AoS: Mistweaver Saih

The Mistweaver Saih from Warhammer Quest: Silvertower. This miniature was mostly painted by the girl, I did a bit of edge highlighting/cleaning up (and the base) to make her pop a bit more. She's the girl's character in Silver Tower and does quite well (the girl tends to gather the most experience points). Her ability to blast things from across the board is quite good, it helps that my Stormcast character tends to hold the enemies up.

This is also miniature number 100 for the year! Woot 3 digits! The Mistweaver also finishes off the Silvertower project. Given the holidays, I suspect I won't get much more time to paint this year.

Tzeentch Arcanist: Kairic Acolytes

The Kairic Acolytes from Shadows of Hammerhal. This is kinda an awesome kit, if you like mask wearing egyptianish cultists. It's got a lot of options and makes some pretty dynamic models.

In the fluff, these are wizards who have transformed themselves into warriors. So you end up with some odd anatomies (in particular, a surprising number of 8-pack abs), because being scrawny wizards, they don't really know what a real fit person actually looks like.

I painted them with 4 different skin tones. Most of them are pasty white (see the wizard comment above), but a few of them have more color.

For some reason the camera pictured them with a bit of a blue tint. hmmm...

Stone Giant

A Stone Giant from Reaper's Bones line. He's an older sculpt, and as such he is a bit on the smaller size when compared to the other Giants. He's still plenty big when compared to other 25mm miniatures. He should be the last miniature on the blog for a while. I'm out of giants to paint. I'm keeping an eye out for the Frost Giant King, the Ettin, and the Fomorian Giants from Reaper, but I haven't seen any yet.

Hill Giant Part II

Yet another Hill Giant. It's Krug the Hill Giant from Reaper's Bones line. His proportions and pose is a bit better than the previous one. He's the second giant I painted, but once again, I didn't get pictures taken until recently.

Hill Giant

Another Giant. This time it's Golan the Hill Giant. He's actually the first giant I painted, but I never got pictures of him taken until now. His pose is odd, and his proportions seem off, but he still works in some way.

Azyrite Ruins

Every so often, I paint up some terrain to bulk up the number of miniatures I've painted. Here's some Azyrite Ruins from GamesWorkshop. I only pictured half, the other half are identical to these. I have some more I'm going to paint, but I still need to assemble them ... so don't be surprised to see more of these. I followed my standard terrain stonework formula. Start with a Eshin Grey basecoat, dry brush with Adminstratum Grey, wash the entire thing with Nuln Oil. Wash the bottom half with Agrax Earthshade. The bricks were also done using Zendri Dust and Agrax (followed by a light drybrush of Zendri Dust again). Nothing fancy, but I think it's effective.

Frost Giant Warrior

Another Frost Giant! The Frost Giant Warrior this time. He's the "brother" of the Frost Giant Bodyguard we saw earlier, and he's been painted the same way. I'd say the Bodyguard was a bit easier to paint (his details are a bit better defined). I still like this sculpt though since he has an appropriately giant-sized beard. He'll get used as a Storm Giant (when not fulfilling duties as a Frost Giant) in our D&D campaign.

Frost Giant Bodyguard

Now that's a Giant Beard! Once again, a Reaper Bones miniature. This time it's the Frost Giant Bodyguard. He was sculpted explicitly for the Bones line (the prior two Frost Giants originally came out in metal), and it shows. His details are a bit less intricate and work better in this medium.

I really like how the beard came out. It was pretty simple too. It's just Adminstratum Grey, a "wash" of Guilliman Blue, and a drybrush of Pallid Wych Flesh. The only issue I might have with him is that his pose is pretty static, but it's a classic pose and isn't a problem with the rest of their Frost Giant line (so I don't really have a problem with it).

Frost Giant Jarl

I am the ... Jarl? What the heck is a Jarl?!?!?

I'm on a Giant roll, it's the Frost Giant Jarl Boerogg Blackrime. Reaper makes 2 old-style Frost Giants, this one and the Princess from a few days ago. I figured I'd finish off both of those first. These are more tribal and a bit smaller than the Viking aesthetic the other 4 Frost Giants in their line. I'll probably paint the other 4 similar to this one, but I'll still use them as Cloud/Storm Giants in our D&D campaign.

This sculpt has a few things that annoy me. He suffers from a common problem with the old Reaper Giant line, he's staring at the ground. I guess that would look good if you put a player character in front of him, but it made it really hard to photograph his face (and detracts from the miniature as a whole). The other is his sword is kinda hideous. A third, bonus issue, I had with him is that his fetishes are not too defined.

I painted him with the same color pallette as the Princess. Lots of shades of browns with pale bluish white skin. The skin was painted white, followed by a thinned down flesh wash (1:1), a thinned down blue wash (1:1), and highlighted with Pallid Wych Flesh.

BTW, I know a Jarl is a Norse Chieftain, I just thought it was a funny word. :-)

Frost Giant Princess

Brrrr ... is it getting cold in here. It's the Frost Giant Princess from Reaper's Bones line.

I have mixed thoughts on this miniature, she doesn't really fit in with the other Frost Giants in Reaper's line. She has a very primal look to her. I suspect she's loosely based on Princess Monoke (given the mask, pelts, fetishes and spear). She was very much an exercise in painting various shades of brown. Her skin is supposed to be a pale bluish white, and I think it mostly worked. It'll be interesting to see how it works on the frost giants that are showing more skin.

