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Cheers, I stole it originally from DM scotty on Youtube, though my implementation is somewhat different to his.

The next bunch of stuff I am going to show is preparation for the next major adventure site in my campaign. I am running the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, but heavily edited. Near my player's starting town is the ruined city of Sotur, the northern capital of the ancient Orichalan empire. In my game they are sort of a Roman analogue, which is tropey but easy for players to hook into. Orichala fell during the Demon Wars when the Blood War between Hell and the Abyss spilled onto this material plane. It's powerful mages created a magical barrier around the city that destroys any demon that tries to break through, but also feeds on the life energy of any non-demon that crosses it.

The ruined city is therefore abandoned and filled with ancient relics of that Empire, but an active gate to the Abyss spews demons into the city, which batter themselves into oblivion against the barrier. Adventurers sometimes try and scour the ruins but the ancient curse turns their insides to sludge.

I have painted up a bunch of demons to use in the streets, including some GW demons which I am using homebrew rules for. I love Dungeons and Dragons demons but I do find the minis for them generally a bit goofy and prefer the GW look for demonic stuff in most cases, so I have tried to convert some of the demon types rather than go for something from Reaper.

Before I post that stuff though, I thought I would attach my write up for Sotur. I took the map from Dyson's Delves and put a hex grid on it, and I have used the random encounter tables to populate each location with some demons to start with. I will roll for encounters half hour the players are in the city. I also have a bunch of hand drawn maps of the buildings and ruins I will upload. Hopefully anyone else interested in putting the city into their campaign will find my stuff useful. I'm also putting the Rod of Seven Parts (or my own version of it) into the city.

Here is the map, spoilered in case any of my players are snooping

So, here are the demons of Sotur I have done so far. I am going to include some pictures of the Demons they are supposed to represent as I go through.

First up, a Vrock. This is a metal Reaper mini that I have always had a huge soft spot for. I just think it is super METAL and bad ass. Plus, Vrocks are scary as hell monsters.







I think he looks great with his bad ass sword and demon face shoulder pad.

Next, two conversions I made from a Chaos Spawn kit. I love these two demon types, but I wasn't super enthusiastic about the available options for them, so I thought I would try and make my own. First, a Nalfeshnee. This is what it looks like in the art:


Here is my conversion - unfortunately he is in a leaning forward pose, so I had to take a shakey cam shot to show his underside colouring. Please to forgive.






I think it worked out okay. Not as fat as the original, but pretty freaky looking and appropriately tusked!

My favourite of the two is the Glabrezu. I love these in game and love roleplaying them. They used to be able to grant a wish to a humanoid once per year and I love tempting players with it.


I am not a huge fan of the art - the crab wolf combo thing doesn't work for me. But the idea of a four armed demon with claws does, so...




I think he came out pretty well. I probably would have prefered two crab claws, but one is okay and he has a weird crushing tentacle for his other limb, so it is all good! Can't wait to spring this on the players, I think it looks properly freaky.

Next, Barlgura. I quite like these, teleporting ape demons.



These are just "Blood Apes" from Descent, I think they are lovely sculpts. I have done two as orange-grey demon apes and one as a huge gorilla. They can double as dire apes for other encounters.

Next, I have put in some Warhammer demons, because I have the minis and I love them.

Goat Demons first. I have always loved Beastmen ever since I read my first Warhammer bestiary back in the 90s, and I had to get a box to include in my campaign. I will use probaby some Orc stats but beef them up and give them a charge attack.


Bloodletters next. I love the plastic Bloodletters, they look really weird and alien. I use homebrew stats for these which I found online.


My bloodletters are mostly in school so here is a pic. I painted this a few years ago with washes mostly. I am happy with them.




Plaguebearers. I plan on using the Volo's Guide Spawn of Yustus for these - disease bloated Orcs that explode when they die. Seems to fit. There are rules online for plaguebearers in Dungeons and Dragons but I prefer these as a horde of exploding bastards.


And finally horrors. I will be using Dretch stats for these, but giving them Firebolt. If they combine, they can then increase the level of Fire based spell they can cast - Burning Hands, Scorching Ray, Fireball etc. Should scare the players.
Pic is a bit crap. Might have to photograph again.


