Otherworld Miniatures Giant Centipedes

 

A simple paint job today! These are a set of giant centipedes by Otherworld Miniatures. I've had these sitting at the side of my paint table for a good while, and I decided that it would be great to just bash through them and get them done. I did a grey drybrush on the stone, catching the legs a bit, then drybrushed dark brown on their bodies and legs, followed by a red drybrush. Finally, a light drybrush of Karak Stone brought it all together. I dotted a little yellow into the eyes to give a little variation, but not so much as to massively stand out.

These are a reliable dungeon monster that can lurk in dark corners and get aggressive and territorial when some adventurer tries to sneak through their nest to bypass a trap or a more well trodden route. They're a low level classic. 

Brushchewer: Otherworld Miniatures - The Death Knight and the Thief

 

I normally want to paint my own Otherworld Miniatures figures, but these couple got damaged in postage from an assembly person I don't use any more, and they sat around for literally years because fixing that was so demoralising.

So, this meant the delightful Brushchewer Inc got to make them be painted models that weren't making me sad any more.

First up is this elf thief, complete with grappling hook and rope. I quite like the idea that he's dressed like a "stereotypical elf" rather than like an obvious sneaky person in dark colours. The greens and browns still blend into the terrain easily enough, but if someone sees them wandering around at night, they don't automatically jump out as someone up to no good...

The Death Knight has a cloak that's billowing out behind them. Is it moved by the cold death energies animating the vile monster? Or is it a "Cloak of Billowing" owned in life by a petty and vain warlord whose early death led to them rising again out of spite and disbelief?

I just looked up a Death Knight's stats in D&D. Goodness, they are absolutely monstrous! A challenge rating of 17 that's richly deserved, it's a good example of a stat line that will provide a some measure of threat to a higher level party.

The thing is with a nice undead character model like this is that it can easily be given an assortment of differing profiles at different power levels - whether a lead minion of a more powerful threat or a villain in their own right.

I had a nose through Pathfinder, and similarly, there's a huge array of different monsters who fall into the description of "armoured skeleton with sword" - whether a Skeleton Champion, Gravenknight or a more powerful Wight that uses weapons. This sort of flexibility means that you can make good use of Pathfinder's "Recall Knowledge" so the players can determine the level of threat...

Work in Progress Wednesday: Otherworld Miniatures

 

I used a bit of my time off to sort out the undercoating on this batch of Otherworld Miniatures. They had an overstock sale on (and currently still do for an interesting assortment of minis), so I picked up an assortment of the models on sale at the time.

I really love the old school aesthetic of Otherworld. On reflection, I shouldn't really have picked these up - I could have spent the prep time on these finishing painting something else instead. But the love of these sculpts got away from me this time...

First up, some antagonists. The model on the left is a "bouncer", but could also work as a bandit, mugger or thug without a problem. The Gnoll Chieftain is a great imposing figure and can act as a good end boss for a smaller adventure, or named henchman for a more powerful villain. Meanwhile, on the right, we have an "evil cleric" who has a lot of potential, whether as a member of a rival adventuring party or joining the villainous henchman category.

Next up is a female rogue, a barbarian and a female dwarf. The barbarian being at rest means he can work as a merchant from nomadic northern tribes as well as a PC. The other two are great generic models that might suit a character, an antagonist or an ally. I love using models like this as bandits and villain hirelings because it looks like every one of them has a personal back story.

On the more magical front, we have a cleric with a flail and a wizard, who definitely looks like a less experienced spellcasting type. I'm still not a fan of the use of crosses with Otherworld's clerics, but I think you can work around it. Unless you're running a setting where the PCs are very unusual, I feel like your antagonists should also have access to spellcasters of one sort or another, so like the other purchases, these can do double duty as antagonists as well as options for player characters.

A couple of blacksmiths never go amiss for civil life scenes. You may not always run a combat in town, but I have a deep fondness for civilian models of all types.

Finally, these two models are advertised as brigands, but the personality of them remains so strong they could easily end up being someone's PC or an ally. I'd kind of assumed the one with a spear was a dwarf, but he is quite tall for that compared to the other miniatures - he's clearly bending over in his pose. So I'm unsure if he's actually a dwarf, or just a bearded human with a spear...

Now to see whether or not I can make up for the impulse purchase and actually get them painted some time soon . . . 

