I needed a test figure for a 3D printed item that is going to be airbrushed in gold. Looking at my unpainted Bones shelf, this mini stood out as the perfect set piece to be a golden statue.
So this was pretty easy - airbrush with Glorious Gold, then airbrush with Umber Wash, then drybrush with Polished Gold. Pretty happy with the way this turned out and I'll follow those steps on my 3D printed item.
Kickstarter paint total 227 + 1 Foo Dog = 228
I did a no-no, sort of - I experimented on a metal mini vs. a plastic mini - again, a victim of having blue paint in the airbrush, lol.
This metal miniature was sculpted by Bobby Jackson - his sculpts are always great - for the Pathfinder product line and I think in the Pathfinder lore this particular ghost is full green. I've already done that with Reaper's Cairn Wraith.
Instead I hit this with various shades of blue as I was airbrushing my Hexton Hills project (after a prime coat of white as this is a metal model). I only did the swirly bits with the blue and then I gave it a wash with Vallejo Blue Wash. I used Vallejo Silver on the upper portions.
Then, I've had this fun paint color from Reaper called Retro Frost Satin which is a bit of a metallic silverish light blue. I placed that on my palette and watered it down to almost a wash - then I hit the silver on the model hard like a wash and blended down into the blue just a bit to bring the blue and silver together. On the face I used Vallejo's Pale Flesh with highlights of Dead White.
Wow - March 1st already - two months gone in 2025.
When I purchased a group of NextLevel Miniatures from Miniature Market I picked up two of the Callous Troll models because I thought it was an interesting model and I'd try to give each a different paint jobs. I didn't realize at the time exactly how that was going to occur, but like the original Callous Troll, this was a result of what was leftover in the airbrush pot. As I've been painting my Hexton Hills project, I just completed a very large section of water and there was plenty of opportunity to spray various shades of blue.
I like the look of these guys - looking forward to using them on the table in an upcoming D&D session.
Some more fun with leftover green in the airbrush paint pot. This model was first sprayed with Dark Green, then highlights of Sick Green, and finally Light Livery Green. Once that was completed I went back in with a drybrush (the Golden Maple soft round brushes - described in earlier posts) of Bonewhite leaving the green inside to represent the energy empowering this fiendish collection of bones.
This is another miniature that gets brutalized in its conversion from metal to the Bones material. As a DM that's okay as it's just another monster in the way of my player's goals which they'll quickly dispose of within a few rounds. Bones is $2.99 while the metal is $6.99 as of this posting.
Kickstarter paint total 226 + 1 Bone Fiend = 227
These two models were quite a few years in the making. They're the same Bones model and both have been used for experimental purposes. This model is made from the Bones material and it really lost some fidelity from the original metal model - for a DM to use as a NPC, this is good enough - if I was going to use the model as a player then I'd recommend ponying up the few extra dollars for the metal model - also, lol, the metal model is named Arran Rabin, Half-Elf Rogue - so human or half-elf, wizard or rogue - your choice!
The version with the square base started out in 2017 at ReaperCon where I participated in a class on utilizing the stippling techniques. Two different methods - one method is to use the tip of the brush to generate dots - a highlight and shadow effect could be done be stippling the dots closer together or more spread out. The second method is to use small stripes - again, more stripes for highlights. Each gives a different type of fur effect when complete. While the results are rather interesting, it's quite a manual process and not one that I've repeated to any great extent.
The version with the round base started about a year ago simply as an experiment in airbrushing - I wanted to see if I could spray various layers on the cloak from a dark red to a light red - essentially the same process as using a paintbrush. This was my first utilization of the Badger Super Fine Detail needle in the airbrush - the one with a black ball on the end. For the most part it was a successful test - there's a couple areas where the air blows out the paint into almost a bubble or lake effect. It's a bit of art and science - turning down the air pressure helps but that requires thinner paint (using Vallejo's thinner and flow) but too thin and the paint will have a spider effect on the model. It's definitely possible - I think cloaks this size are about the limit on the small size for an airbrush. The airbrush is really good for base layers of miniature models. I've been looking at other airbrushes that might change my opinion later as I get more experience under my belt.
As to the remainder of the models - these both sat on my desk and whenever I had some additional paint remaining I would throw it on one model or the other. You always need a few in-process NPC models to throw extra paint at - I feel like I might have a few too many as 8 years is a long time.
One more lol, the square base was printed on my first 3D printer from several years ago - at the time I thought that was pretty good - now looking at it, ugh - 3D printing has come a long way.
Kickstarter paint total 224 + 2 Arran Rabin, Human Wizard = 226
The eastern length of the map uses individual pieces of border which is perhaps my only unfavorite/disappointment to date with the Hexton Hills hex tokens. Each bit of border and each half-hex are unique. Ideally, you'd want a single piece that incorporates 2 or 3 combinations of the border piece with the half-hex. The individual pieces are not only more difficult to work with but they aren't as sturdy when snapped together - they really just want to fall apart - if it wasn't for the magnets on the magnetic whiteboard it would just fall apart.
If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then the combination of these hex tokens generate the eastern border of the map from the corner up to the North Bay...
The falling off was the hard part as the water token is the lowest point of all the hex tokens so it's not possible to physically change the hex tokens. Using some blu-tac I set the ship at about a 35 degree angle. I need to think more about it before permanently using superglue to lock it in place. Maybe painting a bit of a white water edge where the ship is angled and then using a dark blue on the other side of that edge to represent the ship falling into the abyss? I can come back to this at a later date.