(Christ I really have to fix my camera situation. Very unhappy with some of these pictures. Gah.)

Left to do is a Hezrou (frog demon) which is a Privateer Press Swamp Troll, and Chasme (fly demons) which I am using Nurgle Plague Drones for, and Dretches and Manes, which I am using Nurglings for.

Seem to have figured out a better way to photograph stuff, will possibly re-take the Demons of Sotur.

One of the students in my Dungeons and Dragons group is leaving, so I decided to paint up a figure for his character for him to take away. Up to now he has been using a generic Mantic Orc for his PC. His character is Feng Skullkiller, a head collecting Orc Barbarian who is addicted to potions of growth.

Quite happy with this mini from the official range to represent him!




The wash is still drying on him, but it is the kids last day tomorrow so I had to photograph now. I think the lighting is better on these shots.

I would probably not paint an orc like this for myself, but the kid in question loves the Hulk from the Marvel movies so I went for a more bright green than I would otherwise.

looks good! And that is a very thoughtful gift to send him away with. You picked a good mini to represent the character.

Been a wee while, but I have been working. A few years ago I bought a Hordes Gatorman army, at the end of my interest in that game as it turned out. Recently I got them out and assembled them, and now I have finally painted them up. I think they are really nice miniatures on the whole, and I wanted to do them justice. I am pretty happy with how they came out. I might try them out in Hordes, but our local community seems to have collapsed so I might have to wait a while to do so. I have an Ironback Spitter, Swamp Horror, Boneswarm, Totem Hunter, Croak Hunters, Bog Trog Ambushers and Swamp Gobbers still to go. Just did all the gators this time, because I had worked out a way to do the skin that I really liked. I still have to put some static grass on the bases after I do some varnishing.

First up, Wrong Eye and Snapjaw. Snapjaw is pretty much the entire reason I started Minions, I just love everything about the sculpt. He looks so awesome. I am really chuffed with how his scales came out, particularly the gradients from his darker to lighter regions and his lovely belly. Wrong Eye was pretty fiddly to paint, and I seem to have lost his pet bird, but he is also a pretty cool looking dude. These guys will perhaps see use in Dungeons and Dragons, but only if my players go further south. The sewers of the City State of the Invincible Overlord also have a tribe of crocodile men living inside it, so they could be used there as well.








Next, Bloody Barnabas. I bought him because I think he is the best looking Warlock. Pretty basic, all the bandages were a bit annoying though!





Then the Gatorman posse. These are the old metals, which i definitely prefer, but I am missing one for a full unit so will have to make up the difference some time. These were the first ones I painted, and the skin does not look quite as good as the others, but I still think they look pretty cool as a unit.




A bull snapper. Sort of a goofy pose, it looks like a crocodile in a platforming game that jumps at you as you jump over a pool or something. I tried to put some water on the base to give the effect that it was lunging out of the water. Useful mini to have for Dungeons and Dragons anyway.




And last of all, the plastic Blackhide Wrastler. At least this model is not as goofy as the old metal wrastler, and restic is pretty transportable and so on. Also I got it for half price. But jeez. This model is really pretty disappointing. The ropes all over it make no sense to me, particularly on the hands? And it has this totally different belly to the rest of the Gators. I went for this yellow colour because I have been using yellow as a contrast for some of these guys, but I am not sure about it. It looks good enough, but I wish this model looked more like Snapjaw and less goofy.








And here is a crappy group shot!


The Croaks and Bog Trogs have more use in Dungeons and Dragons as bullywugs and one of the various types of fish men, so I am looking forward to painting them.

I like them, I need to make some of these for my local pathfinder game.

Those are great minis! I'd never heard of them before, but gator-men seem like a lot of fun. I like the paint job you did on them. Reminds me of Onslow Green from "TFS at the table"

Very cool, those croc men. And useful for any swamp or jungle adventure... where the PC's all get eaten.