I did mess up on her legs a bit, it's not very apparent, but I think the sculpt is wearing skintight leggings (there's some stitching hidden beneath the spear and next to the frills of her "dress"). I didn't realize that was the case until I had already painted those parts bare, so I just carried on.

Fire Giant King

Hail to the King!

It's the big guy himself ... Reaper's Fire Giant King, Skorg Ironskull. Yes, his sword is also really massive. He looks a bit old for Vanja the Fire Giant Queen, but maybe it's a May/December romance. I actually started to like this sculpt more as I painted him. I think it was his beard that sold me, he has a proper Giant beard. He does have the classic, "I'm going to point in a direction I'm not looking" pose, which always seemed a bit off to me (who does that?). It is popular with various sculptors though.

He's the last of the Fire Giants I'm going to paint (at this time). Reaper actually makes another 3, but all 3 are just smaller versions of ones I've already painted (the Queen, the King, and the Bodyguard). If I were to rank them: Jailer, Queen, King, Bodyguard, Warrior.

Fire Giant Bodyguard

Yes ... another Fire Giant. This time it's the Fire Giant Bodyguard ... and yes ... his sword really is that big. So big that I had problems getting both him and his sword in the same picture.

This one is a remake of an older sculpt, only bigger and "cleaner". There is surprisingly few other painted examples of this miniature on the web (although it's really quite nice). I like how he has a number of visual cues (i.e. the shape of the various doodads around his armor) that tie him in with the other Reaper Fire Giants. My only complaint is the beard and hair is a bit oddly shaped/undefined. If I had been willing to take the time, I might have green-stuffed a bit more volume to his facial hair.

Fire Giant Jailer

Another Fire Giant! It's Reaper's Fire Giant Jailer. Not a lot to say about him, same color pallet as the other Fire Giants. I might give him another wash of Nuln Oil & Lahmia Medium over his back to blend in the highlights a bit more. I always thought the chain whip looked a bit weird. He looks like he's just standing there looking tough, while the whip is "whipping" about by itself.

Fire Giant Queen

She's a Killer Queen 

Gunpowder, gelatin 
Dynamite with a laser beam 
Guaranteed to blow your mind…

So it's Reaper's Fire Giant Queen Vanja this time. Painted her the same style I did the previous fire giant, but with a bit more gold. I really like her cape and pose. I also like how she's mostly armored on her legs (cause that's where a giant is going to take the most hits), with less armor up top. I have mixed thoughts on the hair, but it's the style I chose for all of the Fire Giants hair, she just has a lot of it. I'm not sure the flame technique I used works as well for large areas as it does for smaller flames.

Storm Giant

Another Giant, this time it's the Storm Giant from the Reaper Bones line. I wasn't as enthused by this sculpt as I was by the Iron Golem, the huge pauldron on his shoulder detracts/distracts from his face (which should be the focal point of the miniature). It's not helped that, like a lot of the older Reaper Giants, he's looking slightly downward. His big sword is also almost impossible to keep straight (I straightened it with boiling water multiple times, and it always slowly returns to it's bent shape).

I'm fairly happy with the overall paint job though. I was shooting for a "white marble"/porcelain like finish to his skin tone, and I think I mostly achieved it.

Iron Golem

I am IRON MAN!

It's another Reaper Bones mini, this time the Iron Golem. I don't think I quite did this miniature justice, it's really well executed. It doesn't look quite like what I envisioned, but I still like where it ended up. When I looked for other paint jobs to get inspiration (and steal paint schemes), I think others have had the same issue (i.e. I couldn't find any I liked ... or any that showcased how awesome of a sculpt it is). The guy who painted his to look like Tony Stark's Iron Man was kinda cool.

At first I thought about using my Stormcast color scheme (Red with White/Gold Accents), but decided against that. Finally I decided to go with metal/iron "insides", with white armor plates. It mostly worked, but I think I should have built the white highlights on top of a lighter base coat.

Earth Elemental

I summon an Earth Elemental! The painting is done on this "dude", it took less than an hour to paint him (more time was spent waiting for the wash to dry). It was sometimes difficult to determine which part of him is stone vs. dirt, so I tried to make it seem like he's wearing vaguely stone armor.

I plan on treating him the same as the base wrt adding tuffs of grass & turf. That should give him some more color. He's an Earth Elemental, so that seems appropriate to me.

Deep Ones

Some Bones Deep Ones. I impulse bought these awhile back, and then impulse painted them (they were on the table ready to go after I finished the last set of Silver Tower minis). There's 2 pieces of terrain that go along with them. Both are Cthulhu-esque Statues and Pillars. Those are painted as well, but I didn't get them pictured.

BTW, I've practically finished the Silver Tower project. The girl needs to finish painting the Mistweaver, everything else is painted and ready for basing.

Devoted of Sigmar: Excelsior Warpriest

I have to admit, I had no idea what this guy was actually called. I always thought of him as a "Sigmarite Priest", but it turns out he's an "Excelsior Warpriest".

He's painted for Warhammer Quest: Silvertower. The boy plays him in our campaign. At some point he might end up in a Free Peoples army.

I know I always say this, but he was alot of fun to paint. I painted him in about two sessions.

Stormcast: Lord Castellant

The Stormcast Lord Castellant from Shadows of Hammerhal. This might be the last Stormcast I paint for awhile. I have a few more Stormcast from the original Age of Sigmar starter set, but I they currently aren't on the paint schedule. It's painted in the Red & White of my own Chamber: The Order of Sigmar's Temple.