Rockmaw and Rockmaw Whelp (Xorn)

 This is a nice pair of not-xorn from Reaper miniatures. as soon as the large rockmaw came in from the KS, I knew I had to pickup the whelp.  I love having multiple variants of monsters, even more so when there are young. I like a touch of realism in my high fantasy, and it is nice to have miniatures reflect that these creatures have an ecology and lifecycle of sorts (even if completely fantastical). 

I might need to get another adult to round out the family.

Adult White Dragon

 

My most recent miniature! She is close to the largest piece I have painted, and easily the largest miniature I have 3d printed. In order to fit this beast onto my small resin printer I had to chop it into a number of pieces, and get creative with the reconstruction. I was good experience keying parts, and while it gave me some issues, I'm sure my next large prints will be better for it.

 This piece is an updated dragon from MZ4250s collection of free STLs, and was painted for the monthly competition. She took many sessions to print and a long time to assemble, so it really cut into my painting time. Fortunately, the chromatic dragons are relatively.... monochromatic. Unfortunately, I have a really hard time with white / off white color palates. I decided to go with a multi-tonal gray. She is still obviously a white dragon, and the light grays would blend with the skies of her gloomy homeland. It was an interesting painting experience, trying to lean so much on such a big piece so quickly, but ultimately it feels very rewarding to have a huge dragon completed.

These updated dragons from MZ are really nice; true to the source material. Seeing one completed inspires me to make the entire set of dragons from his line. A massive undertaking, but a worthy goal.

Finally, a shout out to my son. Those of you who are familiar with this miniature might notice that the stance is very different from the defaults. My son spent some time in Blender with the rigged file to cook up this very dynamic pose. I think it reflects the aggressive behavior of these beastly dragons perfectly. 

Bluejay

 

This is one of my favorite animal miniatures. Despite the simple techniques and brushstrokes I think it is one of the most effective and striking outcomes I have achieved on animal mini.  This is a very tiny model and a somewhat poorly defined Bones miniatures (on a 20mm base). It is listed as a hawk, but I think it actually looked more like a bluejay, si I reskinned it with paint. Of course, I have never actually seen a real bluejay....

This is the last of the animal miniatures I have previously published that I will be posting here for the time being. . My backlog of animal miniatures to post is pretty sizeable, so I expect will revisit them at some point, but for now I am looking forward to moving on to more monstrous blog entries. 

Cat

 This black cat is actually an accompanying piece / familiar to a classic witch miniature I have. It isn't particularly impressive, but it is an interesting conversation piece relating to techniques for painting the color black. at the time of my painting this (2013-2014) I had been using blue-black to get that deep black look. in retrospect it looks, unsurprisingly, blue. when compared to my more recent "fanatical acolyte" miniature, where I used the dark elf and dusky skin triads heavily, it is pretty clear that my  skill with that end of the color palate has improved significantly. Painting solid black colors has always been a barrier for me and it seems I am finally starting to understand the subtleties (shading, highlighting) of the color better.

Ferret

 The Ferret is probably the most "useful" of the animal miniatures I have posted so far, since they are often companions or familiars. The tiny sized animals are so small I really just make an effort to have some part of the head identifiable as a face despite the fact that it is about the size the head of a pin. To achieve this, I find the eyes are critical. The spot of reflection is usually the defining bit of paint to pull it off.

Based on a 20mm base. Originally published in January of 2015.

Skunk

 

Based on the North  American Striped Skunk.

 Based on a 20mm base. Completed in January of 2015.

Tortoise

 

Super cute! I need to paint more reptiles.

 Mounted on a 20mm base. Completed in January of 2015.