Wizkids Banderhobb - WZK90160

 

This is a fun monster to paint and is pretty much all airbrushed. This was my side model when working on the Hexton Hills as there's a lot of green left over in the airbrush pot and I'd then spray this model. Therefore he's a combination of Dark Green, Sick Green, and Light Livery Green. The base was Plague Brown and Desert Yellow.

I then painted with a brush the fingernails and toenails black - used the Light Livery Green on the eyes and mouth. Then some Dead White on the teeth.

The storyline behind the Banderhobb is that he's the product of hags - if they get a piece of your hair or article of clothing - they brew up one of these bad boys and he chases you around until you end up in his belly for dinner 😋💀 !!

Wizkids Barbed Devils - WZK90416

 

Time flies when you're having fun is the saying - I'm surprised that it's been a year since I last opened a Wizkids pre-primed blister pack to paint. Last Wizkids mini was the raging troll from January 2024 when I had the Vallejo Xpress paints vs Testors Dullcote massacre.

So this is, with the exception of the base and the flame, 100% an airbrush painted miniature. With the work I've been doing on the Hexton Hills hex tokens, I'm getting more comfortable using the airbrush in smaller and smaller spaces. I was airbrushing a dragon turtle (coming soon) and using Red Terracotta when I had some extra paint in the pot - so it appears that's my current method to the madness lately - I'm airbrush one model, have extra paint left over, and then find a second or even a third model to airbrush, lol. I think that airbrushing is so much fun and fast - spraying paint is contagious and once I get going with a color I don't want to stop.

I figured the Red Terracotta was the perfect base color for these barbed devils. The packaging has a computer based paint image and uses a bone color as highlights for the chest, stomach, and tail. I did similar getting out the Bonewhite and spraying a highlight all over the model. I didn't exactly like how that turned out so I hit the Bonewhite with Bloody Red everywhere except the chest and stomach. A light spray of the Bloody Red on top of the Bonewhite gave this great highlight. Then I sprayed a splash of Hot Orange on the head.

Another simple technique which I had heard about but never done was masking an area with blue-tac. The flame in one of the hands is a clear piece - I had an idea of using the Xpress color on that but first I wanted to make sure that I didn't get any spray on it. Others said blue-tac was good for that (and I have a bunch of blue-tac as the models are tac'd onto a wooden spindle for painting) - I grabbed a bit of blue-tac - smooshed it flat and then surrounded the clear flame. It worked very well - when finished the blue-tac peeled off and I could use the clump of blue-tac to dab into stuck bits to get them off the clear plastic.

The clear plastic was painted with Xpress colors and I used the inverse layering technique - Xpress colors have to be layered light to dark instead of dark to light. First using Imperial Yellow over the entire flame. Then, Martian Orange from the top to about 2/3rds of the way down. Finally, Plasma Red from the top to about 1/3rd of the way down.

Standard basing on an inverted Reaper base and called it done. Overall a very quick and great way to get a set of miniatures ready for the table. One more point about fun... I noted a year ago how much more fun it was using the drybrush technique using the super soft drybrush brushes from Golden Maple 6 piece drybrush set when I painted the Ar-Grush using their brushes for the first time - I was reminded tonight when drybrushing the base how easy that was versus using the old hard bristled drybrushes. Between the airbrush and the soft drybrushes, getting miniatures off the "to-do" shelf onto the "done" shelf is easy and fun.

Wizkids Unicorn - Monster Menagerie 27

 

This was a bit of fun as I needed to paint up a model for our current home D&D campaign - Empire of the Ghouls in the Midgard setting by Kobold Press. One of the players (she's from the shadows) befriended a beast from the shadow called a Shadhavar - a shadowy version of a unicorn. 

I love Kobold Press as a company and looking for them to carry the 5e banner with their Tales of the Valiant. However, they've had terrible luck getting miniatures produced - which is a real shame. With their Creature Codex and Tome of Beasts books they have the best 5e monsters and every one of those monsters needs a miniature. Am I the only one who sees them and Reaper Miniatures as a match made in heaven? Paizo figured it out and there's a significant line of npc's along with a few monsters. How do I get Reaper Ron and Wolfgang together on a date? Unfortunately Kobold Press has selected one man shops with Eastern Front Studios and most recently Effincool Miniatures.

Since I can't get a Shadhavar miniature - I picked up this unicorn for $3 from Miniature Market (great retailer). I undercoated the entire model with black primer and then painted my own Shadhavar.

Painting instructions for Shadhavar (used Vallejo paints)...

