Home Sweet Home: Pumpkin

This simple pumpkin has been one of my favorite "O" symbols to paint for this project so far.  I used several different shades of oranges and layered along each of the black lines where the grooves and bends would be in a real pumpkin to give it depth and shadow.  At least as much as you can give depth and shadow to a flat piece of wood.  The layers of oranges are a little bit hard to see in the photos.

My sister Amber was the one who came up with the idea for the rafia ribbon along the top and the fall oak leaves that are coated in glitter and sparkle.  The green vine curls were done with florist wire wrapped around a pencil.

It turned out cute enough I am looking forward to putting it up in a couple days when we get to November and it is time to switch from Halloween decor to fall and Thanksgiving decor.

You can check out the main post for this project and all it's monthly letter "O" links here HOME SWEET HOME.

Home Sweet Home: Ghost

Fall is moving in and October is quickly blowing by.  Already is almost time for Halloween.  And what better time to add to my Home sign decor with with my ghostly letter "O".

This simple little ghost sure stretched my painting ability.  I have never before tried to paint fabric folds onto a flat surface before.  It made me wish that the 2 x 4 piece of wood his shape was cut out of had a wider base.

The idea for the patches I got after looking at lots of scarecrow pictures on pinterest and I decided that they would look cute on a ghost too.  I sanded the wood, painted with assorted acrylic paint colors and then sealed the paint with a satin finish gloss sealer.

Costumes for the kids have taken a really large back seat this year and I admit that they will mostly be reusing costumes from past years and hand me downs but none of them have complained yet so maybe that means I can let myself feel a little less guilty about not doing as much sewing and enjoy the painting I have been doing just a little more.

You can check out the main post for this project and all it's monthly letter "O" links here HOME SWEET HOME.

Guest Post on Colossal Skeleton Miniatures Painting

My sister Heather was recently here for a visit and graciously agreed to write a post about her favorite recent miniature that she has painted. It also happened to be one that she painted while she was visiting my house and we were painting one afternoon together or was that one very late night? Either way I enjoyed the visit and the time we had to chat and be creative and now you all get to enjoy her handy work as well. She is such a creative inspiration in my life and I am so grateful for that so thanks Heather. And without any further ado here she is.

When I first got into Dungeons and Dragons I swore I would never paint minis. It seemed like fun, but I already had too many hobbies and not enough time. Not to mention the monetary commitment it would take to really get started…. And I stuck to my guns. No minis at all. I mostly run my games with multicolored parcheesi pawns (different shapes for players/monsters) with a couple of bases to indicated size.

...Well, until July this year, that is.

My sister, Tiffany (our intrepid blogstress) had begun painting minis and showing us her completed subjects over skype connection on game night. When I went out to visit, I knew it was a real possibility that she would be painting while I was there. I was determined, no painting with her. Period.

And I managed.

Until I didn’t.

The rest, they say, is history.

Since July, I have been happily submerged in mini-painting. I’ve painted some pretty awesome minis. Giants and oozes, Harpies and Adventurers… even an awesome Silver Dragon. My collection of painted minis grows, but not nearly at the rate of my collection of unpainted minis (as these things go).

It wasn’t until October 2018 that I painted this: 

Reaper Miniatures Bones Colossal Skeleton (77116)

I was once again visiting my sister (with one of my other sisters) and the three of us had been painting for a day already. The weather was wet, raining all day. Then we had some sun, just enough for long enough to prime a few new things to paint.

I had purchased this skeleton with the intention of making one of my campaign groups face it. So the paint job had to be epic. First came assembly. The Colossal Skeleton comes in four pieces. Two arms, a head and the body. I attached the head and the dagger-hand before painting. The nature of the tombstone hand means that it is easiest to paint if both pieces are painted simultaneously and then the arm attached.

After assembly came trimming any visible seams (of which there were few) and then priming. My preferred primer is Army Painter Colour Primer. They are designed to be both primer and basecoat, eliminating the time and paint for basecoating. I have found that they spray on smoothly and cleanly and I have very few problems with it. My preferred shade is Uniform Gray (CP3010).

After priming, the fun stuff starts.

I always start with the biggest areas first, leaving little details and the base for last. In this case, I began with the actual skeleton. I based him with Army Painter Necrotic Flesh, then dry brushed it in layers in the following order: Skeleton Bone, Drake Tooth and Brainmatter Beige. I then highlighted him with Mummy Robes.

Fun fact - I adore highlighting. It’s one of my favorite techniques. It brings emphasis to edges, curves and corners. One of these days I’m sure I’ll overdo it and end up making something look like a cartoon character. Until then, I’ll just keep trucking.

After that, time for the fabric. The reds used here are also Army Painter. Abomination Gore for the base, then Dragon Red for the middle dry brushed shade, followed by Pure Red. It was highlighted with Pure Red lightened with Matt White (just enough to make it a shade lighter, not pinken it.

For the browns in the belt, leather straps around the arm, neck and leg, along with the wood of the brace on the leg, I layered Army Painter colors in the order of Oak Brown and Leather Brown. I then lightened the Leather Brown with Banshee Brown and highlighted with Banshee Brown.

The hair of the orc head, the tombstone, the fur of the loincloth and the stones on the base were done with Army Painter Dark Stone, then Uniform Gray, then Stone Golem. These I chose to leave un-highlighted. The letters in the tombstone I painted with Matt White.

The orc head and orc hand on the back I painted with Army Painter Army Green, then Combat Fatigues and highlighted with Scaly Hide. The eyes were painted with Matt White, the tongue painted Dragon Red.

