A Wizard and His Familiar

gotta catch'em all!

Painting up these two characters from Westfalia miniatures was a real treat and a great break in between commission work.

Wizard of the Green Flame

Not unlike their powers, the fashion sense of a wizard takes decades to cultivate.I wanted to capture and play around with some colors I don't usually use, and work towards complimenting the owl bear. I don't paint enough wizard types- it was good fun!


Owl Bear

What color to paint an owl bear? Why, purple of course like one of my favorite Neverwinter mounts!

An example of  the majestic purple owl bear

And another shot of the two of them together, just because I could not choose between which angle I liked better.

Dungeon Delves: Umber Hulk

Umber Hulk's gotta Umb!

This fantastic resin cast Umber Hulk is from Westfalia Miniatures Kickstarter I backed. I actually have backed all of their kickstarters as they always have really cool stuff and fantastic turn around times.

Please curb your dawg!

Old hammer Citadel Paladin takes action!

This guy was actually a quick paint up, as I had some tan Army Painter spray paint which I used to base him. A few washes intermixed with some dry brushing, then picking our a few details and he was done.

I have a couple more of the Westfalia monsters on my table and can't wait to get them all painted up as well!

Night Folk Goblin Thug Guy

Goblin Thug guy on a laser cut 30mm base

When you get a delivery of one of those miniatures which make you drop everything else and paint it up! I love these Northumbrian Tin Soldier Night Folk!

Such a fine looking fellow

He's got.. hit points- lots of hit points.

  Standing 40mm tall, or 50mm to the end of his two handed mace, this fine figure of a Goblin who's dad "may" have been an ogre  will be used as a mini boss in my upcoming D&G campaign (Dungeons and Goblins) Where the players will be goblin types.

This guy was really a treat to paint- inspired by both the model and the outstanding paint jobs that Andrew Taylor did for the company. I doubled down and bought a bunch of both the night folk and the whole goblin set. You should too!
Cheers! 

Beauty is in the 11 Eyes

...And the DM said unto them," Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great...Roll for initiative!

Beholder Tree Topper

So, each year we have a big Christmas party, and the Mrs. picks a theme for the tree. This year it was the 25th anniversary of the party, so the theme was silver, which then went to blue and some red... because reasons (did I mention I don't get to pick the theme..)

Anyways, we get the tree into the house and the first thing my daughter asks is," do we have any big googly eyes"- which of course we do, and she proceeds to put them on the tree, proclaiming it a mimic.

And, things kind of went downhill from there. When asked to make this years tree topper, I knew where we were heading.

Beholder: One day build

That's no moon! a 5ish inch foam ball for the base

This build is pretty easy, actually. Armed with my Volo's Guide to Monsters, monster manual and the internets I chose an image that I felt I could achieve pretty well- a classic not too fancy beholder. Having made sculpts like this before where you have to get to a lot of spots with wet clay, the first thing I did was make a stand out of some scrap wood and a dowel. This was, as I later learned, key to actually making this project a success.

punch mouth!

Once I drilled a hole in the ball for the base, eventually the tree stand, I drew in the mouth and main eye, then poked holes and added pipe cleaner eye stalks. In retrospect and if I had more time to shop for materials, I would have used a stiffer sculptors wire.

Cracking toast- Grommit!

  after covering the entire body with a thin 2-3mm layer of Crayola air dry clay, I worked from the eye down to the mouth, then added in mat board teeth. Then I did the eyestalks, and finally adding bits of detail in the way of horns and some armor bits.

Honey! the meatloaf is ready...

I was on a 3 hour deadline as the Mrs was going full bore baking literally 100's of cookies and a few cakes for the party. I had to get this guy into an oven set to 100 degrees over night to speed up the air dry clay.

I could have kept painting, but remember this is going on top of a tree..

The next morning, smiley was dry and ready to be painted. There were some cracks in the eyestalks that I tried cleaning up a bit with liquid green stuff, (see above, should have used wire) and some happy accident cracks all around the body that looks like armor.


I painted him(?) up with a mix of Plakka red and the standard slew of minis paints. All told about an hour to paint up.

I'm on Top of the World! 

That's no tree- it's a mimic!

The prettiest angel!

Done and done, the beholder weighed in at just over a pound, and fit well atop the tree. This was a great one day project that took roughly 4 hours to build. It really helped that I was familiar with the materials and had a good plan, and stand.

Now, what else to do with this after Xmas???

Cheers and cool Yule to all!
Ths