Nicely done

Cheers! I am about to head off to the Baltic for a week to escape this heatwave hitting Europe, but before I go I got the first five Croak Hunters and a Swamp Troll done. In Hordes, the Swamp Troll goes with the Trollbloods faction, but I also have a big army of them so it is all good. But I think he fits in visually with the Croaks very nicely, and the fluff suggests that they consider Swamp Trolls sacred. Would love to see the Swamp Troll added as a Light Warbeast for Minions.

In dungeons and dragons terms, the Croaks make great Bullywugs or Grungs. I will be using them as Bullywugs, hence the darker green paint job. I love Bullywugs and I got these Croaks half price when my FLGS was clearing it's PP stock, so I have a full tribe of 10 now. I didn't like the weird flaming javelins they are armed with, so I have given some of them alternative armament. Also, the models come with quivers of javelins which will obviously just fall off constantly so I just left them off.



The Swamp Troll can serve a few different roles. It can be a Bullywug king, or a Hezrou demon, or that aquatic Yugoloth that lives in the Styx, or a Slaad. Lots of Large sized Toad monsters in Dungeons and Dragons for whatever reason! The model is restic, so it is nice and durable, but has horrible mold lines I could only be half arsed with cleaning up.
5 more Croaks to do when I get back, then I think I will tackle the Bog Trogs.

Those frogs are looking good. As soon as I saw the first pic, I was hoping you would be using them as bullywugs too. I agree with your choice on the flaming javelins, they're kind of weird looking. I like the idea of the troll being a bullywug king, and I can see it as a slaad too. I'll have to look up the other two, I don't know what they are. Enjoy your escape, and I'm looking forward to seeing your other 5 croaks.

So, back to school means dakka posting drops off, but I managed to photograph a bunch of stuff I got painted last year and did not post yet. I was running a campaign and would often paint stuff quickly for a session and not have time to photograph it. My photo situation is still disappointing, and I am sorry about that. I am working on a solution, I think I probably need a tripod for the camera at the least because my biggest problem is blur. But I also probably just need a better camera overall.

Most of these are from the new pre-primed Dungeons and Dragons official range, and I do quite like them as gaming pieces. You will see from the pictures though that the sculpts are in many cases less than inspirational!

I also have some "home made" miniatures in there.

First though, here is the latter half of my 10 Privateer Press Croaks, which finishes my Bullywug Tribe. As metals these are quite nice, but obviously storage and moving them to and from game is more of an issue. Need to double gloss varnish them and then anti shine spray to make sure I don't get too much chipping.


Next, here are some "slimes" I made. Ochre Jelly and Black Pudding oozes. The larger ones are milliput smoothed with water and then lots of layers of gloss on them for shinyness, the smaller ones are blobs of hot glue.The tiny bases are 1 eurocent coins. These were really fun to use and having the smaller ones for each split was a great gimmick that really freaked out my players. I also tried to make a "gelatinous blob" which would have had the same rules as a gelatinous cube, out of hot glue with a skeleton sealed inside, not realising that it turns white after drying. I will use it anyway but it is a shame you can't see the nicely painted skeleton inside any more!










Next up are some elves I painted ages ago. In my setting elves are divided into three main factions - the Unseelie Winter Court, the Seelie Summer Court and the Wild Elves. Near the starting town are a settlement of Wild Elves, so I bought some Warhammer Wood Elves to represent them. They look quite cool. Their leaders, Cliodh and Gearroid are marked by having blue cloaks and melee weapons. It was for some reason a bit of a struggle to get the lighting right on these, probably due to the poses, so my apologies. They look better in person. All of the elves have wood, stone or bronze weapons, no iron, which I intend on sticking with throughout.






I used the little faeries that come on the sprues to make some sprites and stuff mounted on 20mm squares. The blue one with the leaf is Saoirse, an ally of the group.


Now, we get into the D&D minis. The detail is soft on a lot of these, but equally they are very cheap and you can get stuff that is hard to find otherwise, and the rubbery plastic they make them out of makes for very robust gaming pieces.

First, a Dragonborn fighter. The other one of the pair was painted as a paladin and given to a student to use as his PC, and is still in use in our game. Shame about floppy morningstar syndrome, hot water trick did not fix it fully.