The rope wrapped around the hammer and the arms and legs I painted Reaper Master Series Auburn Shadow, which I lightened with MSP Amber Gold and then Amber Gold on its own. The highlights were done by adding a tiny bit if Matt White to the Amber Gold to lighten it a shade.

The dagger, chain loincloth, spiked ball-and-chain, and shackles were painted with Army Painter Plate Mail Metal, and accented with Vallejo Model Color Old Gold. Plate Mail Metal was also used to drybrush a topcoat onto the cross of the tombstone. I used the old gold to turn my skeleton into a pirate by giving him a gold tooth.

After this, he was nearly done. Just the base and accenting to do. For bloody accents I used Game Color Scarlett Red (My first time using this color, and borrowed from Tiffany. It’s a great red). I tried to keep the accents small and organic, but numerous enough to be noticed. The red dots in the eyes of all the skeletons were done using Pure Red.

For the base, I painted the dirt first. I used Army Painter Oak Brown, then Monster Brown then Banshee Brown. Unhighlighted, as it’s the base. I went for a grave dirt sort of effect. The grass was based with Angel Green, which I then lightened with Scaly Hide and top-brushed with Scaly Hide on its own.

Nearly complete I then had a decision to make. What wash to use? I was thinking Army Painter Strong Tone, but Tiffany suggested Dark Tone instead. Since she always makes great color suggestions, I decided to test the Dark Tone on a toe. It looked great, so that was the wash I used. For a finishing touch, we sealed him with a matt sealer.

Overall, I’m really proud of how this mini turned out. I’m really excited to present him to my players when the time comes, surrounded, of course, by an army of the undead!

Guest Post On Elemental Mini-Figure Painting

A huge welcome to my sister Jenelle for agreeing to do a blog post for us this week about her latest and favorite miniature that she has painted.  So without further ado here she is.

For many of us that decide to try new things, it is because someone we know has introduced us to that thing.  Well, a few months ago my sister Tiffany, started texting me some pictures of the D&D minis that she had started painting.  I instantly fell in love with all the texture and depth that she was able to put into them.

During the past like 6 weeks when I have been painting some of my own minis, I have come to discover that some of my favorite things to paint are elemental figures.  Therefore, my Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures "Unpainted Earth Elemental - Medium Size" is at the very top of my list of favorite things that I have painted.  I started with my base coat of  Army Painter "Werewolf Fur" to which I slowly mixed in drops of Army Painter "Monster Brown" and dry brushed approximately 5 different shades of brown onto the top of my solid base coat.  Each coat becoming lighter and spread over less surface to give the elemental the texture and depth of dry, cracked earth.

The very next thing that I decided to do with my elemental was to give his eyes a shine.  For this I picked out the Army Painter "Greedy Gold" color. As soon as I had that color within the eyes, I knew that I was not going to try to add anything else to the eyes for pupils.  This was when my sister Heather showed up and suggested that I use a darker, coppery color to add a little bit of veins into the cracks of the elemental's skin.  To achieve this I used the Army Painter "Weapon Bronze".  This difference is subtle, and unless you are looking closely you might assume that the eyes are the same color as the veins.

The next thing that I decided to do was to try and paint the crystals to look like quarts or amethyst. So once again I started with a base coat color just on the crystals this time. I used Army Painter "Alien Purple".  Then going into the dry brush technique again I build up about 5 layers of shades of purple slowly adding in Army Painter "Matt White" to lighten the purple as I went.  After the handful of shades of purple I took my white and added just the tiniest amount of the purple to it.  So that I had a faintly purple tinted white.  Then I dry brushed just the tips of the crystals.

Seeing that they still did not look as shiny as I feel crystals really do in real life, I decided to try a adding a very thin layer of Master Series Paint Reaper(MSPR) "Pearl White" to the crystals.  Well, this color went on way to thick to make me happy, So I only did part of 1 crystal with it and then I turned to MSPR "Shining Mithril" as I had previously used this color for a different mini and knew that it was a thinner color than the white. This new shimmery color almost accomplished what I had been hoping that it would.

The crystals were almost as shiny as I felt they should be.  So, I turned to MSPR "Sparkling Amethyst" thinking, or perhaps hoping, that this one would also be a very thin color and that it would finish off the sparkle that I wanted.  I painted just 1 crystal and had to stop.  This color was not at all what I imagined because it was coming out as a dark purple.  It was shiny, but I was conflicted.  So I turned to Tiffany and handed her the elemental.  Her reaction surprised me because she was impressed, and not conflicted at all about how much she liked it.  Then her comments allowed me to see the crystals in a new light.  She also suggested that I keep most of the crystals as they were currently painted and then just a couple here and there of the darker shiny purple crystals to the overall design.  This allowed me to really fall in love with the look of all the crystals.

After finally finishing the crystals, which took me double the time that the rest of the mini had already taken, I kept trying to decide if he was finished.  There was something that prevented me from deciding that it was indeed completed. That was when I realized that it was the rock in the hand of the elemental that needed to be a different color.  Up until this point the the rock in its hand was the same color as the main body of the elemental.  This was when I turned to both of my sisters, asking about making it grey stone instead.  That was when Heather suggested Army Painter "Rough Iron" and they both agreed that the rock in his hand needed all the veins painted with the "Weapon Bronze" that I had used previously for the hints of veins on the elemental's body.

The rock was the finishing touch that this mini needed.  I am super happy with the way that he turned out and since the time that I finished it only two days ago (at the time of writing this blog) I have continued to pick it back up and admire how amazing it turned out.  With all the thanks for the hints and tips provided to me by my sisters Heather and Tiffany.