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Good selection of stuff done in 2024, and to a pretty high standard if I do say so myself. And good job already being on the board for 2025. The spooders look cool!

Syro_ wrote:Thanks for the year in review, Josh. It was fun seeing those minis again. And wow, you already have something done in 2025

Glad you liked them. The spiders feel a little like cheating-- cheapa$$ Bones models, essentially two colors, but since I'm planning to finally break out League of Dungeoneers this year, I needed some low-level dungeon critters.

aku-chan wrote:You had a really productive year, nicely done!

I'm a little surprised my numbers were so high, honestly.



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 ZergSmasher wrote:
Good selection of stuff done in 2024, and to a pretty high standard if I do say so myself. And good job already being on the board for 2025. The spooders look cool!

Spooders. That made me snicker out loud at work.

The theme for January's Dakka Challenge is Frugal. I opted to paint up this gachapon toy that my wife and/or son brought back from Osaka. I think. I wasn't on that trip.



This guy is one of the Ni-Oh Guardians who stand on either side of the entrance to a Buddhist temple. The Uruk-hai sword is to replace a part that got lost somewhere along the line. Here in Japan, you usually see these guys as bare wood, but my wife asked me to paint this guy up. Here's the result:






The first image includes a Reaper Bones wizard for scale. He is also the next mini to share:





This guy is first generation Bones, and has been languishing, primed and forgotten, for literally years. Despite all the limitations of white Bones, he actually painted up pretty easily. I also dug this guy up to finish:






This is, of course, a classic Jes Goodwin Ogre. I started him a while back, lost steam pretty quickly, and moved on. He was pretty fun to paint once I got started this time, though. I have a couple more Ogres from this series, but they are repeats of models I have already painted.

For 2025, I'm planning to minimize my buying and finish stuff that's been lying around, waiting for paint. As of January, I have two main projects. The first is Empty The Box:



I have these organizers to store my hobby supplies, and the drawers you see here are full of models that I brought downstairs to paint and then forgot about or gave up on. The Wizard and Ogre both came from here. I intend to work on everything here until the drawers are empty. In the second photo, you can see a preview of my second 2025 project, A Fistful Of Bones. I backed the first Bones KS, and have barely touched the contents since. I plan to periodically grab a fistful of those little plastic bags, and paint up whatever I grab. I hope the variety will keep be from getting bored, and even if I do, one Reaper model shouldn't take a whole lot of time to reach an acceptable standard.

Nice! Gotta love a JG Ogre, and you have done a fine job on the gacha. The BONES project sounds like it will be both challenging (some of those early minis looked rough) and entertaining.

 youwashock wrote:
Nice! Gotta love a JG Ogre, and you have done a fine job on the gacha. The BONES project sounds like it will be both challenging (some of those early minis looked rough) and entertaining.

Completely agree on the JG ogres, and apparently so does every hobbyist Of A Certain Age, as evinced by their eBay selling price, which is what is keeping me from completing my collection.

Bones will be a good way to improve my painting, in that the soft details will force me to really push my highlights to make up for the lack of detail.

I made a start on my Fistful of Bones project. First up, The Shadow:


Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I used this guy to practice painting black. His suit uses the traditional grey hightlights, but I went with blue for his opera cape. I think it worked pretty well.

Next, a Steampunk dude:


A lot of browns on this one. When I first took him out of his little plastic bag, I thought he was a not-Hellboy model-- the goggles (which looked like horns, the giant fist, and the unlikely gun sort of tricked my eye, especially since Bones is so white that it's nearly impossible to see any details before priming. I tried a little copper NMM in a couple of places. Does it work?

Finally, a skeleton archer:


The casting on this model is pretty rough, with some very prominent mold lines. Bones being too soft the really clean, I just sort of painted over and around them. He'll work well enough as an enemy in some dungeon crawl, I suppose. At least he painted up quickly.

Here are all three together:


Next up: more Bones.

