Reaper Clown Miniatures

 

Some more figs from ten years ago, this time a pair of metal Reaper minis from their hodge-podge Chronoscape range.

This is sold as Bonzo the Killer Clown, but comes with spare parts that let you make a non-psychopathic versions as well.

Four-part model with separate hands, head and body, based on a 1" metal washer. 

IIRC you get two or three heads to choose from and maybe two each left and right hands, although Reaper can't be bothered to show the actual parts on their store any more.

There was a time when Reaper's catalogs (both in print and online) were excellent resources for a minis collector, but those days are long gone.

Their current online catalog is fairly dreadful, with far too many minis having only a single small image and only a few showing multi-angle shots or unassembled part layouts. 

Did an awful job on the liquid in the seltzer bottle there, my painting's improved quite a bit since 2013.

And this is Zonkers, this time assembled as a proper killer clown.

Pretty sure I mixed parts between the two kits to make these, but after a decade I can't swear to it.

The bodies are very similar to each other but do have minor differences in the details.

Reasonably happy with this one, especially since it was a quickie paint job for sale on ebay.

The local game store downsized their Reaper section years ago, first disposing of the metals at deep discounts and later selling down the Bones range when it became clear Kickstarter sales had effectively reduced demand to near zero.  

It's a sign of the times I suppose, but even five years before Bones first came along a store that didn't stock Reaper was cutting its own throat with all the lost sales. 

And here we are in 2023 and Reaper's been largely shoved out of retail, with Wizkids happily moving in to take their place.  Kind of sad really, but hardly the most surprising turn of events we've seen in the industry over the years.

Reaper Gallery: Merchant, Bodyguards & Assassin

 Another set of minis painted back in 2015, all from Reaper Miniatures.

The merchant and his henchmen were sold in one pack, while the assassin was a separate model. 

Everything here is a single-piece casting with integral base, no assembly required.

Not the most sophisticated paint jobs ever, but I'm still rather happy with the color schemes.

The pointy shoes on the assassin are pretty snazzy and his pose is very dynamic for a one-piece cast.

The merchant wins the sartorial contest on the strength of his hat, though.

If I still had these I'd probably be using the set in Frostgrave.

With the new rules for cargo transports in the Wildwood supplement I might use these two as a single transport, perhaps rebased on something a bit larger with one or two of the various "porter" figures added on as well. 

They'd also make a nice mobile scenario objective for homebrew scenarios.

The sculpting sells the weight of the chest pretty nicely, although the guy in the lead is going have some sore muscles pretty quickly in that pose.

He certainly doesn't look very happy about it.

It's nice that they're armed and all, but getting to they'll need to set that load down if they want to fight.

One of Reaper's more whimsical packs without being outright cartoony, something they used to do more of back in the day

Trinity Battleground Figure Gallery

 Today's post is a bit of history from back in 1997, a partial gallery of painted figures for White Wolf's short-lived Trinity: Battleground miniatures game.  The figs were sculpted by Bob Naismith, and are fairly hard to come by these days thanks to the game's brief lifespan and limited production run.  My own collection of them was never complete by a long shot and these were all sold off almost a decade ago, but posting what images I do have might help collectors get a better idea of what they looked like.  You can find more complete (but unpainted) listings of the range at the Lost Minis wiki.

These figs are from the "Support Squad Dragon" pack, a set of five identical sculpts of close combat troops with armored cestuses.  They were painted up for the Supersystem minis game, with the one guy being a "Legion-class psionic" who created and army of "prismatic energy" duplicates of himself to do the fighting for him.  I lucked into rather a lot of these models in one big purchase when Alliance Distribution was liquidating the line following its cancellation.  Think I was paying under $2 a pack back around 2000 or 2001.

The large green beastie is the aberrant Gommora, who was sold both in blister packs cast in metal and in the core game cast in resin.  The pink one is (I think) Naushka (who was cast in metal and packaged with another aberrant called Drummach), and the little critters are Trogs, a support squad that was sold in packs of three in theory - pretty sure I had  acouple that contained 4 or 5 at random).

And yes, Naushka (or possibly Dummach) has a hole completely through its chest.  It's pretty freaky.   

The large four-armed aberrant is Nazul, who was cast in both resin (in the starter box) and metal (as a solo blister).  His pal is Drummach (or possibly Naushka) from their shared blister pack, and there's another couple of sets of Trogs.