Last week's painting - 100 miniatures challenge

 

I had a week off over Christmas, and had the sudden realisation that my painting total was sitting at 81 painted miniatures. That would mean I only needed to get 19 models painted to have done 100 models in a year! I gave it a go, but a couple of days before the end of the year it became clear I'd had too much else on to be close to hitting the target, and rather than try and crunch to hit it, and leave myself with a huge backlog of housework from neglecting that, I was better placed to redirect my efforts to tidying up and setting myself up to be in a good place going into next year.

That aside, I did have a productive week, getting four models finished. They all ended up being D&D models for no reason other than my painting whims. There wasn't a particular plan to what got picked out and painted. I'd already been part way through two of them, so I finished those first and got a couple more done.

First up we have this Griffin that I bought from Iron Gate Scenery at Salute back in 2021. She had a couple of small misprint areas on the feathers that I just darkened up to hide rather than do anything clever. The stone blocks on the base area from the Rubble City pieces made by Fenris Games.

Having a good "scary big monster" for low level D&D is something I feel I should get a nice bit of use out of, so I'm pleased to get this one done. It's the sort of "work horse" monster miniature that should see a good bit of use. It's not going to come out as much as bandits or goblins, sure, but having a bigger monster come out now and again for variety keeps things interesting.

Next up is this really lovely dwarf miniature I got from Otherworld Miniatures. I think he's one of the best dwarfs they do, as there's a realism and a character to this one eyed veteran wielding a hammer. I spent a bunch of time hand highlighting his coat and am really happy with how it turned out. A real contender for my favourite model of the year.

Another Salute purchase, this time a hag from Encounter Terrain. I really wanted to up the creepiness factor on her, so after painting her in contrast, she got a quite heavy off white drybrush to make her pale and faded, with a few spots then re-painted with contrast to add a little more tone where needed.

Her unhealthy skin tones were achieved by using Magos Purple for the first coat, the aforementioned off-white drybrush, then a second pass on some areas with Guilliman Flesh to bring it a little more towards human tones but still not quite right.

Finally, we have Hakkle the Gnoll Pirate from the Reaper Bones line. He'd be undercoated in Zandri Dust, and I gave him an Agrax wash before starting painting. This did leave him a little too dark for Contrast in some places - I ended up using a layer paint for the trousers and sash in the end. At that point, I'd have been better off basing the other colours traditionally, then doing the wash and adding some highlights. Never mind, you live and learn!

Still, he's a troublesome Gnoll ready for mischief and villainy on the table. In higher fantasy settings I like the idea of adding a sole Gnoll, Goblin or Drow into a Bandit party to change up an encounter. This fellow seems like the sort of down on his luck miscreant who might have thrown his lot in with a pirate crew or bandit band for a chance of coin and luxuries.

So, all in all, while I didn't manage to get 19 miniatures painted during my holiday, I did have a pretty productive week, and got some miniatures I really like painted and ready for gaming with, so it wasn't a bust. Hopefully you all have had a good holiday season and have a more positive New Year.

Getting a good start on the month

 

March went pretty well, all told, with five models painted. I decided to start off April by finishing off this Otherworld Miniatures Pack-bearer I've been faffing over since last year. I got the backpack glued on, tided up the bits of the paint job the glue had damage, and got his base sorted out.

My current front light is a bit yellow for my preference. Still not got the photo rig exactly how I want it, so more tinkering is needed!

The big plan for this "quarter" (April - June) is to get any Combined Army I've owned more than a year painted up and table ready, and get all the Infinity models I got back from my assembly people based up and paint ready as the "next batch".

I could have been a little more ambitious with this, but I realised that with Empire, the LRP I play, starting up again, I'm going to have slightly fewer weekends available. I also want to spend a bit more time clearing out the tat lying around my flat and making it more pleasant to live in, which will also take time.

I also had a small Reaper order turn up that I decided to assemble straight away rather than having it go away into a box. Reaper was selling a model to fundraise for UNICEF to help in Ukraine, and I added a handful of other models into the basket to make the postage worthwhile.

I'm not a fan of the integrated bases the models come with, and they're too thick to hide by gluing to another base and then building up the basing material, so I decided to take them off while catching up on Critical Role.

While using my clippers to get the worst of the material off, I discovered that the Siocast that Reaper are using for the Bones USA figures has a tendency of shattering. Fortunately, it breaks very cleanly and is super easy to glue back together again.