Great stuff, I wish I'd picked up some of those temple guards in Japan. Ah well, next time.

I like steam punk dude especially, and yes to the nmm copper I love how characterful reaper minis are. I have a grab bag of them for when I just want to paint something random.

That’s a lot of Pile of Shame in the drawer. Good luck getting through it. You are off to a good start. I like the use of grey/blue highlights on The Shadow. Helps differentiate an otherwise monotone mini.

Heh. I always looked at that guy as not-Hellboy, too. Great job on The Shadow (or The Mist, can't remember what name Reaper gave him). I may still have him in a box, myself. The other two are long gone. Wonderful start on the project!

Great paintjobs, love the highlighting on the 'shadow'.

I'm getting some Cad Bane vibes from "The Shadow"; that's a really cool mini. The others turned out decent too. I'm not a huge fan of Bones minis mostly because of the soft plastic they use (the sculpts are fine, the material not so much); I do own a couple that I used as proxies in 40k way back when, but I never got around to painting them.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Great stuff, I wish I'd picked up some of those temple guards in Japan. Ah well, next time.

Well, it's a gachapon toy, so I'm sure you can get something similar anytime you come back.

inmygravenimage wrote:I like steam punk dude especially, and yes to the nmm copper I love how characterful reaper minis are. I have a grab bag of them for when I just want to paint something random.

Thanks! I'm still not wholly certain about the copper-- I should probably just follow a recipe next time.
One of the best things about Reaper is that they make Player Characters rather than Armies, so their is just so much variety.

Nevelon wrote:That’s a lot of Pile of Shame in the drawer. Good luck getting through it. You are off to a good start. I like the use of grey/blue highlights on The Shadow. Helps differentiate an otherwise monotone mini.

The Drawer of Shame is a drop in the bucket compared to the Walk-In Closet of shame. We gotta start somewhere, though, right?

youwashock wrote:Heh. I always looked at that guy as not-Hellboy, too. Great job on The Shadow (or The Mist, can't remember what name Reaper gave him). I may still have him in a box, myself. The other two are long gone. Wonderful start on the project!

I very nearly did not-Hellboy as Hellboy, but he's wearing a vest. I couldn't get past him not being bare-chested.
Also, The Mist? If I'd know that's what the model is called, I might have done him in whites instead of blacks.

Olthannon wrote:Great paintjobs, love the highlighting on the 'shadow'.

Thanks! Blacks have long been challenging for me-- until quite recently, I just did what someone on Dakka called "lazy black": charcoal gray with a Payne's Gray ink wash.

ZergSmasher wrote:I'm getting some Cad Bane vibes from "The Shadow"; that's a really cool mini. The others turned out decent too. I'm not a huge fan of Bones minis mostly because of the soft plastic they use (the sculpts are fine, the material not so much); I do own a couple that I used as proxies in 40k way back when, but I never got around to painting them.

I had to look up Cad Bane. I feel old.
Bones White is like early Mantic Restic for me-- cleaning is too much work for the return, so mold lines stay where they are. I'm using the slightly softer details to try and improve my painting technique, specifically shading and highlighting to pick out details that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.

Great work on the Shadows cape!

I always loved that particular wizard sculpt, annoyingly I never got around to picking up the metal version when it was available, can't work on that original Bones stuff it's 'orrible.

 aku-chan wrote:
Great work on the Shadows cape!

I always loved that particular wizard sculpt, annoyingly I never got around to picking up the metal version when it was available, can't work on that original Bones stuff it's 'orrible.

I'm finding Bones not that difficult to work with, now that I've accepted that it will be bendy and that the mold lines won't be going anywhere. I won't win any prizes, but I will fill some gaps in my collection.

Wow that sword on the Guardian, very nice work. Love the Ogre too, I remember that guy, what a great model.

 PaddyMick wrote:
Wow that sword on the Guardian, very nice work. Love the Ogre too, I remember that guy, what a great model.

