Rust Monster

The most feared monster in D&D. The Rust Monster! This is my last Nolzur's miniature for the moment. Mostly red with orange hilights and tan frills on it's feared antennae. I like him, although he's not very flashy.

Monodrone & Duodrone

I think these are the first Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures I ever purchased. I thought they were cute. I wish I'd paid a bit more attention to casting defects (they have a number of nasty ones which I couldn't really resolve easily) and grabbed a different pack, but I still think they look good. They were fun and simple to paint. (Leadbelcher undercoat, pick out details with gold (and lenses blue, feathers white), then wash Nuln Oil, and then pick out highlights).

I'm not 100% sure which is the Monodrone and which the Duodrone (1 eyed is the mono, 2 eyed the duo?). I also vaguely recall that these things tended to attack in hordes, not sure if 2 would ever be enough in game, but that's what dice are for (roundish dice for the round one, six sided for the square ones).

Bullette

Land Shark!

It's Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures Bullette as the first miniature of 2020. He almost made it into 2019.

His pose is a bit odd, in that you can't see his back half (it's under the earth). And the "earth" he's exploding from is a bit odd too (it's tough to figure out what bits are dirt, which are rocks, which are something else ... mud?)

I mostly used Contrast with highlights added where it seemed a bit "washed out". I really like the snake bite leather for the leathery skin (that's just straight Contrast). My take is a bit "brighter" than most Bullette's I've seen online.

Myconid Adults

Mushroom Men! These are also from Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature line. I've always had a soft spot for mushroom people ... no idea why. They used to be fairly common in a lot of the D&D dungeons I wrote in High School.

Still playing with Contrast paints. Skeleton Horde for the body, and thinned down Pink for the caps/hands. Then some drybrushing (Screaming Skull and Pallid Wych) on the bodies and Emperor's Children to fix any odd pooling on the caps. Lastly a dot of pallid for each eye. 

Oxen

Sometimes you just need some barnyard animals. Here's a set of Oxen from Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature line. Most of the work was done by Contrast paints. (Black for the main/nose, Grey for the body (w/ a drybrush of Dawnstone)).

I like'em and they were fast and easy.

Displacer Beast

Meow?!?!?

No idea what a displacer kitty says. This was an exercise in doing black (or in this kitties case ... dark grey). He has a white underbelly, but it's not as apparent in these pictures.

Medium Fire Elementals

As I went down, the flames went up higher!

More Fire Elementals! This time from Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature line. These have better faces, but less flamey bits. They look good with the big guy from the previous post though. All told I have 10 small fire (GW's brimstone horrors), 4 medium, and 1 large fire elementals.

I'd like to say that I have 4 of these, since Fire Elementals are by far the most commonly met ones during D&D campaigns ... but really I forgot I already had a pair when I bought the second one. I have 3 air, 3 water, 3 earth and 15 fire.

These are the last of the "Elemental sub project" (an offshoot of the D&D project). I'm all set to run a "Princes of the Apocalypse" campaign. Too bad me and the kids finished that campaign off last Summer. I'm sure they'll get use.

Large Fire Elemental

Down down down into a burning ring of fire!

A large fire elemental from Reaper's Bones line. I'd say this is low hanging fruit, largely because it's just a bunch of dry brushes (from white all the way to black ... white scar, lamenters yellow, flash git yellow, trollslayer orange, mephiston red, and finally abbadon black). The only thing about this miniature that bothers me is it's lack of defined "facial" features. It's not a huge issue though.

Cannons 2

Wait ... haven't we seen these already?

Nope! I bought (and painted) another 2 cannons. At some point, I'll get a sloop (or frigate) and these will look great on the deck of one of those.

Iron Maiden

Nope, not some 80's metal band, it's the original Iron Maiden. The doors almost seem like they'd shut (but don't really). Not much more to say ... just more terrain for dungeons.

The Rack

It's some more dungeon terrain. It's Nolzur's Magnificent Miniatures Rack this time. Wasn't 100% sure the "ropes" are ropes (they might be chains). Painting them as ropes gave it a bit more color. It'll make any dungeon encounters even more terrifying.

Mimics

Run! Oh wait ... it's just a chest. No need to run this time.

Mimics from Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature line. I like these two, they were simple and fun to paint.

Medium Earth Elementals

Earth Elementals!

I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of these two. A quick Google image search indicates these aren't particularly popular to paint either.