Step 1: Undercoat model with black primer
Step 2: Use Black on the entire model
Step 3: Use Night Blue on the mane and tail
Step 4: Use Ultramarine Blue as highlights on main and tail
Step 5: Drybrush Charcoal on entire model
Step 6: Use mix of Charcoal and Sombre Grey and drybrush entire model
Step 7: Drybrush Sombre Grey on entire model
Step 8: Use Blood Red on the eyes

Wizkids Raging Troll - WZK90081

 

My "fun" with Vallejo's Xpress Color paints continues - with some limited success and a major fail. I had picked up the raging troll from Wizkids at the local game store when I picked up some additional standard Vallejo Game Color paints that I was close to running out - plus Vallejo has refreshed its Game Color line and I picked up some of the new colors. I'll report on my opinion of the new formula in a future post. 

The Wizkids line comes with a Vallejo grey primer from the factory. Before starting to paint I aggressively hit the troll with a top down drybrushing using Vallejo Dead White to provide the highlighting slapchop on the model.

Best Xpress Color for a troll... Troll Green of course - so I used my handy dandy Xpress Color paint chart and came up with Troll Green for the body, Plague Green for the cloth, and Black Lotus for the hair - more or less following the 5e Monster Manual picture. Being cognizant of the bubble issues, I took great care to brush any of those out - they tended to appear when I used larger quantities of paint on the brush - which the brush does tend to load up a large quantity of the Xpress Color paint because of how thin the paint is - almost an ink. Keeping it basic with minimal colors and letting the contrasting of the paint do its job, I finished within an hour. It was a serviceable paint job.

I say serviceable, because when I finished I did something I hadn't done - I hit it with Testors' Dullcote and crud was that a mistake! It appeared to either reactivate the Xpress Color paint or dissolved it at the high levels of the model where the paint was thinnest (vs the recesses where the paint was thickest). The green didn't have as much of an affect, but I think that's because the green covers a smoother area? The black was hit pretty hard as the top ridges actually show the white drybrushing. However, worst of all was the Plague Green on the cloth - it just ate through the paint giving it a very bleached out look.

Now, if I had spent tons of hours I'd be pissed. As it's a test piece and still suitable for the gaming table, I figure I'll just live with it as is and do some more testing to determine what's going on. I do know that the Testors' spray can is okay because I used it to dullcote the six Redbrand goons which were painted using Vallejo Game Color and there was no problem with the paint on those models. Those turned out perfect.

Therefore I'll do some more testing on additional models painted with Xpress Color - both using Testors' again as well as using another brand of matte spray. Additionally, I can try giving a go using Vallejo's matte through an airbrush.

WizKids Eidolon Possessed Sacred Statue - WZK90167

 

"Really, take my eyeball and I will CRUSH you!!" What a great sculpt of the classic first edition AD&D Player's Handbook cover drawing come to life.  So let's go down that path for a second as WOTC has crossed the streams a bit... it appears from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (page 177) that the classic drawing is a statue of the archdevil Moloch.  The entry for an Eidolon (page 193) states that it is a sacred undead guardian for the gods to protect the sites they deem holy - the Eidolon jumps into one of the sacred statues at the site and animates the statue with its actions.  Okay, so Moloch has a powerful statline, but the monster isn't a god.  Therefore, while I love the figure, it's not the figure for an Eidolon and its sacred statues - I believe the statues should have more of a Tomb Raider feel (perhaps one of my favorite movie scenes was there in the temple with the statues becoming animated).  Also, I agree with many of the comments on the stat page, I wouldn't wait until a 5/6 to animate a statue, I'd just allow it to jump from one statue to the next.

I also would have preferred this statblock to be huge or gargantuan.  Then I can use my dice tower purchased from Gamespot and animate it, brahahaha.  A recent game with the statue dice tower as a set prop for a temple encounter - also check out the cool t-shirt, lol...

Alright, back to this figure from Wizkids -- again, this was a simple airbrush solution of a dark red to a fiery orange and then given a black wash to tone it all down and pop out the stone cracks.  Give it a proper base and drybrush the greys and it's done.  I did give an attempt at an emerald eye - I still have a long way to go to make realistic gems - I did the inverse dark to light and then a spot of white - it looks okay but not great.  Overall though, I really like the way this one turned out and look forward to unleashing it on my players.

WizKids Bodaks - WZK90155

 

I love these monsters - just suck the life out of the characters with their aura and gaze of undead along with the ability to pass a message direct from Orcus - so many role playing opportunities there!  The sculpts on these represent the drawing in the monster manual (Volo's Guide specifically) pretty well and while I'm liking the sculpt and the overall figure, I don't care for the color rendering in the pages of the book.  Therefore I decided to go with something darker and more alien - I sprayed these with Imperial Purple and then the Vallejo Game Air line has a color called Alien Purple or something like that which is a nice highlight.  Airbrush is so freaking awesome!  Then did my standard drybrushing of Cold Grey and Stonewall Grey on the base.  Done!