Next, some female halfling rogues. Female halflings and gnomes are quite hard to find, and my group has 4 women in it, 2 of whom are playing Small races, so these are a welcome addititon. The redhead is a PC in our game.




Next a group of male and female monks. I did not have any monk figures up til now and these ones are quite nice.




A group of male and female Bards next, again not something I had before. I am playing as the red headed male bard when I get to play. Not the best sculpts quality wise but quite happy to have the options for players.





Next, some beasts which are good aligned. The Winter Wolf is actually a Direwolf from the Dungeons and Dragons minis, but I felt an icy scheme looked better and I have plenty of dire wolves from my LOTR habit anyway. As a bonus to my Druid player, I let her transform into this even though it is a magical beast as she is a Winter Elf. The unicorn is a passable sculpt, something off about it's body proportions though.








Finally, some underdark monsters. The Umber Hulk is a cool mini, but it's pose needed adjusting to make it fit on the base. It is a classic monster though so I am happy to have one. I love Mind Flayers, and I am happy to have a cheap option for them, but I must say I am less than excited about these sculpts - very mushy detail and not much fun to paint because of it. I do like the very "Flash Gordon" aesthetic though. The mimics I think are one of the best minis in the official dungeons and dragons range, and I absolutely love them! Especially the Chest Mimic, but having an alternate form is going to really catch out some player
















Phew! So I am working on some Otherworld Ettercaps right now, which really love, and then an Owlbear, and I've got some Bog Trog Ambushers in the works. Lots of irons in the fire. But what is quite pressing is the fact that my players have decided to ignore the demon infested ruin I had prepared for them and head north to through the mountains to the capital of the Winter Elves. So I suddenly need to reorganise my painting queue and get some mountain dwelling beasties and the court of the winter elves, including Mebhdh, the Queen of Air and Darkness, painted! Gah! So expect a wintry theme in the next few weeks.

Wow, great huge update! I like all the PC minis you've been painting up, but I'd have to say my favorite from this update is the jellies and oozes you made. They turned out great!

Wonderful update so much brilliant work. Love the variety on show. Always enjoy your updates.

Thanks guys! I have actually been putting in a fair bit more work on the painting side of things, but have been a bit dejected by the poor picture quality. I am looking at getting a new camera or something to improve things, as I am working on a now pretty old phone. I think I need a tripod at least to deal with my shakey hands. I might re photograph some of that stuff...

Recently, my group has moved away from the dungeon they had been exploring. I thought they were going to explore some ancient, demon infest ruins, hence the update with all the demons I had painted.

But instead they veered off to explore the Court of Winter to the north. On the way they visited a large forest, so I have been working on some forest monsters for them.

One of my players has a really nice camera, and she took a pic of this owlbear, which is my favourite of the bunch. I love his dumb goggle eyes and the ridiculous pose. This is a metal Reaper Owlbear, I found a shop in Berlin with a huge catalogue of the old metals, which I prefer to the Bones which are hard to get in Europe anyway. I am pleased with how the yellow eyes and black beak and claws came out.


Also painted recently are some Ettercaps from Otherworld (I love them so much!) and an Ent from LOTR.

Good to see you back, Da Boss. I'm sorry to hear you are having camera trouble. That particular owlbear sculpt has always stood out to me for how crazy it looks. Paint job looks nice, the yellow eyes were a good choice.

It is mostly laziness and procrastination on buying a proper camera. Been complaining about it here for years, reckon I will head to the big electronic store and bite the bullet next weekend.

Cheers. It is an utterly goofy sculpt, but Owlbears are a really goofy monster so I think it fits. I have seen some versions trying to make them look more stately and respectably, but I like this one

Apparently that Owlbear majored in interpretative dance. Everything looks pretty good.

Say, how are the Otherworld minis, in terms of quality and size, especially compared to say Reaper? Otherworld has some cool looking offerings. Classic D&D stuff. I've never seen any of their minis first hand though.

I have that same Owlbear in bones, and its wacky pose makes it nearly impossible to photograph well.

That owl bear is the greatest and his eyes are perfect.

He looks like a drunk friend, Everything just says "I'm just so happy to be here, guys!"