Thanks! The sword took an inordinately long time. It has at least ten layers of paint, and I'm still not fully satisfied.

I love me some classic Jes Goodwin models. Loads of character and easy to paint.

This week, I've been continuing my twin themes of Empty The Drawer and Fistful of Bones. First, a halfling/pixie wizard:





I gave her green skin to match a similar model I painted years ago:


Then, an Asterian Cypher for Deadzone:




I tried to add an energy/glow effect to the gun, but I don't think it worked very well.

Next, a Reaper model called Ghostly Summons:





The model is cast in clear green resin, and before priming I wasn't really sure what it actually was. I wasn't expecting three naked ghost ladies, though. It kind of reminds me of the opening credits to a James Bond movie. I didn't want to leave it all sexy, so I tried doing the faces as skulls. The model itself is really tall and off-center, so I glued it to a washer so it wouldn't fall over.

We also have a lamia/gorgon/snake woman:


A couple of beetle swarms that took about 10 minutes, from start to finish:


And finally, what I'm calling a troglodyte:





This guy, like the naked ghost ladies, leans too far forward and wouldn't stand up on his puddle base, so I ended up mounting him on a piece of plasticard.

One thing I really like about this project is the variety. I have been feeling bored painting units and armies, and since everything in these projects so far are individual models, each painting session is something new.

Next up, more Bones!

The cypher and trog are my faves. But a great bunch as always.

Very nice work, as usual Josh It's funny, I didn't notice the double stack base on the ghost ladies until reading what you wrote about it. Same with the trog, you made it look natural on that square, like it came on that base to start with.

Great work, Josh! I especially like the big bruiser troglodyte.

Also; I just started painting my own Ghostly Summons yesterday. I primed mine grey, overbrushed it with white, and then used Hexwraith Flame contrast before a final drybrush of white. I just need to fix the base.

Lean aside, the trog was one of the more successful Gen 1 BONES minis. Bigger is better for that pliable white material. Yours looks great. Love Ghostly Summons. Could be used as a spell effect. "I cast ORGY!" I tried to preserve some of the translucency with mine. I am rather fond of that sculpt, as well.

Very nice. I think that halfling/pixie wizard is my favorite out of this bunch.

inmygravenimage wrote:The cypher and trog are my faves. But a great bunch as always.

The troglodyte was fun and simple to paint-- lots of textures, so I could get away with mostly drybrusing/overbrushing. The cyper is pretty rough up close, but I am pleased with its base.

Syro_ wrote:Very nice work, as usual Josh It's funny, I didn't notice the double stack base on the ghost ladies until reading what you wrote about it. Same with the trog, you made it look natural on that square, like it came on that base to start with.

The naked ghost lady base is exactly the same size as the washer, so it kind of blends in. I used a lot of grout on the trog's base, which, along with white glue and sand, really helps everything blend together.

KidCthulhu wrote:Great work, Josh! I especially like the big bruiser troglodyte.

Also; I just started painting my own Ghostly Summons yesterday. I primed mine grey, overbrushed it with white, and then used Hexwraith Flame contrast before a final drybrush of white. I just need to fix the base.

I've painted a few ethereal models over the years, but have yet to figure out a technique that I'm fully satisfied with. I get pretty close on this model, though.

youwashock wrote:Lean aside, the trog was one of the more successful Gen 1 BONES minis. Bigger is better for that pliable white material. Yours looks great. Love Ghostly Summons. Could be used as a spell effect. "I cast ORGY!" I tried to preserve some of the translucency with mine. I am rather fond of that sculpt, as well.

I have a few of the larger Bones models scattered throughout this P&M blog-- a skeleton giant, a jabberwock, and Great Cthulhu. They do hold detail better at that size, but the jabberwock and Cthulhu suffer from having skinny ankles-- they bend over from the weight of the rest of the model. They probably need to have their legs drilled and filled with brass rod or something.

I thought about doing something with inks to keep the transparency of the green plastic, but my initial experiments looked a little off, like the model wasn't actually painted.

