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I finished a couple more figures, so I'm renaming this thread rather than starting a bunch of new ones.

Purple Worm - AKA Reaper Bones 77006: Great Worm

I bought this pair of Pre-KS Bones over a year ago, but they got put to one side for most of that time when I had to pack up to move, then move, and unpack and so forth. Recently I finished them, and finally we had some decent light, so today they got photographed.

There's a bit of mould line that I missed on one of them. Noticed it when it was too late, and I didn't want to butcher my paint in order to fix it. You barely notice in person, anyway.











I used some Woodland Scenics Water Effects to create the beginning of the "drool", some WC Realistic Water over the top to smooth it out, and some Vallejo Model Colour Clear Yellow to add a touch of colour to the discharge.





These suckers took awhile to get going, but once I actually sat down to make myself paint them they were quite an enjoyable experience. Originally they were all-purple, then I looked up the D&D colouration, which said they had yellow bellies/undersides, which I thought would look far too cartoony, but it kept bothering me. A day or two later I came back to them and used some sand and ochre shared for the "yellow" to make them look much more like natural colouration, and it worked for me. I used some pinky-purple for the transition ridge between the ochre and the main dark bluish-purple for the main body.

One of the things I enjoyed most was the fact that since these are cheap Bones models, I allowed myself to play with them a lot more. I used drybrushing, blending, a purple oil paint wash at one stage, the aforementioned realistic water products, and a few weathering powders in the end. Basically a lot of experimentation and "play", and I think they turned out pretty successful in the end!

More pics on my blog, including a scale shot with a SM, an Orc and a Gobbo. I didn't want to overdo it here...

Those look awesome I just got a few of these guys for making nid terrain, yours are definetly inspiring me to get going on em

Yep those look great! The purple, the lighter belly coloration, the drool, all of it is quite nice. I'm usually lazy with drool type stuff like that, and stop at hot glue, but yours looks pretty solid so I may have to look into it

The only thing I could say (and its about the model itself, not your excellent execution!), is that they are a tad small. I think there is art of the purple worm wrapping and eating a t-rex out there, they're huge! These are still terrifyingly large, and your paint job makes them pretty darn spiffy though

Very cool. The drool effect is a beautiful bit of character.

Thanks for the compliments, guys!

Good point, jeb_sound - they could definitely have some use with 'Nids. I've only got a small 50-pt combat patrol force from about 2 Codices ago, but when the new book comes out I should try and resurrect them and find some counts-as use for these guys as well.

Thanks also on the drool. I had basically finished them both, when I had one of those "hmm.... I wonder if...?" moments. The shape of the drool's not quite what I was hoping for, but it still turned out decent, and it's actually pretty strong with a bit of flex to it, so it's worked out.

GrimDork - yeah I saw some of the pics that make them look like a Sand Worm from Dune, though I figure like anything else in nature(!) they would come in various shapes and sizes depending on age, species and age.

Yeah those could be 'ittle bitz, or they could be for 15mm heroes They're probably appropriate for that! Regardless, they're lovely!

Those look great!

When painting the “Iron” Golem, I wanted to play with warm metallics (copper, bronze) and verdigris, so I happily disregarded the “Iron” portion of the model.



Much of the model was actually fun to work with. I utilised a lot of heavy drybrushing that worked well on the model to bring out all the slight imperfections of the cast, and helped to create a bit of a pitted, cast-metal look, which was perfect for my ends. The rear shot of the left forearm shows it pretty well. While I’m not especially happy with the way the sword blade turned out, being a cheap Bones model, I’m happy to call it good enough. The plastic of the blade was uneven and frankly an unpleasant pain to work with. The face was a bit of a mess. To sort of salvage it, I just painted it gold in the end, and gave it a hit of ink and a small highlight. The gems on the back of the shoulders and sword blade, and also the eyes were done using the usual GW-style gem technique and hit with gloss varnish. For what it’s worth, I think the glowing OSL effect on the Reaper website looks better, and if I’d seen it earlier I probably would have ripped it off, but c’est la vie.



The bags and chain on the back of his butt were a badly-cast mess, and so they got a very quick “good enough” job. The real highlight of the model to me was playing with some new mixes of paint washes along with the layered drybrushing to create the aged verdigris effect, which will no doubt make a reappearance later down the line on some venerable space marines of some description. I also did some dungeon furniture at the same time, which I’ll have to photograph down the line and show here as well. Base is my usual for this kind of thing – Proxie models 40mm round base with the plastic Bones base glued on top and a bit of acrylic putty to flatten it all out before sand and Army Painter tufts.

