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Like many, I got back into painting after a long hiatus during the long hours of lockdown.

The purpose of this blog is to:

Motivate me to paint more.

Get feedback from people.

Keep track of miniatures painted vs miniatures bought (pile of shame)

Keep a record of what I've done and any new techniques I tried.

At the moment, I'm mainly interested in painting minis to bring to my DnD 5e games.

I will be highlighting key points in bold so you can skim read my posts more easily.

Here's what I'm working on atm. It's a Nolzur's Owlbear. I am trying to look at images of Eagle Owls for inspiration. I wouldn't necessarily recommend these miniatures, as the surface is flexible, paint tends to scrape off easily and it has bad mould lines. On the other hand, it was a fiver, and the sculpt is pretty cool. you can't really argue with that.

What should I do to improve it?

Looks pretty good, so far. I like the varying tones in the fur/feathers. Nolzur's does have good sculpts, but I agree the material and pre-priming don't do them a ton of favors. But for the cost, you still end up winning. Not sure how finished it is, but I would suggest hitting the claws with some more paint to define them a bit more, punch up the eyes with some non-neutral color, and address the base. Add something to integrate the integrated base to the disc. Again, you may already be planning these things. Looking forward to more.

 youwashock wrote:
Looks pretty good, so far. I like the varying tones in the fur/feathers. Nolzur's does have good sculpts, but I agree the material and pre-priming don't do them a ton of favors. But for the cost, you still end up winning. Not sure how finished it is, but I would suggest hitting the claws with some more paint to define them a bit more, punch up the eyes with some non-neutral color, and address the base. Add something to integrate the integrated base to the disc. Again, you may already be planning these things. Looking forward to more.

Thanks. Yes, the claws, beak, eyes, base are untouched.

I did another pass of shading and stippling. I want to include some pattern on the 'wings'.

Any Ideas what sort of technique I should use to add patterns to it?

Owlbear is (broadly) finished.









Colours Used:
- Vallejo Sepia and Umber Washes
- Revel Bone (aka bleached bone)
- Citadel Vermin Fur
- Vallejo Charred Brown
- Mixed Vallejo Andrea Blue / Black for the claws
- Vallejo Bright Orange (Horrible paint with horrible coverage) with a little red

What I Learned
- Nolzurs miniature material / primer is poor. Had to varnish halfway through to stop paint scraping off. This is OK, and is a great technique for 'locking-in' finished parts
- Large Monsters are fun. And scary. And cool. Definitely going to try and do some more
- Wet blending is good for large transitions, giving interest to larger, flatter areas.
- Usually I get stuck using the same 'boring' basic blue tones. Beak and claws showed me that interesting blue tones are available.

Questions for Dakka-ites
- Should I gloss, satin or matt varnish the eyes?
- I wanted to paint some bars on the 'flight' feathers. Should I do this or just call it a day?
- What could be better?

By the way, if anyone wants to see something wierd and different, heres something for you:

These are OOP Ork Genestealer Hybrids (!) Here is a BOLS article talking about the wierdness of it all.

I have no use for them, despite being obsessed with genestealer cults as a kid, so they're on ebay if anyone wants them

Been a while. But then I've been away.

These old rats belonged to my dad, and the paint jobs are a bit scratched and heavy:


After basing, touching up the brown, and painting the pink bits they came out like this:

Chose Blue-black for basing to contrast with all the reds

Monsters are fun, since you can be messy with them

Earlier in the year, I painted this Heroquest Guard, which I'd say is the first model I'd painted in 8 years:

I thought this was good at the time, but now... not so much.

I had used the same old colours I'd always used (dark red, enchanted blue, DA green). Boring!

Painting a different skintone was fun, and frankly I think there's stilll a problem in mini painting where the default fleshtone is assumed to be 'white'

The proportions on this are hilarious. Look at the hands!

I decided to try my hand at batch painting the other 11 of these guys now I've got a bit more practice in. Here's the test model:

And some of the many weapon options:

My eyesight must be getting worse, because these all look much worse in the photos

There are 6 of each weapon option, and 4 weapon options, meaning there are 24 weapon options to paint. :(

All leather painted in Vallejo German Med Camo Brown (great colour) with Vallejo Umber wash

Assume all hands are gloved, so I can give a variety of skintones to the guards.

