Caffeineforge

Fearsome and majestic, the griffon is another fantasy staple, and this bones version is a pretty impressive miniature.
Have a look at how our painters worked at it!

(posting by Antonia)

(Yay! An article! When my computer blue-screened on me not once or twice but eight times during the writing of this text I wondered if it would ever happen…!)

The bones IV griffon has a swooping and dramatic pose, realistic proportions and great detail, for example on the feathered wings. It was a bit hard to take a decent photograph due to the pose, but I’m sure the mini itself will look great either as a display piece or on the gaming table. I wonder if I should do a cool dioramic base later, with some prey or enemy the griffon is attacking just now…?

Anyway, I used a rather unusual color scheme:

I’ve wanted to paint a monster in battle cat’s green/orange for quite some time, but for the griffon I also needed an inspiration for the avian part. Fortunately we got Zoar, a falcon which started out as a pet/messenger in the comics and was developed for the TV show as an animal alter ego the Sorceress could turn into.
So here we go – green and orange and blue. Turns out that it works surprisingly well, would look even better with more than just my (atm) usual regimen of “base color + wash + drybrush”. I have no idea how to use this critter yet, but maybe it can have a cameo in our (momentarily resting) “barbarian themed” D&D campaign?

Dirk combined two tropical creatures:

He wanted to use blue and a parrot for the avian part, so he picked the Hyacinth macaw and gave his griffon blue plumage, grey/black feet and beak and the signature yellow around eyes and beak. Since the species lives on the South American continent he chose Jaguar as feline equivalent. The miniature in the picture is still a WIP wthout the characteristic spots, but I think it’s again visible that two bright and even contrasting colors can work well and also look quite natural (in this case at least, which is not as cartoony as mine).

Jim went a more traditional lane:

He wrote: ” My griffon started out being painted like a North American Golden Eagle but I may have strayed a bit. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the result and I’m glad to get another relatively large monster in the collection. I really don’t paint enough of them.”

Michael had some weird & awesome ideas (he even “mutated” the beak!):

He said: “I’ve attached photos of my griffin, which is about 95% done. I still need to add just a few clean-up details and add to the base. I hope I’ll get it done this weekend, and I’ll send in a final version when I can.

As you can see, I went with a very nontraditional version. I enjoy birding, and I thought I should try for a more interesting songbird pattern on these giant wings. To that end, I painted this like a blue jay, adding in a vaguely lynx-like coat to the cat parts, as well as a green lynx eye. Blue jays are pretty common here in the Eastern United States, but they’re incredibly striking in appearance. I also did a little heat-bending on the tip of the beak to try to straighten it a tad.

I had another bizarre idea that I could have used green stuff to mold a duckbill and paint it as a mallard or something. No time for that though!”

Timothy chose classic colors:

I like the paintjob, clean and simple with some nice contrast via the yellow and white!

Matthias shared his thought process:

He wrote: “The Griffon: Half-Lion & Half-Eagle… but which eagle? There are fantastic pictures of Bald Eagle-Griffons and with their white heads they make for good contrast and excellent miniatures. The golden-brown plumage of Golden Eagles has less contrast and appears to be the worse choice. BUT Golden Eagles have been seen to crush the skulls of their pray (mountain goats) with a single attack of their talons…while the Bald Eagle hunts for fish – so basically it’s just a bigger seagull. And once I got down that route of thinking – well you can see the result.”

This week’s gallery:

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Update: finished model by Michael

Michael send in his finished model. He wrote: “I added some Army Painter snow, so I guess this was my farewell to winter.”

Coming next:

04/19/21 Show me your project/Catch-Up Monday

Want to participate in the next post? Email the pictures of your minis until Friday 04/16/21 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” Expansion Darkreach.

Here is the Dreadmere Expansion

The List:

04/19/21 Show me your project/Catch-Up Monday

05/03/21 Amrielle, Female Ranger (Bones IV Core Set)

05/17/21 Pig with or without cart (No 17 & 18) (Bones IV Core Set)

05/31/21 Dreadmere Fishwife (No 409) (Dreadmere Expansion)

06/14/21 Oman Ruul, Wizard (Bones IV Core Set)

06/28/21 Dreadmere Tortoise and Handler (Dreadmere Expansion)

07/12/21 Ava Justinia, Female Templar (Bones IV Core Set)

07/26/21 Erasmus, Iconic Medium (Bones IV Core Set)

08/09/21 Troglodytes (one or more) (Darkreach Expansion)

08/23/21 Dreadmere Crone (Dreadmere Expansion)

09/06/21 Two handed Fighter (No 9 in the main pic) (Bones IV Core Set)

09/20/21 Dark Watcher (Beholderkin) (Darkreach Expansion)

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On the list for later (or maybe extra homework?):

Half-ogre fighter (Link to metal version)

Knights (No 58-61, no links yet)

Dire Boar/Warthog (No 56)

More Townsfolk (No 50+ and 146+)

Small Heroes (some Halflings and/or Gnomes)

Tiny Foes (Kobolds and/or Goblins)

Brigand with heavy Axe (No 101)

This entry was posted by Antonia & Dirk Vogel.