Moonglow Miniatures - RPG Terrain and Mini Painting

Mage Knight Last week I gave a bit of a look into converting Mage Knight minis for other RPG use.  For a more in depth look check out how I turned a Mending Priestess into an Ice Witch . If you didn't see last week's post, Mage Knight's are wonderfully cheap minis that can be pretty okay if you give them some love. You have to cut them off their clunky bases and attach them to something nicer.  I tend to use my tried and true method of baking soda and super glue with a few aquarium stones thrown in for variety.  When you've done that you're left with something a bit more workable. Underpainting So for these guys as well as the Ice Witch, I tried a new method of painting.  With underpainting, the idea is to add shadow and highlight in monochrome where it's easier to see.  Then you go in with thin layers of color to add over your underpainting.  This is similar to the idea behind Zenithal priming but can be achieved with brushes instead of an

Cheap Miniature Hunting When I first got into D&D about two years ago, my friends were using board game pieces and other various items to represent monsters and characters.  I raided my games and childhood toys and found a small collection of minis.  This started my obsession.  I spent the next summer avidly devouring as many miniatures as I could get my hand on.  My focus was on quantity over quality, with a focus on affordability.  This drive led me to buying lots of Mage Knight miniatures from Ebay. Mage Knight For those who are unfamiliar, Mage Knight is a now-defunct war-game from WizKids .  You might be more familiar with the current running HeroClix game and miniatures.  The point of Mage Knight was to contain all of the relevant character stats on the rotating base.  They also came pre-painted.  But most of all, they were cheap.  As a result, the painting isn't amazing, and the sculptures are sometimes lacking, but you can't beat the price, especial

Last time we painted some wolves from the Castle Ravenloft Board Game.   This week I finally get around to showing off the Reaper Bones Learn to Paint Kit: Layer Up. A few weeks back I went through the Reaper Bones Learn to Paint Kit: Core Skills  and went beyond the figures included in the set as I painted skeletons , orcs , and a knight . With the Layer Up kit, I started by reading through the guide, but I quickly abandoned this in favor of my own ideas. When it's possible, I like to re-base my minis on Reaper Bases to save that game-like black edge. This time I didn't cut the minis from their molded base.  In the end I regretted this decision, especially with the pirate, as even with my usual superglue and baking powder trick, the smaller ring of his original base is still noticeable.  Once they were based, I primed them with a layer of grey craft paint. I started with  Anirion, Wood Elf Wizard .  I didn't like the guides suggestion of a red-cloaked

Last time we painted up an Earth Elemental from the Temple of Elemental Evil Board Game.   This week the board game painting continues with a trio of wolves from the Castle Ravenloft Board Game. I continued my journey of painting miniatures with no guide by painting up these wolves.  In the weekly game I run, our party has a ranger with a wolf companion, and a druid who often wild-shapes into a wolf.  Because of this I felt that the wolves would make a great addition to the table. I started by searching images of painted wolf minis to see what others had done, but I was unsatisfied with a lot of the solid-colored wolves.  I quickly abandoned the mini search in favor of using reference images of actual wolves.  I really wanted to capture the shift of color from dark to light in the fur. I started with the lightest coat and slowly added darker shades near the top.  I also wanted to have one of the wolves stand out from the others and so I went back in with some black an