Weapon grips are GW mephiston red (What a great colour with great coverage) & chestnut ink.

Hafts are vermin fur with Sepia tone shade.

Going to try and do each soldier with 2 different, bright colours on their clothes. In this case, yellow and pink(?). Possibly I'll base the colour combos on retro sweet wrappers or football shirts.

Comments and Criticism welcome


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I almost forgot.

I started painting these old Tyrand ripper swarms after stripping my childhood paintjob off.

Individually based to use as some DnD gribblies (possibly Grick?)

Cork matt basing is great, and I'll definitely be doing more of this in future

Trying to do a pale-green chitin colour, but the shading and highlights have come out looking a bit weak. The base colour is a mix of Vallejo black green, olive and revel Bone. Shade is black green

I love that owlbear. Beautifully painted!

Shoot. Completely missed the Owlbear being finished. Those claws! Those eyes! Awesome work.

Shadow Walker wrote:I love that owlbear. Beautifully painted!

youwashock wrote:Shoot. Completely missed the Owlbear being finished. Those claws! Those eyes! Awesome work.

Thanks! I'm really proud of how it turned out. And I'm glad I called it a day when I did.

'Finished' one of thos ripper swarm gribblies:

Chest is vallejo light grey, vallejo black wash shade, very thin red glaze over the top, highlight with a little white to the grey

Teeth are GW snakebite leather, vallejo umber wash shade, revell bone highlight, vallejo sepia tone glaze for yellowing

Base is charred brown, vermin fur, revel bone

I'm probably going to try a gloss varnish to finish

What's it missing? I think the base looks too much like a delicious cake, and not enough like horrible mud.

I think I'm going to paint a space marine to use for scale in future; This is tiny!

Hey mate, welcome back to the hobby! Looks like you are plowing back in.

I love how the owlbear turned out - some nice gradients on the fur and the eyes really pop.

Yellow is looking rich on the Heroquest guys, and little ripper turned out well too. I might be tempted to lay another highlight down on the chitin to help up the contrast but that is down to personal taste. Smart work on the flesh colour on the underbelly - suitably creepy and some good depth there!

The base looks good to me; I agree it could be a little too chunkily textured for mud but can see a rocky outcrop/desert planet or a thick cover of autumn foliage.

brb though, must find cake...

Thanks for sharing mate and congrats on the progress so far. Looking forward to more!

 tzurk wrote:
I might be tempted to lay another highlight down on the chitin to help up the contrast but that is down to personal taste. Smart work on the flesh colour on the underbelly - suitably creepy and some good depth there!

Thanks for all the kind words and the feedback! You were absoloutely right, The rippers did need another highlight layer. Here they are:


The whole gang, with their new buddy "Space Marine for Scale":

Added extra highlight layer as per Tzurks feedback

It's getting dark at this time of year, and the photos aren't really showing what the models look like in person. I may have to build a light box for photos.

After I took these photos, I picked one up and accidentally threw it across the room. Luckily, I had used Vallejo Surface Primer for the first time on these models, and Vallejo Matt Varnish to finish. Vallejo Surface Primer is solid, and hadnt even chipped off too badly.

Varnish your minis kids!

Found these scary boys that I'd started painting some years ago, and decided to finish them:

And after their makeover:

Shading was a little weak, so I dropped some Vallejo Umber Wash into recesses. Picked out a few highilights in bone then white. Glazed bones with Sepia tone to bind all together and tint yellow.

I also rusted up the iron a bit. This was achieved by stippling orange. This looks very stark, so I glazed with a mix or orange / chocolate brown to bring it down. You can't actually see this in the photo very well.

I've been using glaze medium recently for applying filters, and it's great! completely removes the problem of your thinned paints acting like washes and flowing into recesses. I'll be doing this much more in future.

All looking good here.

 Good Old Murray wrote:
Questions for Dakka-ites
- Should I gloss, satin or matt varnish the eyes?

I'd go gloss - but the great thing is - if you don't like it - just go over it with the other. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether you need to go via gloss to get from satin to matt (or vice versa).