Dejah Thoris

Nerah from Kabuki Models painted as Dejah Thoris from the Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian novels. She sat unpainted for a long time as I tried to find a skin recipe I liked (in the books and many paintings she's depicted as having "reddish" skin). I based her with Bright Skin Shadow, shaded with Rust Brown and highlighted with Rosy Highlight up to Linen White (all Reaper).

Efaarit Scouts

Sheila Heidmarch

Here's Sheila Heidmarch, a character from the Pathfinder system.The freehand on her skirt was challenging. I'm also not completely pleased with her skin, which underwent a number of versions. But I bought her at a game convention from a very good painter who was clearing out her own backlog and made me promise to paint her. So promise kept!

 

Gladiator Ywain

Ywain from Arena Rex. I used a new recipe for NMM that I will not be using again because it was too labor intensive. But I am generally pleased with the result.

OG Necron Lord

 

The original Necron Lord from GW. I turned his right hand around and added a small ball to stand in for a control orb. The cloak of gold panels in NMM drove me slightly insane. I also carved the crystals on his base out of old sprue.

Vampire Countess

This is Freebooter Miniatures' "Queen of Shadows," painted as a vampire countess, with pale skin and her dress in red and black and with a gold mask. I initially included the goblin hiding under her dress but found he got in the way.

Slaine the Barbarian

I got this barbarian figure out of a bargain bin loose so I initially didn't know who makes it. The good folks on Facebook helped me find he was the "barbarian king" of a three-figure set for the old Kev White Harlequin fantasy line (sort of related to the old Celtos line). I decided to paint him as the Celtic hero Slaine from the 2000 AD series in Britain. Unfortunately, his skirt is chain mail instead of cloth so I had to forgo Slaine's normal tartan.

 

Artificer Space Marine

This was a repaint of an old OOP Space Marine variant from the mid-1990s. I liked it for the Judge Dredd look. And then I remembered why I fell out of love of painting Space Marines. All the flat panels. It didn't help that I hacked up the right shoulder pad at one time or another for some reason so had to paint around that. The funny thing is, he's supposed to be an Ultramarine. When I finished him, I realized I had forgotten to paint the Ultramarine badge, instead using a unit marking because I liked the red contrast. He's the highly awarded but self-hating Ultramarine.

 

Old School Ogryn

This has been a year of clearing out the backlog of figures that have sat on the shelf unpainted and laughing at me for years. This 40K Ogryn is one of those. He was fun painting, especially with a face of large features instead of the tiny ones I normally deal with.

 

Union Boss

This is an odd miniature. I know nothing of the "fluff" for the Wrath of Kings game universe, but I got it for free. Figuring out contrasting flesh colors was a challenge. The big guy is GW flesh colors while the "boss" is Reaper.

 

Lizardman repaint

As I say elsewhere, I started painting when I was 12. I have many of these early figures lying around, and they serve as a good reminder when I want to toss all my paints and brushes that I have made progress. That said, some of those early models are now classics and it would be to see them painted better. Case in point, I decided to repaint a late-70s or early-80s Grenadier lizardman. The first picture is the paint job (when I was 13 or 14) before going into the dip. The second two are the new paint job. As you can see, there was some alteration. The original sword had deteriorated to a wire, so I removed it and replaced it with a spear built with a couple lengths of sprue and a spearhead from a Reaper figure.

Batman Pez Dispenser

So a couple of years ago I saw this post on the Reaper boards from a guy who repainted a Green Lantern Pez dispenser. I loved the idea because I too was interested in painting miniature busts, but a lot of those can be quite expensive and not the kind of thing you want to start out on. So I went searching for a Pez dispenser to paint myself. I'm a Marvel guy, but all of the Marvel Pez dispensers are just the character's head, not a proper bust. So I used the BvS-era Batfleck Pez dispenser below. The base is a cake decoration cut to accommodate the dispenser.