Here's the little nightingale back together again. But every single model I've tried to trim the base off has had this happen - and twice I've lost a little detail from feet that wasn't recoverable. I don't think I can complain too badly, though. I'm definitely using the miniatures in a way that's "not intended", but it's certainly something to bear in mind for other hobbyists with a fondness for conversions or similar.

So, I've got the nightingale bard all assembled and ready to paint.

I've also sorted the Bugbear Fighter and Gnoll Ravager done too. The Gnoll Pirate is following on behind as he wasn't quite finished assembly when I did this batch of undercoating.

I'm aware I've been getting more assembly and painting done this week, and it's a trend I'd like to reverse - I've got tons of models assembled and ready for paint already. Part of the issue is around space and time - I can do a lot of my assembly work while doing something else, while the painting is something I need to concentrate on.

Also, for Life Reasons, the hobby desk was a little hard to access this week so I took some assembly through to my office desk instead. Having the hobby space easy to access is clearly something that helps significantly, so it's something to bear in mind going forward.

This Oathsworn Miniatures Magic User is about 30% done now, and shouldn't be much effort to finish. I went with brighter colours for her clothes than I typically do for D&D miniatures. My logic was that wizardry is quite an expensive thing to study, so you're likely to see a number of adventurers who might be from richer backgrounds taking up wizardry than other classes.

I also started blocking in some colours on the Noctifer Spitfire. There's a whole bunch to get done so I'll start painting a few more at once, at least with blocking the colours in.

After thinking about it, I've requested a cancellation for the Goonhammer Open in May. Looking at the infection numbers in the UK, I'm really not comfortable in getting on public transport for a long while, or staying inside with a crowd of people for two days. Right now, I'm not even comfortable going out for a game in person for four or five hours for a learning game inside. Back to gaming on Tabletop Simulator it is!

Over the weekend, I did think about blitzing through some scatter terrain in the near future. However, looking at my available space, I realised I need to get the Infinity models I'm assembling finished up and away before I'd have the space to put the scatter terrain. Remembering to finish a thing and put it away before starting a new thing so I don't get cluttered and overwhelmed is a good step, and I wanted to celebrate avoiding the heffalump trap I could have fallen into!

Delightful Angry Death Chicken - Otherworld Cockatrice

 

This week I dug out the half finished Otherworld Miniatures Cockatrice I had lying around and finished up the paint job on it. I have the old sculpt, it seems - there's a new one on their shop now.

The Cockatrice is a fun little monster in D&D. With low damage, but a chance of turning someone to stone temporarily, it can make players disproportionately worried about being petrified compared to the risk it actually presents.

I realised on Friday that I was day dreaming about "getting hobby done" this weekend with some very unrealistic expectations. In my head, I'd get what I typically finish in a month sorted by Saturday evening and be picking up something new. I knocked that daft thought on the head and focussed in on getting some things finished off. I've also repaired a couple of Deathwatch who got damaged in the post, so you'll see photos of them soon enough. I'm down to 30 base rims to fix up, and that can easily be a light evening job when I'm tired as it needs less precision than normal painting.

While I was waiting for various paint to dry on the Cockatrice, I started blocking in the colours on my Dwarf Berserker from the now defunct small manufacturer "The Miniatures Apprentice". He's definitely someone's learning sculpt, but he's fun to paint in his lumpy, low detail way. I'm protectively fond of him. The idea is that now, as I finish him up, tidy up any overpaint and finish the base, I can be dropping some colours down on the next model on the list.

I've put away a lot of stuff - having tons of stuff out that needed moving around was stressing me out. I also found I was spending ages deciding what to do next. My "On the Desk" page tries to get around this by lining up the next couple of things to do - choosing from two things is much less mental load than from twenty or thirty.

I then end up daydreaming about what to swap into an empty slot once I paint or assemble something, and add whatever is appealing at the point I finish something. It seems to be working better, but I'll see how that goes over time.

Work in Progress Wednesday: Otherworld Miniatures

 

I got a deal on a few Otherworld Miniatures that were in clearance. I'm a huge fan of their old school style. The Lich is definitely at the "boss monster" end of the power scale, but maybe I could stat up some kind of skeleton wizard or similar?

A Cockatrice is a lovely low level monster who adds an interesting flavour to an encounter. It's not the sort of thing you'd necessarily think to add to a D&D fight, but having the monster might prompt the idea of some bandits having trained one as a pet, or it being part of a swarm of nasty denizens of Khyber in Eberron.

