing…) pharao! I like the subtle variations of beige and white on the clothes and bandages, nice idea to make the mummy itself grey, it gives contrast. The headpiece is a wonderfully intense coloration, with shining gold and bright lapis lazuli like in Tut-Ench-Amun’s mask. Do you have a special use for this mini in mind, Brian? In style and color it would perfectly fit into a Warhammer Fantasy Battle Army of “Tomb Kings”, although I have to admit I don’t know if they “survived” the re-branding into “Age of Sigmar”.
Jim had a very close catch-up, he missed the date for mere weeks: Gauntfield!
This Bones II mini was on the schedule just some time ago, and although he didn’t manage to paint as many minis as he initially planned (believe me Jim, I understand completely. Like, 1000 %) the autumn weather inspired him to do a “harvest” mini. This shows a lot in the color scheme, I like how you concentrated on just a small range of colors who work quite well together. The bright orange leaf is a nice touch! And if I may ask, which wash/ink/liner did you use? It seems to flow very cleanly into the recesses, not as “messy” as my washes work. I mean, sometimes you want “messy”, but sometimes… you don’t, so… 😉
Michael’s miniatures are also just some short weeks behind:
He decided to share the “Squog warriors” which we covered in the article Swamp Invasion (Pt 1), just a short time before Michael discovered this Blog. So nice to have the minis here finally 🙂 He used the chance to paint three quite differently colored frogs, inspired by real life poison dart frogs. I really like the color variation and the crisp details, especially on the green one. Great eyes! They really work as focal point.
After a long time in hibernation, we finally get to show David R.’s Samurai!
He sent us the pictures last year, but then we didn’t finish the article and never managed to post it later. Sorry for the delay, here we go!
David wrote that he and his sister each painted one version, and I find it fascinating to see how different they came out. The left one shows a great array of earthy colors on which the red dots look extra vivid, while the right one displays bright reds and yellows that make the mini really “pop”. The cool thing is, both can be called realistic in a way that samurai armour was often laquered in quite bright colors, but could also be darker and battle-worn, of course. Well done, both of you!
Arjen earns the prize for the most catch-up minis this week, he sent four!
Here we have the Eye beast, the Snake man, the elven mage Anirion and the sarcophagus, all from the Bones I core set. The eye beast reminds me of a “classic” illustration from one of the early D&D books, did you get your inspiration from somewhere or did you just “paint away”? You said that you wanted to paint this mini for a long time, so did you have a “plan” for it? The snake man looks great too, very clean and harmonic choice of colors. Anirion looks quite spooky, with the unusual pale purple for a coat and the red eyes, well done! I always found the mini hard to paint because it had relatively few details, but you gave it a lot of character for sure! And last, but not least, I like the faux marble effect on this one – was it complicated to do?
Arjen also sent some info about his light box setup, which is probably interesting for you too!
He wrote: “Second photo is my very very cheap light box. Note how small the box is and how close I put my light source: this is essential for a good picture as light intensity drops exponentially with distance (actually with the third power, but that may be too much math). It has normal printer paper on the sides and some very thin tissue paper draped on top. A color print inside is used as a backdrop. As I said, extremely cheap. A few months back I found out my camcorder, having a bigger lens, makes slightly better photos than my regular camera. The difference is not very big: all my photos from 2016 and before are done with a normal compact camera. I hope any of this helps you make better pictures.”
Thanks for your input!
This week’s gallery:
Coming next:
10/09/17 Start with Bones III! Pack Donkey (Bones 3 Core Set)
10/23/17 Bones III Aglanda, Herald of Razmir (B3 Core)
11/06/17 Bones II Strange Monsters: Mind Eater and/or Chthon (B2 Core)
11/20/17 Bones III Vagorg, Half Orc Sorcerer (B3 Core)
12/04/17 Bones III Death Dog (B3 Core)
12/18/17 Bones II Friar Stone, Monk (B2 Core)
01/01/18 New Year’s Break (Really! But you can prepare for the next minis while sobering up, of course 😀 )
01/08/2018 Bones III Dashing through the snow: Yetis (Shaman, Warrior, Shredder, as many as you like!) (B3 Core)
01/22/2018 Bones III Aeris, Female Elf Ranger (B3 Core)
02/05/2018 Bones II Infernal attack: Fly demon and/or Blood Demon (B2 Core)
02/19/2018 Bones III Giant Cobra (B3 Core)
Caffeineforge 
Yes, Antonia, that eye is fabulous! I am also very curious about the wash used by Jim. Brian cheated, I am pretty sure we never did that nefsokar on Monday miniatures (we did two others, though), still, I like the subtly different shades of yellow/brown/white/orange on the legs, and did you use a wash? I seem to see some dark in the recesses, but it looks rather subtle as well.
