Miniature Monday – Bedeviled
Happy Halloween! We hope you had some fun moments or at least heaps of candy – we celebrated indoors and our son delightfully wore his new “Princess Celestia”* costume the whole weekend.
And guess what, we even had time to do a little bit of painting! Come and check out the results!
*Yes, the magical alicorn from My little Pony. Some might see that as scary in itself, but he absolutely loved it.
(posting by Antonia & Dirk)
Since we didn’t have that much time, we both did more of a speed paint exercise, and Dirk will add his pictures in an update.
I used a limited color palette:
Since I wanted quick results, I tried Citadel contrast paints over a two-layer basecoat: Akin to the zenithal lighting technique I did a basecoat in medium gray and another in light grey on top, roughly brushing over the raised areas and the upper parts of the minis.
Combined with the three different Contrast paints that worked nicely and indeed quite fast, because the skin is the biggest part of the surface: That way I only had to pick out a bit of armour and cloth, teeth and horns/spikes.
To tie the three creatures together visually I used the same bone color for all their horns and spikes, made all their weapons the same color and “borrowed” colors for the other demons, e.g. I gave the female one a red loincloth using the same paint as for the red one’s skin.
Overall the paintjob is sufficient for a couple of RPG villains (which look a bit cartoony, as some of you pointed out) and I like how I could achieve a decent result in a comparatively short time.
Timothy painted impressive bases!
He wrote: “They are a bit cartoony but I like how the bases turned out.”
Indeed, they look great! Very cool (hot?) idea to paint them like lava, I found the unpainted ones a bit boring/plain but your paintjob shows what can be done with them! I also like the blending on the skin of the female demon, intesting choice to pick a human-like skin tone.
Jim created some very classic oxblood red demons:
He wrote: “I got these three done, even with many distractions and interruptions! I sent 4 pics, but you don’t have to use all of them unless you want to.
I’m not quite sure what to say about these three! A wasn’t particularly into the general appearance of the minis, but grew to like them as I painted. Red devils aren’t very original. Once I got going, I really enjoyed the highlighting and shading on all that infernal skin and I’m pleased with the way it all came out. I considered painting the wings differently but I think I like the unified look better. I am most happy with the faces even though you can’t truly see the female’s detail. They originally had simple yellow eyes, but I decided to give them dark irises which totally altered the look. I may go back to plain yellow! Other than a bit of re-highlighting on the female’s hair but I feel this trio is done and look the way I wanted them to.
One admission concerning prepping and priming (bear with me)! A few of my most recent minis, including these, have been primed with Army Painter gray primer. I normally use their white and have great results. The last time I tried to buy white, my local game store only had gray so I thought “Why not?” Turns out the gray primer doesn’t cure well on the bones material and remains tacky. In addition, it actually rubs off pretty easily. Needless to say, my last few bones minis have been a chore to paint! I’ve come to the conclusion that from now on I’ll only use white or I’ll leave the primer off completely. Live and learn again!”
I also like the the results of your work, the dark red combined with the warm metal colors gives them a very classic “1st edition D&D illustration”-look which I really enjoy! They look threatening and massive, and the reduced color palette works well for an unified look. I can imagine hordes of them in some hell dimension just waiting to conquer our (or some unlucky other) world.
Thanks for the heads-up on the primer, the one you used was spray-on, right? We mostly just brush on paint for time reasons, especially on single bones miniatures (as opposed to table top units) but that info could come handy to anyone who likes to use canned primer too.
Michael gave his minis a background and even names (and a very cool paintjob, of course):
He wrote: “I’ve decided the female is Fierna, Lord of Phlegethos, who has made an appearance in one of the games I’ve played in. She’s accompanied by her two Malebranche bodyguards/consorts. I’ll have to think of some names for them. I’m really happy with how these turned out. The super muscular forms make shading and highlighting very effective. I took my time blending colors in the wing membranes too, and I think they came out really well.”
I like how you picked different colors and made them look “natural” (in supernatural terms) by doing a lot of blending. That way they look a lot less cartoonish than mine, and the female one would make a nice heavy metal cover, I think 😀
The colors of wing bones and membranes complement each other well, and I can see that you took the time to pick out some details here and there, for example the red gems on the brown devil, which adds a level of depth that my versions still lack. Good looking trio you have there!
