Painting for Table Top D&D - The Quest Begins

Greetings one and all. The summer has arrived! And I look forward to my first mostly open summer (the Teacher Life!) and the opportunity to feed my hobby bug that has been languishing the past 10 months. Thanks to Reaper and their Bones line, I have been amassing a horde of miniatures, and I am slowly batch painting my collection to make it table-top worthy. I must admit that I have been greatly influenced by a friend of mine, Don Serr, who spoiled me as a Dungeon Master with a vast collection of painted minis. Don is the kind of guy that paints monsters and terrain to meet our weekly gaming needs, and as I bring my own children into role playing, I want to give them the same experience.

With that said, lets begin with some images!

Our first look will be the figures standing in for my family's D&D characters:

Introducing my son Aidan's first character, the Halfling Cleric - Sam Burrows.

Next, we have my son Tristan's Dwarf Druid - Granite Underhill

Let me tell you that finding a Dwarf figure that is not covered in metal armor is a difficulty, but thankfully Tristan found the half naked dwarf rather funny!

Tristan wanted his dwarf to be more exotic (as a druid, his animal companion is a Velociraptor!) therefore I went with Tiger skins.

Finishing the family team, my wife Jennifer is playing the Elven Paladin, the Lady Amalthea:

I like how she turned out with the gold and teals.

I like how the shield turned out, and I tried my hand at some elven runes as well.

And here is the family photo of the team together!

So here is the start of our merry band, but I had a character painting bug, so I decided to go for a few more. Our first addition is a character played by one of my students in a lunchtime Pathfinder Game that I started. Introducing the Necromancer - Gwenore.

Not too sure about the face... and the sculpt is old, so the hand is a little blocky, but it will due. Not quite finished, I'd like to add some source lighting coming from her wand and outstretched hand, but this will have to be a task for later.

The next figure is another student character, the Tiefling "Aether"

This was my first attempt at source lighting, from the top of the staff and the ends of his outstretched fingers. The figure is from the Bones, and I have to say that I really like the details on this sculpt!

The next figure is a Reaper Bones Dark Elf Warrior that filled in as the character "Gelan'dir" in my Lunch Pathfinder game.

Not sure what I feel about the Reaper Dark Elves... very spindly and wrapped in rags. I vacillate between like and loathe, but I will continue to paint the figures that I have.

I do like the tattered cloak from behind.

With characters out of the way, the lion share of my painting quest is going to involve painting hordes of rank and file minions, monsters, and creatures. Again, I want to stress that as I am attempting to build a Role-Playing miniature collection from scratch, most of the paint jobs will be "Down and Dirty and Table-Top Worthy"... we will save the greater detail for bosses.

So, lets start with a beginning fantasy RPG standard... Rats! Thats right, even on the PC, I remember killing rats at the beginning of Balder's Gate

The rats are Reaper Bones figures, but for small creatures like these, I think I appreciate the Bones line even more. The detail is not as sharp as one would find on metal figures, but the price is perfect. The Bones line is really encouraging me to pick up all the figures found in our adventures.. building a collection slowly, without absolutely killing my pocket book.

And aside from Giant Rats, of course we need rat swarms! The detail is not the sharpest, and my main concern is the gloss from the cheap varnish... I will need to give these a second spray with a matte finish to take that away.

Aside from rats, I figured what could be more iconic than skeletons!

Again, real quick paint jobs... base coat, apply wash, and call it good. I thought about going through and offering a final dry brush, however they will definitely do for now. You can see that the Bones material can be very bendy... I need to hit the Skeleton on the right with a flame and straighten his spear.

After the spear wielding skeletons, we have a few armed with swords and boards.

And finally, to fully harass my players, skeleton archers:

Taken together they are a fairly impressive horde! Better make sure to carry a bludgeoning weapon!

Well folks, I think this is all for the time being. I am glad to have a chance to once more engage in the miniature painting hobby, and I look forward to updating the page more regularly this summer. 

I am also excited to announce that my boys, Aidan and Tristan have started painting minis as well, and I think I will feature some of their work in future posts. Coming next I have some more classic fantasy humanoids to share - Kobolds and Gnolls. 

Until them, good luck to all of you in your painting and gaming endeavors!