Khanjira the World Breaker

During Reaper's Bones Kickstarter, it became apparent to everyone that one of the best uses for Bones Plastic material is to create massive minis that are relatively inexpensive.

 It is great for the slightly large monsters (I'd rather spend less on ogres and bugbears) but it is particularly great for some of the absolutely massive minis that in the past have put me back hundreds.

 Here is Khanjira the World Breaker- a fantastic monster that resembles the Pathfinder Terrasque. To me, he looks just right to be the Iron Kingdoms Chimera- an insane dragon whose shape keeps changing.

 To go with this interpretation, I used a sort of "Everblight" composition for him- light colored skin with dark colored armor plating.

 Overall, I feel this approach worked quite well. Have a look:

 

Cosplay Candy and Rin Farrah

Here are a couple minis from Relic Knights that I painted up.

 I really enjoyed mixing up the skin tones on my forces- I find that a large variety of skin tones gives you a lot more freedom as you go. So far, none of the characters I've painted for the faction have the exact same skin tone, and that's been working well for them.

 Anyway, here they are:

 

Armed to the teeth Wedding Cake Toppers

get to do a whole lot of interesting wedding cake toppers. While I do quite a number of different ones, the most popular concepts for them remain the Zombie Survivor couples.

 I've made quite a number of different weaponry for brides and grooms. Here are a few sets that all decided to use firearms against the zombie horde.

 

Science Fiction Gamer Cake Topper

Here is a couple that really needed to have some strong science fiction styled body armor for their wedding cake topper. They're definitely set to fight some pretty fierce aliens.

 I've got to admit that I heartily approve. Here they are:

 

Arena Rex Gaius Pallidus

Here is a mini from Arena Rex that I had the chance to paint up a little while ago.

 The miniatures for this game are terrific- superbly detailed and well cast, they take paint like a dream and really deserve some wonderful paintjobs.

 This one was done for a client. I don't have any of my own Arena Rex stuff yet, but I've had several clients ask me to paint them (so they'll likely get their own gallery before too long).

 The character, as I understand it, was a war hero from Brittania who was saved from death by a druid- hence, he is now part tree.

 

Zombie Survivor Wedding Cake Toppers

Here's another set of Bride and Groom Cake Toppers doing battle against the living dead.

 Some of these zombies were created to match bridesmaids and groomsmen, while other zombies were just created from my imagination.

 These couples also all picked great weaponry for fighting against the zombie horde.

 

Mouselings: Child's First Adventuring Party

I have a three year old little girl (she'll soon be four) and she has a good imagination. Naturally, we'd like to steer this in the right direction, so I've been GMing once a week with my family. Right now it is just a homebrew system that we're keeping quite simple. We'll be moving up as we go.

 Our first hero is Drella. Her character class is definitely Princess, and while her normal tactic is to use either scorching ray or fireball, she also tends to pull a sword out of hammer space when things get rough.

 

 And this is Ella, my wife's spellcaster. She's very helpful on adventures

 

Last is Prince McGuffin. He mostly gets kidnapped by ogres, sorcerers, dragons and such.

 

 Our heroes have noted his aptitude for being captured, and have started keeping him from going out by himself for any reason. Last time our heroes sallied forth, they started out by locking him in a closet until they come back.

 I expected this campaign to mostly feel standard (we kill the monsters, save the prince and everyone is happy). But then my little girl realized that some of the monsters can talk- and if they can talk, they can be talked into doing things for them. My favorite was when they convinced an ogre that the dragon would be tastier than eating them, so he came along (all the time threatening to become too bored or hungry and start eating the party).

 Here are the three of them together.

Vault Dweller Wedding Cake Topper

Here are a couple cake toppers I got to make recently.

 Their love will survive a nuclear fallout in a world ridden by radioactive mutants.

 Anyway, here they are:

 

Infinity: Cherry Blossom Yu Jing

Corvus Belli make some excellent sculpts for Infinity.  The detail is excellently sculpted for some all together terrific miniatures. I was definitely excited when I got a chance to paint up a Japanese Sectorial army.