Drummach (or possibly Naushka) narrowly escaped re-purposing into astrofauna back in my Full Thrust days.  Makes a good space monster if you trim the base tab, do some drilling and stick it on a flight base.  Still rather regret not doing the conversion, but I've never found another copy of the model despite years of hunting. 

Aside from still more Trogs, I believe the other three aberrants are Keeper, Sang and Luka, but I have no idea who's who.  They were sold in a single three-figure blister pack toward the end of the game's distribution, and are kind of ridiculously hard to find.  They're definitely not unreleased (I got mine in the store I was managing at the time and it came in from Alliance normally) but quite rare.

Scale shots with an old Vor: the Maelstrom neo-Soviet rad-trooper, who's pretty much as average a 28mm scale fig as it gets.  Bases are 25mm throughout.

Hope whoever bought these is still getting some use out of them.  They aren't the fanciest paint jobs I've ever done, but the sculpts are too quirky to be left on a shelf forever - or worse, wind up in a landfill.

Found On A DVD Part 2: Old Figure Gallery

 More random old minis from a long-forgotten DVD.

"I am too an umber hulk.  We didn't always look like spindly bug-men."

Old school Ral Partha Umber Hulk, from back when they had the AD&D license.

"Prince of Shadows?  Never heard of the guy."

One of my earliest attempts at source lighting from the glowing green daggers.  Didn't come out too bad.  A dynamic metal Reaper sculpt.

"Phantasmal Killer?  Yeah, I know that spell."

Reaper mini, originally a metal sculpt, translated to Bones plastic pretty effectively.  One of the better attempts at sculpting a spell effect in mid-cast.

"How come you get the helmet?"  "Shut up, you.  I'm the boss around here."

Old Reaper fig, all cast as a single piece.  A really weighty hunk of metal.

"..."

It's still a stone golem.  Did you really expect a witty quote?  Another massive chunk of Reaper metal.  I'm a little baffled why this one doesn't seem to have been re-done in plastic, it would really be a good fit for the cheap Bones white material.

"Backhand chops are my specialty!"

Oh hey, the miniature for my very first 13th Age character.  A Privateer Press mini from their original RPG range.

"Me?  A sinister cultist?  Whatever makes you think that?"  

And my very first homebrew villain for 13th Age, along with her big creepy idol.  The gal is another Privateer Press RPG fig, while the idol is an old Reaper Metal fig.  The thing's cast in two pieces so it's hollow, but still weighs a lot.  Another one of those figs that really should have been done in Bones when it came out but inexplicably didn't.  It's really a shame, the figs has a lot of character.  

Found On A DVD: Old Figure Gallery

Some random old miniatures from years gone by, salvaged from a nearly-forgotten DVD burned ages ago.  The things I find while spring cleaning.

"Trolls, why did it have to be trolls?"

Reaper Bones figs, from back when there was only the white stuff.  Think those are 40mm bases, maybe 50mm.

"Actually, I prefer good sturdy boots for treading jeweled thrones beneath my feet."

Metal reaper fig, arguably the best "Conan" barbarian sculpt ever made.

"Give a hoot, don't pollute.  Try not to bleed all over the forest when your arm is ripped off."

Metal owlbear fig from WotC's Chainamil range.  Over twenty years old at this point.

"I'm so old there actual lead in my alloy.  Fear me!"

Grenadier had some interesting sculpts back in the day.  Think Mirliton still has this one in production.

"My sculpt was inspired by an even older fantasy book cover."

Another ancient sculpt, this one from RAFM.

"Snakes, why did it...wait, we did that gag already."

Not even sure who made this one, possibly Grenadier.  Swap meet find from years ago.

"Worms, why did it have to be...damn, stop that!"

You'd think it would be something from D&D's Age of Worms but nope, OOP Hell Dorado figure.  Kyuss would be proud, regardless.

"Way creepier than snakes any day of the week."

Say what you will, Mage Knight had some neat sculpts.  Just need a bit of rebasing and a decent paint job.

"Aren't yetis supposed to be white?"

"Don't be racist."

Remember when most of Reaper's miniatures were metal?  I do.

"Raar, I'm a dragon."

One of the better early Reaper Bones sculpts.

"Raar, me too."

Not quite as striking in green, although it is a more traditional color scheme.

"You expect a quote from a stone golem?"

Early Bones plastic was probably at its best with relatively simple sculpts.