If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this set of hex tokens represents the southeast corner of the map...
Fun with a seahorse! The seahorse represents a section of the map called Sea Horse Cove - a bit of a play on words with it representing a difference from the Calhay Sea. This tile is actually a tile and a half-tile along with the first piece of border on the map.
The borders were airbrushed Black and then, maybe regretfully because it's a lot of work to handpaint and then fix any mistakes, I decided to paint Vallejo's new Stonewall Grey on the indentions (I mention "new" because the latest version of Stonewall Grey is more grey than the old version which matched up with Games Workshop's Fortress Grey which had more white in it). Each bump and each indention represents individually approximately 2 miles of scale on the map.
The width borders from Hexton Hills are actually quite nice. Not only do they have longer pieces but those pieces include the top piece of hex integrated into the 3D print making a really tight and nice solid piece to interlock the other hex tokens together. The length tokens, that's another subject coming up in another post - let's just say they're a real pain.
If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex starts the completion of the sea to the borders. I want to get all the sea complete as it represents the southeast corner of the map and then I can use that point as the starting point on the magnetic whiteboard and work in the -x and -y directions...
Okay - a freakin' lighthouse - how cool is that! Even though I don't have a use for it, I'm very tempted to print out the full size piece and give it an amazing paint job - I can add it to my sample Hexton Hill pieces which I've placed into the display case for now.
To make it jump out a bit dramatic, I painted the lighthouse, it's foundation, and the bridge with a stone grey. I washed the foundation and bridge with a black wash to darken it up a bit. I had painted Dead White on the lighthouse tower and then Scarlett Blood on the tower's mid parapet and roof. The remainder of the hex is the same of what's been printed and airbrushed previously.
If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex continues the second ring around the city of Onadbyr just to the northeast of the city along the coast and just past the Tomb of the Constructor...
This is the final model in this grouping of fishmen that Reaper call their Tiiks. The Tiiks combined with a handful of Creatures of Blood Reef can make an excellent coastal encounter. Start off at the blood reef where the party encounters the creatures. After the encounter they find a passage through the coral and within the passage they encounter Tiik Warriors guarding just before entering a submerged cave where the Tiik Baron and his Champion lay claim to a long lost pirate treasure.
Unlike the other Tiik's, this model doesn't come in a metal version. I'm guessing Julie sculpted this exclusively for the Bones Kickstarter. Like the others, this was airbrushed using what was left over from working on the Hexton Hills project.
One other note about this model - it's an odd size. The champion is really oversized for the medium base, but doesn't quite fill and looks a bit small on the large base. Therefore I decided to place him on the medium base. If the Reaper variant of 5e called Dungeon Dwellers has stats for this creature as a large, then I'll modify the base later - currently I have a pre-release pdf and the Tiiks aren't in there but there's talk of a Denizens book 2 post initial release to cover other monsters from Reaper's miniature line.
Kickstarter paint total 223 + 1 Tiik Champion = 224
This was a fun hex to airbrush and paint - it's the Ethereal Cloister. Now in the book it's supposed to be a sunken temple located just beneath the waves in the middle of the ocean. I've taken the creative liberty to modify it just a bit to be this island in the middle of the ocean with a ruined stone circle of the ancients and I'll probably add an undead or ghostly encounter of some type within the central ruin - or I might make it a beach with a bit of a jungle infested with killer apes which they'll need to encounter before getting to the overgrown stone circle - either way, it's going to be fun!
If you're following along on my Hexton Hills printing of the Kingdom of Aglarion, then this hex continues the second ring around the city of Onadbyr to the east in the Sea of Calhay just past the maelstrom...
Same deal, different set of models - these were sprayed using the leftover airbrush paint and done in the same schema as the Tiik Baron.
These are more bones off the shelf - I think the metal versions of these would be more fun to paint as you'd have more opportunity to adjust the figures and they'd stand vertical a bit better. The metal versions, as of this writing, come in a 2-pack for $16. The bones version is $4 each (only one). If you needed a bunch of these the $4 savings per model would add up - but if you only need 2, the metal versions at what amounts to $8 each might be the way to go.
Two more unpainted bones model off the shelf of shame!
Kickstarter paint total 221 + 2 Tiik Warriors = 223
When you're airbrushing a lot of green with the Hexton Hills project, you're always looking where else to spray green because the airbrush is so much fun. So these guys were sprayed with the Sick Green and highlights of Light Livery Green. The spikes on the shell were Red Terracotta as leftover paint from a turtle dragon (coming soon). The brown was sprayed Earth which is the basecoat used on the hex tiles.
The hand painting was some quick Bonewhite on the club teeth, a bit of Plague Brown on the beak and then I did more of a sandy base with Earth, Desert Yellow, and Khaki.
I love using the airbrush and just finding ways to quickly paint monsters - I'm still trying to figure out ways to get tight - using a super fine needle - playing with different psi - and using various combination of paint with thinner and flow. All the details can't get airbrushed - still need a brush but I'm pushing for more and more airbrush. I need to get a Warhammer army painted soon and I'm thinking the airbrush is going to help tremendously. Any other airbrushers out there, please hit me up with your techniques and tips.
Kickstarter paint total 219 + 2 Spikeshell Warriors = 221