Red Harvest: I am pretty damn happy with my otherworld stuff. Not out of this world in terms of sculpt detail, but very well realised and in a style I REALLY enjoy. I will try and get some decent pictures up soon of my giant rats and ettercaps.

Josh: the pose is mental. But somehow it just makes me love it even more. It looks way better in person than in photos I think.

AmazingTurtles: I agree! My players were so charmed they felt sorry for it and did not want to kill it.

Got a picture of an Ent from last week's game. Painted up at the same time as the Owlbear, and I am pretty happy with how he came out.

Why is that tree coming at us?

I don’t know, but it looks like he wants to give us that big rock.

Well that sure is nice of him. I guess he’s the village welcoming representative.

*Thud*
(Weakly from under the rock) nope.

Cool looking Ent, I’ve never run into one who seems to be in a happy mood.

Also really like your bullywogs, even though they are PP models.

Cool, ent. Is that from the old lord of the rings game?

Cheers! He is a cranky tree. I had him be the minion of a powerful green dragon that had "awakened" him.

He is indeed from LOTR, I think they are the best looking treemen on the market. I do not like the current wood elf ones because they are too busy and cartoony.

Right, so I finally sorted out a new camera and a tripod. These are my first pictures with it. My lighting situation is still a bit crap - I am probably lighting all my minis too harshly.

Will take some snaps of my ettercaps and dire rats from Otherworld once I have done the final touches on the rats. In the meantime, here is a Chimera I painted. I am in two minds about this sculpt. On the one hand, it is not a traditional chimera and it does look a wee bit goofy. One the other hand, I had the idea to make the bird head into a cockatrice head that can petrify my players. Planning to beef it up with more hitpoints and legendary actions to make it a decent solo fight and have it swoop in and attack my party as they traverse a mountain pass. Likely will grab a pony and try to fly off with it.


You can see in the above shot I made a small mistake on the eye of the beast. It does not show up so harshly in normal light. The blending (such that there is) on the snake head tail looks better in person too.


Quite happy with the throat of the dragon head and underbelly, and the colour chocies generally. Sometimes feel I am overdoing it with my turquoise fetish on my big monsters though!


Still got to glue some grass tufts on. But my desk was too messy to even contemplate it...


I really agonised over the colour scheme on this guy for a long time before I painted him. Pretty happy with how it came out, though I wish I could have done the orange-ish scheme I saw online, it was awesome.
Hope the pictures are a bit better!

Very nice the way you transition through the color gradient of greens on the body. All the greens also make the cockatrice head really pop with it's colors.

Cheers! I chose green because I was pretty confident I could get the gradients right, so it is nice that you noticed that!

I wanted my Chimera to have a fairly natural scheme, but still to have some strongly contrasting colours, since it is supposed to be a hodge podge monster. I see a lot of examples online of really wacky colours executed extremely well, and I am not confident I could pull that off so I wanted to go for a more natural look.

Looking forward to seeing your Otherworld minis! What colours did you use for the green on your gatormen?

They look awesome.

Cheers! I snapped the Ettercaps but was unhappy with the focus so I will have to repeat it.

Thanks for the kind words on my gatormen, I adapted an approach I found on Handcannon Online years ago. I had to dig around a lot to find the turorial again because the original was gone so I had to find the guy's blog somewhere on a forum. I would directly link you but I cannot remember where I found it.

The method is: First spray your minis white.
Then paint the spines on the backs, the fins, any stuff like that with Cryx bane base. (a dark greyish green)
Then I watered down Traitor Green (a sort of olive green) and put it over the scaled areas. I built up about 2 layers of that, keeping more of it toward the dark scales to naturally build a gradient. Then I put a layer of camoshade over the top, again focusing on the parts closest to the scales. I put the Traitor Green mix over the bellies, but did not build it up too much so that the lighter shades showed through. Finally and pretty sparingly I made a very watered down layer of Cryx Bane base which I blended in, to make a gradient from the dark scales down. It sounds complicated, but in practice it is pretty fast and easy, because you just need to wait for stuff to dry. Then I just drybrushed the dark scales for a bit of depth and did the detailing like I normally would.

Really happy with how it came out, particularly on the big fellas.