RPG Painted Mini - Female Samurai

I painted this one last year:

Here's the unpainted original, mini and image from Reaper Minis, sculpted by Jeff Grace:

Here are some alternate views of the painted mini:

And last but not least, the pencil shot for scale:

Pathfinder Yarnblobs

This is what happens when you leave your knitting at home with your cat:

This is what happens when you attempt to de-blob your yarn while playing Pathfinder until the wee hours of the morning:

Note: The makers of Pathfinder (Paizo) and HeroLab (Lone Wolf Development) are not responsible for the Yarnblobs pictured above. While they are makers of cool products, I don't think they knit.

Warhammer 40k Minis - Tyranid Termagants

Here they are, painted per the Games Workshop book, except for the bases:
The Troop:

The mug shots:

The pencil shot:

We're not currently playing Warhammer 40k, though I do like some of the minis. I've got their 2010 catalog, which has some really neat, very well-painted stuff. We may eventually try to play since there's often a game going on at Madness, the game store we frequent.

RPG Painted Mini - Brother Vincent (Cleric)

This is one we bought for my oldest son (who, not coincidentally, is named Vincent). He started painting him, painted him again, re-primed him and let him sit so long we had to scrape the old paint off and start again. Here's how he looks now:

The armor is actually painted pearl white, thought it's difficult to see in the photos.

Here's the unpainted original, image and mini by Reaper Minis, sculpted by Sandra Garrity:

The discerning eye will note some loss of detail in the final painted version. This is due to some remaining old paint we couldn't get out of the crevices, especially at the knees and between the armor and cloak.

And lastly, the pencil shot, atop the disk I painted him on:

Trajectory Yarnblob Hits a Snag

RPG Painted Mini - Monk (Tsuko) - Pencil Shot

Oops: my younger sister reminded me I forgot the "pencil shot" for scale:

RPG Painted Mini - Monk (Tsuko)

This one is part of the "Learn to Paint" Kit series from Reaper Minis. Specifically, this is Tsuko, human male monk, sculpted by Sandra Garrity. I stuck fairly close to the suggested paint scheme, but after removing the paint twice I decided to quit trying to do the paint-by-number thing and just paint it. I think he came out okay:

Here is the original unpainted version, image from Reaper Minis:

RPG Painted Mini - Monk (Saille)

I used this mini for one of my favorite characters ever - Saille Siannodel, frequently referenced in my Hubby's blog under the preservational posts for the Valley of Obelisks campaign. The "epilogue" post for that campaign can be found here.

After over 2 years of playing in that campaign, Saille here probably needs a little touching up where the paint has worn/chipped off at the edges of her vest and staff, but I may just leave her alone since I'm retiring this mini. Here's the unpainted original, image and mini by Reaper Minis, sculpted by James van Schaik:

For scale, here's a pic of her next to a standard #2 pencil, on a standard 1-inch per square gaming mat:

As I recall, I actually fretted over her paint a great deal, as we had already begun the Valley of Obelisks campaign and I knew I was going to use her for that character. She was probably my first real attempt at shading, hair, faces, etc. so I had loads of trouble, but in the end she looks exactly like I envisioned for this character. For you gamers, she was a rogue-monk thanks to the Ascetic Rogue feat in the 3.5 rules.

Anti-Yarnblob Device

Sometimes, you get a slippery yarn that just won't stay on the spool, and winding it into a cake is right out. In those instances, I use a highly specialized anti-yarnblob device:

This high-tech gem is a resealable sandwich bag with one of the lower corners cut off. The yarn is fed through the hole, and the friction and small size of the bag keeps the yarn reasonably contained but able to spin enough to get the yarn off the core.

Future Mini Diorama: Dark Elves vs. Paladin

In my collection, I have 3 minis I plan to paint and put together in a little diorama type thing:

The two on the left are dark elves (evil) and the one on the right with the sword is a Paladin (good; sort of a knight for non-RPG'ers). Since these are just primed and not yet painted, they're a little hard to see. Basically, you've got the evil queen in her throne and her evil cleric casting a spell from a book perched on an undead minion (skeleton, head not yet attached). On the other side you've got the Paladin pausing for a moment to consider which evil to smite first.

My Hubby and I were discussing the base (which will need to be bigger than this 2.5" job they're sitting on), and thought it might be cool to have a spider swarm or something crawling out from where the evil cleric is casting, heading toward the Paladin, trying to make it past her aura of good.

I'm actually open to suggestions on the setting. So far my plan is to paint the minis and then figure out what to do with the floor so they won't either disappear into or clash with the setting.

I post this because I've been planning to put the queen in some sort of setting for awhile now, but didn't think about the little diorama with the evil cleric vs. the Paladin until this past weekend and I don't want to forget. I admit, I even pulled all my paladins out of my display cases to "audition" them. Let's pretend I wasn't playing with tiny metal dolls, 'kay?