A laden pack horse is just useful. It can be a party resource that they're using, or good encounter dressing for cities, towns or merchant caravan attacks.

And finally, a mountain lion to add to the pile of assorted natural monsters I can run an encounter with.

It's a nice clean sculpt, and won't take much painting to get done. Definitely need to get a few more models painted!

A productive weekend - taking up a challenge and finishing the Lantern Bearer

This week, Corvus Belli announced a painting competition. The idea is that you have until 14 July to paint up a playable list for Infinity. While I had a bunch of half finished stuff on my desk, I decided that this could be good motivation to try and get some stuff done - especially with a long weekend booked off work for a now cancelled LARP. You can see the models I've picked above, and even read the list if you fancy it. It's not a particularly competitive list and was mostly selected on the basis of finding ten models I had assembled but without having started painting.

I took the opportunity to finish up the Otherworld Lantern Bearer this weekend, so I've got less work in progress. I do still have three half finished Shasvastii on the desk, but as they'll need the same colours as the painting competition models, it shouldn't be too hard to get them finished up as I go.

I also have another model finished which will have it's own dedicated post on Friday. Another company has seen fit to send me a model that hasn't been released yet - and I got it finished over the weekend as well. I felt that it deserved its own dedicated post, though!

Otherworld Unicorn

While I was trying to finish up some of my Shasvastii and a half finished Otherworld Lantern Bearer, I threw some paint on the Otherworld Unicorn I had lying around.

Of course, that means I've finished the unicorn and not the models I was meaning to do. It's a simple contrast job with a bit of dry-brushing.

I did use the new STC brushes from Games Workshop, and I really quite like them. I'm going to see how long they last before I decide if I recommend them or not . . .

Stay on Targe . . . Oooh, squirrel!

You know how the plan was to finish stuff up this month and not start new things? Yeah, that's not gone well. In fact, it's gotten worse. It's Stress Awareness Month, so my work kindly organised a "Crafternoon" to encourage people to think about using crafts and hobbies to keep their stress down. I thought that scraping mould lines or plugging through some weird alien models no-one knew wouldn't be that interesting so I grabbed a couple of D&D models and blitzed them with contrast over the hour of the online event. They just need a few minutes each to tidy up and finish them off, but I've not found the time since.

Warlord Games then mentioned they had a sale on, and I spotted that they had a whole bunch of Mantic "Terrain Crate" boxes at half price. I probably went a little overboard with these, and my numbers have suffered as a result.

To try and "fix" the problem, I started trying to assemble them all - although most are single piece models that just need a little clean up. Then I started running out of space...

When I started using the lids of storage boxes as well, I realised it had gone a bit far so put the work in progress away until I have a little more space.

I also picked up an assortment of large bases from Fenris Games. The idea here is that I'm going to paint these up to use to mark areas of special terrain on Infinity tables.

I also got an assortment of widgets for scatter terrain.

And finally, I picked up this "bee fairy", because I really liked the sculpt and thought I'd use her for a D&D fae NPC. A little pamphlet included in the box indicates that she's a bit of a preview of an upcoming Kickstarter, so keep an eye out for that...

A burst of productivity

 

I've finally finished the oldest "overdue" model I had in my paint queue. This is the wonderful undead centaur by Diehard Miniatures. I picked it up from their Kickstarter, but he's now available from their webstore.

This was an experiment in drybrushing and contrast. The whole model was heavily washed and drybrushed before I started using contrasts. Sometimes I'd then drybrush again and contrast again to build up depth of colour.

I'm really quite pleased with how he turned out, and I'll be doing some more experiments with that sort of thing.

This Daemonhost was also well overdue for painting. Having finished the centaur by this stage, I experimented with a purple wash to give a really weird tone to the model I was expecting him to be a paint to paint, but by keeping the paint scheme simple, the contrast was able to work with the fiddly detail without taking forever.

I was pretty pleased with being able to drop in the colours on the two syringes stuck into the daemonhost's leg. I managed to get a weird green liquid and the blue of the glass painted in by hand first time.

I also painted up this Otherworld Miniatures Wererat. I hadn't realised when I picked her up that she was definitely female, but looking at her chest, that's definitely not in doubt! This was a lightning fast contrast job, with a quick couple of pupils dropped into the eyes.

I basically got her done over two evenings with drying time, so doing more paint jobs like this on a week night will be a good way to get through the backlog.

I'm really pleased with how much I got done over the course of a week, so here's hoping it keeps up.