They have a couple of issues. The first is their pose. Whomever sculpted them did so in the same style as the previous Nolzur's elementals. Needless to say, an earth elemental shouldn't have the same stance/features as a water/air/fire elemental. They are plodding creatures made of earth (not fluid in any way). They should have legs. The other issue is the lack of distinctive detail. There's good detail, but it's not distinct. There should be more and different types of earth easily distinguished. Mostly they are all kind of a parched earth look. I tried to vary it by making some look more stone like. They are just not that inspiring.

With that said, they make good backup for the large earth elemental I painted earlier. Like that one, when I go to finish the bases, I'll probably add some "basing" detail to the miniature as a whole (i.e. grass growing on their backs, moss on some of their rocks, etc).

Beholder

I see you! It's the big thing that I spent entirely too long trying to find. Nolzur's Beholder!

I painted it the same way as the Spectator and Gazers (see previous post).

I asked my kids if I should assemble it with the "casting" eye-stalks or the regular eye-stalks. They went with the magic effects. I preferred the regular ones. In the end, I decided to do both. I'll probably end up losing all of them and I'll have a Beholder with only 1/2 the eye-stalks... 

Spectator and Gazers

I spy with my "little" eye...

It's the Beholder's little brothers, the Spectator and Grazers. These are from Nolzur's Marvelous miniatures line.

The Spectator does have a mouth, it's filled with teeth, but given the angle of the shot, you can't quite see it.

Painting wise: Skin was contrast Ultramarine Blue, drybrush Caledor Sky Blue, drybrush Lothern Blue. Eyes were Whitescar White, Black slit eyes (using Micron Pen), Lamenter Yellow Glaze. Tongue: contrast Blood Angels Red, Wild Rider Red highlight. Teeth: contrast Skeleton Horde, Ushabti Bone highlight, Screaming Skull highlight. Gums: contrast Pink (something something).

Large Water Elemental

I hope you like to swim! It's a Large Water Elemental from Reaper's Bones line. This miniature is a blue to begin with, so besides the base I mostly drybrushed Admin Grey, Whitescar White, glazed with Waywatcher Green (mixed with Lahmia Medium) followed with a last drybrush of Whitescar White.

I was trying for a wavy white cap like effect from the oceans deep. I think it mostly worked.

The other two elementals have already been pictured. They are the Medium Water Elementals from Nolzur's line. I went back and did the same set of drybrushes to make them "fit" in better with the big guy. I tossed them in the picture so you get an idea of the size of the big one.

Eldritch Demon

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

It's either the big guy himself (in Epic scale) or one of his offspring. It's a Reaper Bone's Eldritch Demon. 

I like him, in a sanity destroying kinda way. Mostly done with washes and progressively lighter drybrushes (and a few spot highlights on warts and areas I wanted to look "blotchy"). He made up for the slow to paint Faceless Horror by being relatively speedy to paint.

He's painted using the same colors I used on the Deep Ones earlier.

Faceless Horror

Run! It's a ... what the heck is that thing?!?!?

Sometimes, I grab something on a whim. This time it's Reaper Bone's Faceless Horror. I believe this is supposed to be a Gibbering Mouther for D&D. I'm not sure if I've ever fought a Gibbering Mouther in D&D. I always assumed the Gibbering Mouther was a Shoggoth without all of the copyright/trademark issues.

I thought I'd crank this out pretty fast, but it took longer than I expected. All those teeth and eyes! Soooo many eyes. Although I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. It's pretty much how I pictured it in my head. I particularly like the half digested skeleton in it's gaping maw.

Rust Monster's Treasure

It's the "treasure" pile from the Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature's Rust Monster. One of these days I'll paint the Monster himself. This was some low hanging fruit I did while I waited for various washes to dry. Literally some Ironbreaker, followed by an Agrax Wash, followed by some Gold Highlights (and then I did the base like I always do). 

Carrion Crawler

Part of my "classic" D&D monsters project, this time it's the Carrion Crawler. I was surprised by the lack of painted examples of this beast online. I ended up choosing a color scheme based off an albino giant grub worm I remember finding in a field (and being grossed out by) as a kid. I remember it being huge (like 4 inches long and an inch thick) ... but that could be my childish memory exaggerating. It was big enough that I remember it after all these years. Color-wise I tried to keep him to natural colors, with just a hint of blue. I thought about giving him some caterpillar markings, but in the end the albino grub motif won out.