Demon-strations

[Painted and completed, 9/26/15!]

While we're waiting for the latest Bones Kickstarter to end, I'll finally share the demon mods I've been working on.

This crew is made up of various Caesar Miniatures knights, most with demon heads from CP models. The green head up top is a Caesar goblin. The tails are pieces of florist wire. If you do a project like this and know anyone into flower arranging, ask to borrow just a piece, which is all I needed for all these tails.

Other demonic critters. The big guy is a World of Warcraft board game piece, with a hand and trident from a GW "Mines of Moria" troll. The demonette is a Caesar elf with bat wings from a Safari Ltd. "Good Luck" mini. Her tail is a paperclip, which is a lot harder to bend into shape than the florist wire. The other guys are Twilight Creations demons: one got a head swap, the other a head repose.

I finished painting the female demon and goblin-head. You can see that I added some horns and a little goatee, made with the tiniest, fiddliest bits of Milliput I ever hope to work with. Superglue plus a layer of Future Shine to seal will hopefully keep these bits attached.

A view from the back, showing off the wings and tails.

I'm making pretty good progress on the other demon legionaires when I actually have time to paint. I hope to have them finished in a month or so.

Fountains

As I was painting these fences, I was also working on some other scenery items. As it happens, they were all fountains, or other water-bearing structures.

These first two are Reaper bones pieces, a "Well of Chaos" and a "Water Weird. They are a bit oversized compared to Sven, of course, but I think they look okay. The "weird" has been modded so it doesn't loom quite so tall over Sven.

Subtitle: "The Joy of Drybrushing." The texture on the stone made these a breeze to paint: several layers of gray, a bit of brown, some gold on the details, and a blackwash.

The water is just some white glue, with a couple coats of Future Shine. Looks pretty good here, though I had some trouble with this method on the 1/72 fountains below. I think it works here because I only needed a few thin layers of glue for it to look like water. The water flowing from the tap is also Future Shine, mixed with a bit of black paint.

This piece was cast in blue plastic. To make the "Weird" more 1/72 compatible, I chopped off part of the base and took about half the height off the water elemental. The stonework was painted using the same techniques above. The water got much the same treatment as this large water elemental.

Here are a couple fountains from Italeri's "Urban Accessories" kit. These are actual 1/72 scale models; If the models above were 1/72, they'd be about this size. The one on the right is built per instructions. The one on the left has a lion head taken from Hat's "Jungle Adventure" set; I'm pretty sure I got the idea from Paul. I had to fill in some gaps with putty, which looks a bit rough, as does my attempt at highlighting. The water is again white glue with top layers of Future Shine. Unfortunately, I had to use more layers of the stuff to fill the basin, which despite my patient applications meant that the glue doesn't look very clear.

Finally, the small well on the left, from Imex's excellent "Southwest/Alamo Accessories" kit. Not much to say, but I think it looks very nice. On the right is an Italeri desert well, which I discussed previously, along with some other sources for 1/72 scale wells.

Let's wrap up with a quick discussion of other 1/72 scale fountains.

This piece is a resin cast from Airfix, designed for WWII games but perfectly suitable for other genres. The box shows a sort of spigot that's not included in the kit; the hole in the top basin is part of my attempt to install one. A similar piece is by Armand Bayardi. It's a bit more expensive and harder to find, and whether you get it direct or from Michigan Toys (only store I found that has it), the shipping is awfully high. Still, it's a very nice-looking piece.

Reaper Bones III

They're doing it again. Reaper's third Kickstarter for their much-favored Bones line of plastic minis launches tomorrow morning. I had some fun live-blogging the first day of their last Kickstarter; we'll see if I have time to do so this time.

Update (7/7, 10:05 am): It's live! Already some interesting small minis, animals, and giants that would fit my purposes. They're saying that minis in different sizes will be a focus this time, so this may be very interesting to me. PS: it's already funded, of course.

(10:48): Okay, I backed it. Wave 2 shipping! They're behind on their updates, understandably, but there should be more to come. I've decided a day at the zoo with the little one might be better than hitting refresh on the KS page all day. I'll be back later.

By the way, you can help me justify my expense by taking advantage of my sales page :).

(1:55): I'm back! What'd I miss?

Hey, rewards updates! None of the add-ons seem too amazing yet. I like the yetis in the core set, and the torture room stuff is promising. Scenics seem to be a bit undersized in Bones, so they might be adaptable to the Scale of Choice.

(9:40 pm): New rewards! I'm sort of tempted by the Stonehenge scenery, but it's a little rich for me. We'll have to see.

Does it seem like the new rewards aren't coming as quickly this time around? Either people are bidding more slowly, or Reaper has spaced them out a little more. Not complaining, just an observation.

(7/8, 10:57 am): A new day, a new stretch goal. Hey look, ogres! And they're core! Interested in these.

Stonehenge, I just noticed, is huge, dwarfing even Sir Forscale. Way too big for 1/72, so I feel okay about passing.

(7/10): Any future updates I'd like to make will be in a new post, I think. Stretch goals are certainly slower than I remember; a quick comparison between this and the last Kickstarter on Kicktraq shows that pledges are indeed coming more slowly this time, which I guess is not surprising. So it's not as exciting to watch, but they're still set to clear $1 mil by the end of the day, which by any standard is still excellent.

By the way, I like the arsenal update. Even though the weapons may be oversized for my purposes, I can think of enough uses for them that I may even spring for two sets.

Spidermen, spidermen!

Check out my sales page, now full of cheap 1/72 scale sprues suitable for fantasy, in addition to Reaper Bones figures and other goodies.

Spidermen! No not that kind, this kind:

Driders, or "drow-spiders," or spider-centaurs. Dark elves punished (or rewarded, depending on edition) by their spider-goddess Lolth with an aspect of her spidery form. One of those curiosities from D&D that's somehow stuck with fantasy gamers. Recall that these are mostly Alliance elves patched onto "jorogumo" figures from Arcane Legions.

Melee guys above. Archers and sorceress below; the sorceress bod is a Caesar elf. I worry that she looks either like Mrs. Santa Claus via the Brothers Grimm, or else a Star Trek bridge officer after a teleportation accident.

Side views, showing off the spidery livery this crew is wearing for some reason. Not the greatest freehand you'll ever see, but looks okay on the table.

Let's check out the larger drider figure, maybe an alpha drider, or possibly an avatar of Lolth herself. It's a Reaper Bones "Spider Centaur" archer figure. I swapped her bow arm with a Skink bit—should have either swapped both arms or else just trimmed the bow from her original hand. Looks kind of wonky. I also regret that her face is a bit obscure. Should have put more black around the mouth. I think it's not too bad overall, though. It's actually a smaller figure than you might expect, pretty close in body size to Sven the 1/72 comparison viking.

The spotted pattern on the back is loosely inspired by actual black widow spiders, which also inspired the general red-white-black colors of this squad.

This was a fun project. I'm really pleased how the mods turned out on the 1/72 figures. Painting was a quick and dirty affair for the most part, but I like the overall look. They'll be a nice addition, or counterpoint to, the drow figures I painted a month ago.

Coming soon: demon legions, and other hellish beings!