My client had me paint them with a cherry blossom theme to them (and I'm already considering a variation on this for some Ninja All Stars minis I've got coming).

Without further ado- here is the force:

Kingdom Death: Monster Bases

The time has finally come. People are actually getting their Kingdom Death: Monster base games. Yes, it has been an extremely delayed kickstarter, but in the end, it has delivered a game that is really fantastic.

 And the miniatures are wonderful. I didn't actually get in on the Kickstarter (I've played the game with a friend of mine, and now I'm staring at that $400 retail price tag and doing the math).

 However, I did get a commission to create bases for the monsters that more closely match the plane of faces (like the scenic bases created for the survivors).

 These are to be painted by my client, so what you see here is just the sculpture- made from a mixture of Apoxie sculpt and green stuff:

 


- One of the few details my client asked for specifically was to have a face spewing blood out of its mouth for the Butcher.

 
And some places for lava.

 

Fantasy Videogame Cake Topper

Here's a topper that I was able to create a little while ago. The characters are very similar to ones I've done before, but I really liked creating these elves in a back to back-ready for combat pose.

 Here they are:

 

Arena Rex Aquila

The field for terrific miniatures has been opening up quite a bit. More than ever, I feel spoiled for choice when I want to paint something fantastic. This is due in part to things like Kickstarter, and in part due to some of the industry's best sculptors and artists getting to really go wild.

 One of the newer lines of fabulous miniatures comes from Red Republic Games in the form of Arena Rex. They figure that with a small enough scale game, you can make some of those terrific minis cast in fine resin that are normally reserved only for collectors.

 And the quality of their sculpting is phenomenal. Sebastian Archer really nailed this sculpt, and the resin cast kept the detail like fine resin does.

 So here he is- painted for a client who wanted him looking terrific for the arena:

 

Zombie Survivor Wedding Cake Toppers

Here are a few sets of brides and grooms who have been battling the zombie horde. I love how each of their personalities gets to come out in the toppers.

 



 

Siege of the Citadel is Coming Back

The first miniatures game I ever got into was Space Crusade- a joint venture of Games Workshop and Milton Bradley that worked as a sort of gateway into the world of miniatures gaming.

 The early '90s were a flourishing time for these kinds of miniatures board games, with things like Heroquest, Dragonstrike and Siege of the Citadel acting as gateways into Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons and Mutant Chronicles.

 For a while, it seemed like the era of the miniatures board game had passed. Then Kickstarter, and other ventures by CMON have brought it into a new heyday. We've got loads of fantastic miniatures board games coming out all the time, and even a double resurrection of Space Hulk.

 Well, the Mutant Chronicles miniatures board game -Siege of the Citadel- is coming back. The game featured an attack on the mutant stronghold by heroes from all of the Mutant Chronicles factions. Like Space Crusade, they're trying to complete their missions while sagotaging one another. This time around the minis will be made by Prodo, and the rules will be updated by a team including Eric Lang (I feel sometimes like he designs every game nowdays).

 The game is slated for a release in October 2016- and we haven't seen any official photos of the new minis or new concepts yet. So, here are a couple of Prodos' interpretations of the heroes that used to be part of the old Siege of the Citadel game:

 

Geek Cake Topper with Indian Sherwani

I'm always happy when I get to do something for a cake topper that I hadn't thought of before. My clients tend to come up with some of the best ideas.

 In this case, I got to sculpt a groom who was getting married in a terrific Sherwani. He chose for his weapon a traditional sword, while his bride had an elegant weapon from a more civilized era.

 

It is I, Be Not Afraid

This is my very first foray into religious artwork- so long as we aren't counting Paladins, Clerics, Menite scrutators, avenging angels of destruction, daemons... well, you know- miniatures stuff.


This is a statue by Angela Johnson- it is a replica of a larger than life bronze that she made for the Light of the World Garden at Thanksgiving Point. Overall, I was really taken by the expression she got on him, and I really wanted to make that work in the painting. It isn't all the time that we see a Jesus be so expressive, but I was surprised a little with exactly how much I could change it, even when it was as much a part of the sculpt as it was here.

 Anyway, here he is: