Oni no Jimen, greater and lesser (lava elementals)

I really enjoy the setting of Rokugan, and here are the first minis from that fantastic setting that I am sharing - the massive Oni no Jimen, the "Elemental Terror of Earth." these guys are portrayed as massive lava elementals  rather than the traditional earth elemental, which suits me just fine as I have a place in my collection for both ( I really enjoy painting elementals).
 The smaller "magma" elementals (some of which were reposed) are from the crucible line and were painted in 2014, while the large Elemental Terror is from AEGs clan war line and was the last mini I completed in 2015.

The painting and modeling itself is very simple, with bases created from polymer clay and GS, then painted quickly with a limited palate. while the work is noticeably rough in places it is the cohesive  feel that really sells these guys.

Kobold Hero

This is an interesting archived piece to showcase, my first complete humanoid sculpt! This green dates back to 2009 and was painted in 2011 with the rest of my kobold warband. It was sculpted to go along side the Ben Seins kobolds, though slightly larger and more dynamic, befitting a hero. I surprised myself with the result, and thus began my forays in to sculpting.

Giant Scorpion

From the vault! I completed this piece in 2011 as a 2 hour speed paint (not counting mini prep).  It came out pretty solid, and represents a turning point in my thinking about highlighting. It is still the fastest I have ever completed a piece.
The sculpt itself is almost as old as I am! despite its age it is still a great mini, and it has seen as much play time as any piece in my collection.

Champion of Slaanesh

I have been doing a lot of sculpting recently and I felt the need to break up all of that putty work with some speed painting. for some reason I got it in my head a few weeks ago that I needed to paint some of the classic chaos warriors I remember seeing as a child.  I picked up a few warriors of slaanesh on the secondary market and the speed painting was just the justification that I had needed ;).

I stuck to a classic palate for Slaanesh in order to keep the painting fast and lighthearted. I'm looking forward to a few additional chaos models from the same era to round out a warband. These oldhammer pieces are really fun.

Hammerer golem

A speedy paintjob to add tome serious muscle to my human warband. He rounds out the force nicely, I think. He was based using the same theme I use for all miniatures in that faction.

At the time I painted this I had been re-watching BSG, so the slit visor had to be done in that style.

Clockwork owl

I have a thing for miniatures of familiars. They are just so fun and gratifying because of their small size and the diversity of subjects.
I really like the style of the Wargods line, and when I saw they had some amazing KS exclusive minis I had to acquire them. Fortunately I was able to snag an extra set of the KS exclusives  from a fellow who was up for a deal. This classic character  was the first to see paint. I've always loved this concept, since it first captured my imagination as a child, and I am happy to have it in my collection.

Snakemen! Snakefolk?

I've always loved reptilian fantasy creatures, and snakemen are probably the coolest of the cool. I started working on these guys many years ago to be my own personal warband when I was running SoBH at conventions, but I have long since moved away so my warband project is getting dusty. I have managed to collect a huge number of really great snakefolk minis though, and I'm in the mood to pick them back up again. in the meantime, here is what I have so far:

The two swordsnakes are classic Reaper snakmen and the pretty lady in the middle is a great OOP stygian priestess sculpt from the old chronopia line. Her original sword was damaged so I replaced it with something suitably more serpentine. similarly, a small casing defect in the mouth of one snakeman led to a small modification there.
Since these snakes were for my personal force, I spend some extra effort to sculpt jungle ruin themed bases that would look great but also stand up to play.

More to come!

Grave Wraith

Following the speed painting success of Sir Forscale I was feeling invigorated - I could achieve my (very modest) paint goal! i just needed to do more of that...
Queue the bones wraith I found lying on my living room floor (thanks kids!). I was wondering how well the translucent bones material would paint up. turns out, just like the normal stuff. this very simple PJ was prepped and based, cured two hours, then painted in a single sitting. I kept the palate very simple, with only the sword receiving any embellishment. painted mostly with Midnight Blue, Twilight Blue, and Maggot White.
 He'll fill a gap in my collection (incorporeal undead) quite nicely. I plan on doing the bones spirit (77098) in a whitish ghostly palate to compare and contrast with this style.

Dagathonan Salvager

More DeepWars!
This Dagathonan Salvager from Antimatter games was completed in early 2015. I'm a huge fan of most of what AMG does, and their fishmen are unique and no exception. This guy was done with an unusually bright palate for me, which was really fun. I discovered I actually enjoyed painting yellows on this project - a color I had trouble with for a long time. I used a "pointilism" style on the skin; It is a bit jarring but I think it really works as scales for a fish man. I enjoyed this model so much that I ended up picking all of the dagathonans, so more of these guys are in the queue. They will make for a really catchy group on the table.

Garrick the Bold

It has been a long time since I added minis from my collection to this blog, but there is no time like the present to get caught up. In that spirit, I present Reaper miniature 77008: Garrick the Bold.

This sculpt often called "sir forscale" for his tendency to be used for scale comparisons with larger minis by Reaper and other parties. People have frequently asked me to use him in my various sculpting projects, but I didn't pick this guy up until recently. I stopped by Paizocon this year to meet the good people from Reaper miniatures and fellow forumites for a paint-and-take event they were hosting; it was lots of fun! as an added perk, this fellow was one of the minis that was available for the event, so I snatched him up. Most of the miniature was finished in one sitting that day, and the following Monday I added the base and performed a weapon swap so switch out a floppy sword for a crisp cast. I am a tortuously slow painter under normal circumstances, so I considered this to be startlingly fast relative to my normal plodding pace. It isn't anything special, but not every piece needs to be a masterpiece, and he was a lot of fun and a good memory.