WizKids Spectator and Gazers - WZK73717

 

Looks like it has been awhile since I broke open a WizKids model - I have so many great models but they've taken a backseat to the specific ones I needed for the campaigns I'm running.  Actually, I grabbed this one because the model that came in the Lost Mines set that I purchased off Etsy is a Beholder and not a Spectator (the Beholder is a wicked cool print and I'll work on it another time) and I happened to have this model sitting in a bag of monsters to paint.

This set also comes with a couple of Gazers - I slapped some paint on them as well.

Painting instructions for Spectator (used my Vallejo Game Color)...

Step 1: No need to primer - already done
Step 2: Use Sick Green on body and stalks
Step 3: Use Vallejo Game Wash watered down on body and stalks
Step 4: Use Goblin Green to highlight body and stalks
Step 5: Use Royal Purple on main eye and gums
Step 6: Use Hexed Lichen on mouth and tongue
Step 7: Use Warlord Purple on tongue and as highlights on gums
Step 8: Use Squid Pink on tongue
Step 9: Use Scorpion Green on stalk eyeballs
Step 10: Use Black to carve out the eyeball and base
Step 11: Use Bonewhite to carve out the eyeball and teeth
Step 12: Use Dead White on eyeball and teeth
Step 13: Use Black to place slit in eyeball and stalk eyeballs
Step 14: Drybrush Cold Grey on base
Step 15: Drybrush Stonewall Grey on base

WizKids Skeleton - WZK541

 

This was a fun Friday night project 19 years in the making, lol.  I purchased back in 2002 a handful of Mage Knight limited edition metal models off of ebay.  These were recasts of the plastic models done in metal and packaged with a Limited Edition base.

The first painted complete was the Noble Archer which I completed in July 2002.

The second painted complete was the Wraith which I completed in September 2010.

I've placed them into one of those display cubes you pick up from the craft stores:

I have one more to complete the cube - the Amazon Warrior Queen - hopefully it won't be another decade before I get that model completed.

The actual painting of this model was done using the paint schema of the Golgath, Eradicator.

WizKids Wraith & Specter - WZK72570

 

Another set of fantastic miniatures produced by Wizkids based upon the images pulled directly from the D&D monster manual.  The blue is the Wraith and of course the Wraith can have up to seven Specters in its control at any given time.  This product ships as a packaged set with the two pieces and both pieces are translucent plastic.

One could base them and use the models as is in their translucent state, but what fun would that be!  Plus, I had some new paint products I wanted to try.  I had a blue wash produced by Vallejo and from Games Workshop / Citadel, I have their Technical Tesseract Glow (which I used for the first time on the giant sword of the Genie Efreeti model painted just a few days ago).

I painted both of these models in a two hour session you can watch on twitch for the next two weeks: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1143345620

Both of these models were simplistic in the actual "painting" of the model - the Wraith I used Vallejo's Blue Wash - I watered that down just a bit as I wanted to maintain a translucency through the model and I figured that more thin layers for additional color could be added as needed.  That one turned out great and the wash acted almost like a stain on the clear plastic - it pretty much turned out exactly as I was hoping it would and very much like the result.

The Specter was a different story and I really struggled with the GW/Citadel Tesseract Glow paint.  It's potentially possible I don't know how to use it properly.  It appeared to work very well on the Genie Effeeti sword painted just a few days ago - that was a nice big flat surface which also was initially a clear plastic piece.  When placing the paint on the Specter it just wanted to fill the cavities of the robe, hair, chest and came out all blotchy.  It was a bit of frustration - so I ended up using three different layers letting the first layer almost act as a primer - I let each layer dry before adding the next.  The end result is a very cool neon glow piece but there's no translucency through the model - it's very opaque.  Maybe that's what I'm missing, I don't think this paint is intended to be translucent?  Maybe I should have set a layer of white or grey primer down first and then used the technical paint and I would have had a better go at it.  While it wasn't the initial look I was going for, the end result looks great and I'm looking forward to using on the game table!

If you have more experience with the Tesseract Glow technical paint from GW, then please comment below.

