Let's Paint - Skeletons (RPG Miniature Painting)

The Beginning of the Obsession
In the spring of 2017 I finally got into Dungeons & Dragons.  I had been dying to play since I had been in middle school but never had the opportunity.  So when it finally happened I became obsessed.  Our group didn't have any minis and I suddenly took it upon myself to become the miniature master.  I scoured my childhood toys for appropriate minis, bought cheap figures online, and eventually started shelling out way more money than I should have to build up a collection.

A year later I received the Reaper Bones Learn to Paint Kit as a present.  I was excited to finally put some color on these minis or maybe touch up some of the bad paint jobs that already existed.  But for some reason I hesitated.


Learning to Paint - The Skeleton Archer
A month or so ago I finally broke that seal.  After making my first pieces of miniature scatter terrain I decided it was time to learn to paint.  So I broke open the kit and started in on the first mini, a skeleton archer.

By this point I had watched plenty of how-to videos on YouTube and read various guides online but I took a lot of inspiration from Black Magic Craft on YouTube, specifically because his instructions emphasized cheap and easy while still maintaining quality.

I dove in and followed the included guide, straying only a bit here and there.  Primarily I hated the bright green grass and instead opted to wash it with brown to dirty it up.


For my first painted miniature I couldn't have been happier.  This gave me the energy to push ahead and paint more.  I moved on to the next miniature in the guide, an orc, but I will return to that in a future post.

Batch Painting - Ravenloft Skeletons
I decided I should fill out my ranks and so I went back to skeletons, this time attempting some batch painting.

I dug out three skeletons from the Castle Ravenloft Board Game and decided to give them a go.  But these three came on a flat base.  I didn't have any real basing materials on hand at the time but didn't want that to hold me back so I tried a cheap trick from Black Magic Craft.  Baking powder bonds with super glue instantaneously forming a quick textured base.  Spreading some glue on the base and sprinkling on the baking powder was all it took to make the bases a little less boring.

I used what I had learned from the Reaper skeleton to paint the Ravenloft skeletons and I improvised some details for painting the shields.  Since the models were identical, I decided to paint the ornamentation on each shield a different color, just for some variance.  I also figured the baking powder base looked like stone and decided to paint the base to match.

The models were a bit bent from careless storage and I tried the hot water/ cold water trick to straighten them out but I probably could have done a better job as after I had painted them they slowly bent back out of place.  Thankfully it's not too terrible.


In all, these minis were a great, easy way to try my hand at the hobby.  I would strongly recommend starting with skeletons for anyone who is thinking of painting.  These guys are relatively simple and don't need a lot of different colors making it hard to mess up.  You really see the results of washing for shadows and drybrushing for highlights which make it easy to learn those concepts.

I also really like the simple sculpts on these guys.  They remind me of Jason and the Argonauts.  Kind of want to pick up a few more to fill in the ranks.  Also might go back and re-base the archer on a reaper base to match the others, possibly repainting the base as well.

Next time I'll dive into a gaggle or orcs but for now, check out this bone brigade.


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