Moonglow Miniatures - RPG Terrain and Mini Painting

Winter Monsters Sorry for the hiatus.  My life has been quite busy lately and as a result, I haven't gotten the chance to paint or craft lately.  Additionally, my games have been repeatedly delayed.  Back at the end of February I promised some winter monsters.  But my party took a turn in their adventure and delayed their confrontation with Shiver the Ice Hag and her chilling minions.  Not wanting to ruin their reveal I waited.  But no more! This past Monday the party finally confronted Shiver, who was waiting for them to trade over a powerful magical item in exchange for the return of their companion.  When the party decided that she would be too dangerous with the artifact she summoned three yetis and nearly wiped the party. Although only a handful of them saw game time, I painted up several minis for this session, all of which came from the Chill Out pack of Reaper Bones 3 Kickstarter Core set .  Let's take a look. The Yetis ...

Freek - The Mad Merc Last Fall I started running a regular D&D game for my partner and some of our friends.  Fast forward several months and my partner has also caught the D&D bug.  They started running their own games a couple months ago and of course I'm a player in one. Meet Freek: the Half-Orc Fighter. This is the first PC I've ever painted and I'm pretty happy with how he turned out.  He's dramatic and eye catching and I think he fits the idea I had of my character pretty well. I added some small stones on the edge of his base to help blend it into the sculpted terrain and used my usual combo of baking soda and super glue to fill the gaps. I primed him in grey and undercoated him with shades of grey. The paint job was pretty simple.  I decided to make his armor a deep red to contrast with his pale green skin and to also evoke a sort of samurai look.  I think I did a pretty good job with the highlights on his skin especially....

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...

Last time I posted I finished the Reaper Bones Learn to Paint Kit by finishing the knight, Mangu Timur .  I recently received the second kit, Layer Up , but I wanted to wait until I finished all of the minis before posting about that.  In the meantime, let's look at this Earth Elemental from the Temple of Elemental Evil Board Game . I actually quite like this guy.  He was technically the first miniature I painted without any color guide.  Not that his coloration is very difficult.  I did want to try to bring out a bit of warmth in him and mixed some tans into the grays.  He also was treated to a brown wash.  I really like how the wash sunk into the recesses and really gave this guy some depth. I had given the base the same baking powder and super glue treatment I used on the skeletons and knight, but I still felt like it was lacking something so I added some stones.  The stones are actually ornamental glass that you can find in the g...

Finishing the Kit - Knight The last two posts I followed through the Reaper Bones Learn to Paint Kit  and painted up some skeletons  and some orcs.  This time I'll finish the paint kit by tackling this knight. To be completely honest I'm not sure what he is.  He might just be a knight, but he could also make a great paladin.  His official name doesn't help solve anything either as it's listed as Mangu Timur, both unhelpful and unpronounceable.  Either way, the sculpt is pretty cool and it's helped me stave off my fear of painting realistic flesh tones a little longer. I tried something a bit new with this guy and I decided to rebase him.  I cut him from his plastic base and glued him to a 1 inch reaper base that I had purchased.  I textured the base with baking powder and super glue like I did with the Ravenloft Skeletons . Like before, I followed the guide to a degree, but often just followed my gut.  I played around with the yellow m...

The Painting Adventure Continues  - Orc Marauder Welcome back.  Last time I started my painting adventure by tapping in to the Reaper Bones Learn to Paint Kit and painting up some Skeletons . The second mini in the kit is and Orc Marauder.  There's a lot more happening on this mini than the skeleton.  There's fur, leather, chainmail, spikes, and more details in general. I followed the guide mostly, but like the skeleton, I took some liberties.  Apparently I just can't follow instructions. Learning from the skeleton, I used brown for the orc base, and later drybrushed green for a grass effect.  I also kept the green of the orc skin muted, using mixes of green and tan to keep it from looking so cartoonish. A word on skin tone.  I have some regrets on diving into the stereotypical green orc.  Namely, I like green goblins.  I would have liked a more dramatic differentiation between orcs and goblins but I like things to look unified and ...

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 t...