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I finished a minor conversion recently for a potential D&D character and was wondering if anyone else converts or repaints the various prepainted minis out there. As I get older, I find less and less motivation personally to paint up whole units for games I rarely play (especially at current GW prices in regards to 40k/fantasy) and instead prefer to just make interesting minis for RPG games instead (even if I'm not playing). I've found a cheap source of them is the secondary market for commons/uncommons and the occasional rare (pun intended) from prepainted lines like the D&D/Pathfinder line from Wizkids or Heroclix. I'll usually buy 2-3 of a cheap mini ($1-3 each) with an order big enough to either qualify for completely free shipping or flat rate shipping so that I have a spare or two in case I screw up the conversion. The conversions don't tend to be big deals as I instead choose the base minis that I want but I'll either swap out weapons, minimally or moderately change poses, add bits (whether 3d printed or from my existing plastic bits box) to get to where I want. Does anyone else do this?

The sculpting and painting detail is typically on par with the average board game mini from a few years ago so they obviously won't win any awards but it's good enough for tabletop gaming at arms length. My painting skills are average at best but sometimes they need a bit of tweaking to fit the asthetics that I need. Here is an example of some shadowrun figs I converted from a Hulk and She Hulk (ironically this was actually the most expensive pair of figs I've ever gotten from the clix line so aren't a good example of that aspect but they're the only pics I have handy at the moment). They're supposed to be an ork mystic adept and a troll bodyguard in game.



edit: I found another fig I posted a pic elsewhere of a while back of a troll mystic adept (yeah, I like that type of character!). This was a $1.00 mini off of ebay and a spur of the moment idea that I figured I'd try for a few bucks that I'd never have paid full retail for. Admittedly, there isn't much of a market for a goofball big troll surfer magic ninja though so I'm pretty much left to my own devices if I want a mini for that character.

Ironically, you'd probably get more replies at BoardGame Geek. Fewer hard-core mini gamers means more general gamers wanting minis on a budget. I've seen some of the repaints used for various other games, be it wrestling, fantasy quest type games, sci-fi, or superheroes. Perhaps I'll follow suit one of these days: I do have a moderately sized collection of the original Mage Knight. However, I've yet to repaint. I am using some amphisbaena prepaints in my Abyssal Dwarf KoW army as at the time they didn't have Grotesques available, and the shading was actually pretty well done. I've also bought a sci-fi bear in power armor with thunder hammer for Stargrave: he's the First Mate in a Biomorph crew.

I'm guessing that mini is from the Starfinder line. I was considering getting it myself along with a couple of others from the line of prepaints (assuming I'm correct of course). I'd be curious to see how those OG prepaints in Mage Knight fair these days in terms of detail and sculpts. The earliest that I have are from the original D&D minis line (I bought in heavily for that back in the day) but I tended to not repaint them and instead leave them unchanged.