Anyway, as a low-stress learning experience and relatively fast model to paint, I consider this guy to be a success. Now he can sit on the shelf until Pathfinder calls him to duty!

Duuuuude! those Worms are awesome, what a wickedly cool paint job! unnatural yet somehow natural :-) love it!

Nice golem-thing! He definitely looks old and rough, which rather works for a golem. The face is a bit.. smooshy? But the overall model is pretty nice, good work. Looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks! In my defence, I'm going to say that the golem's actual face is like that on the Bones casting. It looked "okay" in hand, but once it had paint on it, it was pretty clear how not-sharp the details are. The whole head's a bit like that, actually...

Yeah, that's what I was getting at--that I could see what you meant. I've only handled a couple of those bones minis, but if it came smooshy it seems like there wouldn't be much you could do.

So good work

You prime these models first right? I only ask because I went to a reaper paint and take and slowly went insane trying to paint a quality model without priming it first. It was like trying to paint with a wash... it wouldn't work :l

I tried to clean a couple of these for my brother in law, he had used cheap spray-paint and it was rubbing off on my hands. I think the material they are made of bears special consideration when painting

They all get washed with detergent. I initially used an older (HMG era) GW purple with no primer on the worms, but it didn't cover real well so I used the old GW Foundation purple which it took perfectly. The Golem got Charadon Granite (old GW foundation) as a first base, and I can't remember how I started the troll (he got started over a year ago).

I've found that the Bones plastic will take some paints very well (ie Citadel Foundation) and others not well at all (Vallejo base, and also their primers) so it's a bit of a crapshoot and attempt to find a first coat that sticks well.

This guy, like the Purple Worms I shared recently, was a Bones figure I picked up before the Kickstarter campaign who spent most of the last year part-painted until I finally finished him properly more recently. The “learning experience” with this guy was to practice blending from unnatural skin tones (ie, the green) to more natural ones (the flesh). I saw some fine work done in this manner on Citadel Dragon Ogres many years ago, and it’s also been used to some extent on the Games Workshop LotR trolls – which is one of the places this guy can do duty, along with Pathfinder and even wargames like Warhammer and Kings of War.



The paint was originally a bit nicer, but it got severely messed up (in my opinion) when I hit the finished model with Army Painter’s spray (matt!) varnish. The model got a nasty shine, some sandy “frosting” on his limbs, and it also attracted a bunch of tiny little hairs. I’ve gone over it with paint-on Vallejo, but it’s still not quite right.



The base used the same techniques as listed previously for the golem, but not as successful, and being a cheap bones model I’d prefer to buy another one and do it again then spend the time to rework the whole base – ie “good enough”. His claws are badly defined, and the facial details are a bit soft and sloppy – picking out the eyes was not easy. Blending the pustulent and infected looking boils into his skin was fun as always, but despite my misgivings about the casting of the figure overall and especially some specific parts of the model (claws, face) – and even the messed up finish thanks to the Spray and my sub-par job on the base, I find it to be another successful practice model. Good enough for Roleplaying and certainly tabletop quality for wargaming.

I think the new troll looks pretty good overall! He is a tad shiny, but think of it as slime

I use badger's spectra tex matte sealer and, while it usually dies to a matte finish like you would expect, one batch of models ended up kind of shiny. Did you, by chance, spray the sealer on heavily for this guy? Like, more so than usual? I did on my one batch of shinier guys and I'm wondering if that has something to do with it. Could be that it wasn't shaken up as much too, but just a thought.

Still looks pretty darn good, looking forward to the next one

Well, the spray was Army Painter's stuff, and it turned out kind of okay, except it was somewhat covered in a sandy texture. I assume it's the "it partially dried before it hit the figure". I went over it with paint-on Vallejo sealer.

I usually use a spray-on clear polyurethane sealer, either gloss, satin or matt. When I go gloss I tend to go over it later with matt. I've been avoiding sprays for Bones since I read up about how they can become a bit melty when I went online to see WTF the story was with the Army Painter spray - so when I went out and bought more Wattyl polyurethane spray, I didn't respray the troll...