This week’s gallery:
Sheesh, we really need to add more minis to the schedule! Hopefully we can do this when we update the article with Dirk’s demons.
Coming next:
11/16/20 Bones IV (Core Set) Movie night Part III: Paint Classic Horror Monsters (Victor’s Creatures, No. 134 and 135)
Want to participate in the next post? Email the pictures of your minis until Friday 11/13/20 to
MondayMiniature@fantasymail.de (It’s a .de domain, in case emails are bouncing)
–> Attention: The submission date for photos is about three days before publishing date, to give us a bit of time to actually write about your pictures
This way you’ll have two weeks/one weekend to paint, and we have one weekend to write (which is the only time of the week where we (might, *sigh*) have some open minutes).
You can of course send in pics later, but to take out a bit of the stress (most pics arrive here rather last minute) please consider the three day deadline. Later pics will still show up in an update
Here is the link to Reaper’s graphic with all the core pieces, but it’s one and veeeery long picture so be prepared for some scrolling. On the other hand it has separate numbers for most of the pieces. I will add individual shop links as soon as they appear!
Here is the underdark Add-on.
An updated schedule will follow soon. Any favourite minis you want to see? Let us know in the comments. <– I know, right? We said that last time already. We really ought to to something, we can’t always blame it on the kid halloween the gremlins.
Caffeineforge 
I’ll comment on the work here later (looks great!), but I wanted to throw out some suggestions for the next few months.
From the Core Set:
1 – paladin-looking hero
9 – two-swords fighter
46 – wizard with orb
53 – rioting goodwife
142 – PF Iconic hunter
148 – scribe
152 – elf with scythe
From the Darkreach expansion:
513 – Dark Watcher (beholderkin)
532 – Burrowing Behemoth (umber hulk)
I went in on the Dreadmere, Lost Valley, Chronoscope, and Fan Favorite expansion sets too (and more…), but I don’t recall which of those sets everyone else might have purchased.
Thumbs up for all of these suggestions! Actually, I’ll paint just about anything. Let me add a few:
Core:
6 – owlbear
45 & 48 – wizards
49, 51, 52, 146, 147 – townsfolk (especially the beggar)
57-61 – knights (esp. 60)
82 – griffon, maybe after x-mas/new year
86-91 – nagendra
92 – female fighter
101 – bandit w/ axe (any of the bandits)
103-108 – kobolds (any, also plenty of goblins!)
Darkreach:
516-518 – trogs!
I didn’t actually get the Dreadmere, Lost Valley, Chronoscope, or Fan Favorite expansions but if I get a little lead time, I will definitely try to order the mini(s). I’d love an excuse to pick up some of the dinos I missed!
I should say something clever about what a devilishly good bunch these are but my wit is apparently at a low ebb. The minis all came out great, however, and different from each other’s.
Antonia – I didn’t even consider different colors! I quite like the idea and the contrast paints seemed to work well. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting them done quickly for the tabletop.
Timothy – Nice group! I like that they’re all in a similar color palette but all three distinct. The female is almost embarrassingly realistic. The bases came out well. I did the same thing only to a much lesser degree plus the pics don’t really show it.
Michael – Also three different color schemes! The green and brown malebranche are totally unexpected and look great. Fierna is a bit closer to a classic look and I think her wings look the best, really eye catching. I like the reddish bases, too, as it gives a subtle infernal look without being too obvious.
I briefly considered going with more human skin tones and calling them incubi/succubi but good (evil?) old red devils won out in the end. Maybe the female is Glasya and the males are malebranche like Michael’s. Perhaps they are something else?
Antonia’s color schemes on these minis remind me a bit of the Gargoyles TV show, especially on the males. As with mine, I could see a lot of different colors working; I almost made the female blue myself. I’ve yet to try the contrast paints, but I hear good things about them.
Timothy, those bases look great! I’ve done a few lava effects before too, but these put mind to shame. That bit of red near the black rock is what really does it. Excellent work on the main models too.
Jim, there’s nothing wrong with red devils – quite orderly, in fact, not showing individuality! Asmodeus would be pleased! Your picture of the female front came out too dark to see the details, but it would be an effective addition to a play-by-post or online game as a mysterious diabolical intruder.