Tommygun1918 wrote:Very nice. I think that halfling/pixie wizard is my favorite out of this bunch.

One of the great things about Reaper is the sheer variety of PCs they produce.

I took a little break from Bones to finish a couple of Deadzone models that had been languishing the the Drawer of Doom:




This first guy is a Steel Warrior Huscarl for my Forge Fathers. He's on a dirt, rather than urban, base because he's old enough to still have the Mantic circle. I thought about cutting him off, but opted to glue him into the hold and cover it with filler and sand. The NMM works well in some places, not so well in others, but the overall effect passes muster. I'm pleased with how his cape came out.





This second guy is Hacker Half-tail (I think), a special character for the Veer-myn. He's an alternate sculpt that I got with Mantic points at the same time as the Huscarl above. Technically, he belongs to my son, but as he seems to be outgrowing gaming with his old man, I did this one up myself. The green is Vallejo Olive Green, and the spot details are supposed to be copper. Sadly it kind of blends into the other browns.

Here they are together:


The theme for the Dakka Challenge for February is Sneaky. I have a couple of options:



The three on the left are Reaper Halflings from my Big Box of Bones. The three on the right are old, old Citadel ninja. I'll be painting all of them, and entering whichever set I'm happier with.

The theme for this month's Dakka Challenge is Surprise! I dug into backlog and came out with a couple of options:



One the left, we have three ninja from the Citadel's Oriental Heroes line. On the right are three halflings from the Big Box of Bones. In a fit of productivity, I cranked them all out over the last two weeks:








My color choices were inspired by the ninja-ploitation movies of the late 80's/early 90's, in which everyone wore different colors so you could tell them apart on the screen. This is the second time I have painted these models, and I thought I would have to give them a good soak in alcohol to remove the decades old paint. However, Ral Partha's crappy spray primer saved me that step, as it had turned essentially into chalk dust, allowing me to strip these models to bare metal with a toothbrush. Here are all three together:



Next, I turned to the halflings:






These three are definitely Bones White minis-- bendy and with soft details. I took it as a challenge to sharpen them up with my painting, and I think I was generally successful. The second one, with the crossbow and green cloak, is probably a dwarf rather than a halfling, being both taller and stockier. The third is rather ridiculously clothed-- check out the short tunic, bare legs, and fairy boots, like a Ralph Bakshi character. Rather than go that route, I took inspiration from a few generations of Robin (as in "Batman and..."). I stayed in earthtones, so it's hard to tell, but at least she's wearing pants.

Here are all three together:



Finally, I pulled this guy out of the Drawer of Miracles:



He's a vampire from the Night Horrors range of yesteryear. He was supposed to be entered in the Dakka Comp for October a few years back, but didn't make the cut.

I have some time left in the month, and not being entirely happy with either the ninja or the halflings, I pulled a couple more models out of the Big Box of Bones:



It's hard to tell from this terrible pic, but they are a mimic and a rust monster. They should be fun to paint.

All hail that ancient vampire. It was the first vampire mini I ever used in WHFB and set me on a path of undeath for multiple editions. Fabulous color pallette.

The ninja rock. More classics, done up right.

Love the colour coded ninjas!

youwashock wrote:All hail that ancient vampire. It was the first vampire mini I ever used in WHFB and set me on a path of undeath for multiple editions. Fabulous color pallette.

The ninja rock. More classics, done up right.

Oldhammer models can be hit or miss, but Undead are a lot of fun.

I have a number of ninja models from a few different makers, but these are the best. My Kingsford ninja look like dudes in pajamas, and my Zenit ninja are teeny tiny-- too small to work with really.

aku-chan wrote:Love the colour coded ninjas!

Even masters of silent death have to put safety first-- visibility reduces workplace accidents.

The variety of stuff you've painted recently is great. I like the trio of ninjas - really cool models with great paint jobs (especially the white one)

Fun collection of stuff!