Now, the dates under my pictures are the dates we originally did them on Monday miniatures, so if you go back to JUN 2014, you can see the nice freehand Antonia did on her version of Anirion.
For my own minis, I planned to do bright red highlights on my eye beast, but I started with a thinned dark brown as a basecoat and I liked how it gave natural dark recesses and light upper parts and decided to leave it as it was. I thinned with propanol, not with water, you get a very thin, slightly translucent and strongly adherent basecoat that way. This was before I got lazy, nowadays I just spray can the whole lot.
Regarding the marble. It is an undercoat of black, then broad blobs of very watered down grey paint that I let dry until all water had evaporated and then some freehand with white. I found out this splashed water effect works very nice for all kind of stonework.
Some really good stuff this week. So nice to see people improve! Keep going!
Great work, everyone!
Antonia, the color scheme on that griffin looks great (I especially like the colors on the underside of the wings), and the face detail is superb. Word of warning – I found my griffin kept toppling until I put a more stable base on it.
Dirk, Gandalf is one of my favorite characters, and this is a great representation. I really like the additional gold/tan color detail on his robes and hat – that was a good choice to break up the gray and blue.
Paul, besides the awesome job on the eyes and floor that Antonia mentioned, I think the blending/shading on the mandibles and limbs is very smooth.
Brian, I like a lot on this mummy. The base looks very nice, and there is good color variation between the wrappings and the bones and desiccated flesh beneath. I haven’t yet done any of the Bones I mummies, but this is a little inspiring!
Jim’s Gauntfield has a classic look. I think the yellowing of the bones is my favorite part.
On the samurai David sent in, the shading and highlighting of the shoulder and skirt armor is very sharp. I like both variations. One of my favorite things is the flag on each – the patterns are relatively simple, but they still pop.
Of the four Arjen sent, my favorite is actually the sarcophagus. The colors of the stone look perfect. Seeing Anirion gave me flashbacks, as he was one of the first humanoids I tried my hand on, back when I got the first set (which was when I started painting). Thanks also for the pictures of your light box. I got a new phone recently (and thus a new camera), so I may have more luck with my shots, but your setup has given me ideas too.
Good work, everyone!
I love the “extra” work Dirk and Antonia did coupled with the generally well done paint jobs.
Paul’s modifications and base work came out really well, especially the eyes.
Brian’s mummy looks exactly like it should. Who doesn’t like Egyptian stuff?
Very colorful and well done frogs, Michael.
David’s samurai are both well done, but then I love Japanese minis.
All of Arjen’s minis came out well but I’m forced to admit that I like the sarcophagus best. Very effective! And thanks for the info on your light box.
As far as washes go, I use a combination of Vallejo, Secret Weapon, Citadel/Games Workshop and P3. For example, the pants are washed with GW black while the rest of the clothing is a dark brown from either Secret Weapon or Vallejo. If that isn’t confusing enough, I also sometimes mix my own, too.
I’ve found that my best results come when I use washes similarly to paints. In other words, I go slow and apply the wash carefully instead of just mopping it on. Sometimes I thin the wash slightly and also I frequently use my finger or a damp cotton swab to remove some color from the highlights.
Thanks for the kind words all. It’s really humbling to have my stuff next to some really artful pieces. Thanks for the tips on washes, Jim. I think that’s the best Gauntfield I’ve seen. The griffin is really creative and worked brilliantly. The variety in the frogs pops.
The base of the ankheg is Sculpy that was kneaded into a disk and then put in the freezer to make it stiff. You can then push a toothpick through from one side and it splits, giving a crumbling effect. The tiles are 1mm plasticard.