WizKids Genie Efreeti - WZK73723

 

Oh my goodness, this miniature by Wizkids is from their Pathfinder Deep Cuts line and was a blast to paint as well as a fantastic representation of the Pathfinder source drawing.  The difference between the drawing and the miniature is the right hand in the drawing is in a fist and starting to gather in the power of a fireball while the miniature added a shield.  Now let's talk about that shield - first, why would a Genie Efreeti need a shield and second (more importantly) look at the hand positioning - once you see it, it can't be unseen - the shield is useless with vertical hand positioning.  I think Wizkids should have given us a clear plastic fireball in that hand instead.  However, that's nitpicking and this is an amazing mini!

Painting of this miniature was streamed on Twitch and these videos will be available for about a week or so from this posting per Twitch policies:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1129760691 - session 1
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1135686605 - session 2

Painting instructions for Geenie Efreeti (used Vallejo)...

Step 1: No need to primer - already done
Step 2: Use Hexed Lichen on the robes
Step 3: Use mix of Hexed Lichen and Warlord Purple on the robes
Step 4: Add Tentacle Pink to the mix for highlights on the robes
Step 5: Use watered down Hexed Lichen as a wash on the robes
Step 5: Use Gory Red on the armor
Step 6: Use Scarlett Red on skin
Step 7: Use Bloody Red on skin 
Step 8: Use Hot Orange for highlights on skin
Step 9: Use wash of Bloody Red on skin
Step 10: Use Vermin Brown on shield
Step 11: Use Sepia Ink on shield as a wash
Step 12: Use Glorious Gold on armor and top of sword
Step 13: Use watered down Flesh Wash with a tiny drop of Scarlet Red and wash all gold
Step 14: Use Black on base
Step 15: Drybrush Cold Grey on rock
Step 16: Drybrush Stonewall Grey on rock
Step 17: Use GW's Technical Tesseract Glow on the sword

WizKids Bone Naga - WZK90086

 

This was an "interesting" experience/experiment.  I'm always on the quest for well painted miniatures for tabletop gameplay that can be painted quickly.  To that end, one of the techniques I've heard quite a bit about is "dipping" whereby you dip the painted miniature in a wash that then gives it depth.  Vallejo had recently come out with a very large pot they call "Vallejo Game Wash Dipping Formula".  The instructions say it's the perfect finish for miniatures... quickly creates shadows and instantly brings volume and depth.  Furthermore it says to shake well before using.

I figured the perfect miniature to test this on was a skeletal model - right - how easy - throw some layers of bone on, dip, and done!  Well, my experience wasn't great - maybe I'm just too picky but the end result was a mottled mess.

For the next few weeks you can catch it all on twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1077080014

I used my traditional layering technique going from a desert yellow to bone to white.  I was super happy with the look I was getting - if anything, maybe it just needed a wash of the base color desert yellow just to smooth out the layers.  However I went with giving it the dip - here are my thoughts...

• Instructions were to shake - bad idea James Bond - the wash becomes an air bubble mess - I think it would have been better off stirred.  Will stir as needed next time.
• Instructions say to dip the model into the pot - it came out a big bubbly mess with a thick wash that sticks on everything including hands (and I've washed five times and it's still on the hands).  It dries rather quickly and is a bit sticky until it does so.  The directions also say to remove the excess quickly - which I did using a number 8 brush and I did a combination of pulling the wash off as well as watering it down.  Next time, no dipping... I'll try using a brush along with thinning it down with a bit of water so it's more like a true wash.
• The wash mottled the model - because of the centipede feet, the wash just clung to each bony protrusion and darkened/blacked-out the model's highlights with a wash that was bubbly (because of the shaking we did initially to the pot) and hard to control because it was drying faster than I could get the excess pulled off or watered down.  Additionally the pooling of the wash doesn't necessarily go where you want it.
• The bottle says quick and easy way to achieve realistic shading effects - I think it just made the model very monochromatic in the black and white scale.

I know people have written blogs and rant and rave over YouTube on how awesome dipping is to quickly bring shadows and a finished look to miniatures. Maybe bone/skeletal critters aren't the answer for this wash technique and color?  Also, the model itself might not be conducive to dipping whereas a more solid piece without fifty protrusions is a better choice?  Also, I think the idea is to paint at the highlight layer, dip, and go.  I'll keep testing - but please put any thoughts in the comments below.

Painting instructions for Bone Naga (used Vallejo)...

Step 1: No need to primer - already done.
Step 2: Use Desert Brown to base model
Step 3: Use mix of Desert Brown and Bonewhite for a layer of highlights
Step 4: Use Bonewhite for the main highlights
Step 5: Use mix of Bonewhite and Dead White for final highlights
Step 6: Stop here or us a wash of Desert Brown to tone down the contrast if needed - Game Wash dipping formula not recommended

I hit my model up with a protective coating of matte clear and it will look great on the game table and I'm sure I'll still get lots of oohs and aahhs.