Ral Partha Wizard!

Sorry for the long wait friends! I hope to be more productive!
I bought this miniature when I was living in Edinburgh. I consider it rare because we can't find anything by Ral Partha here in Italy and I'm sure it is out of production which is in my opinion quite a pity: there are few old school looking fantasy miniatures around these days.
Anyway, I painted it in order to represent in Dungeons & Dragons the usual evil or chaotic wizard you always encounter in towns at night coming back from a long quest:you and the party have no more enchantments nor potions and there comes this guy with his own mob of monsters/thugs screwing up things and maybe even killing someone.

To be honest i'm not satisfied at all with the colour scheme. The main problem is the hat, looks too orange to me while i wanted to paint it yellow with just a bit of depth. I guess I should have not used two layers of orange as background. Well, I will re-paint the hat in some time. Suggestions?

Battle Masters Chaos Warrior... again!

I posted this miniature in november 2009, but the halberd sucked so, some time ago I re-painted it. now it's much better! I attempted to do some blending on the blade and I'm quite satisfied about it! I also added some burnt grass on the base (it gives a great "wasteland" taste to the miniature) and took a better picture!
Anyway, more to come!

Sol'Kanar, elven ranger of Cormanthor

The second D&D character I ever had was a ranger. In those days the ranger was the only fighter that could wield two weapons at the same time and this was why in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons there were plenty of them.

My ranger was, and still is, a wood elf from the Cormanthor forest who even spent some time living in the elven fortress of Evereska. With him I played lots of adventures and also the second chapter of Baldur's Gate saga (Shadows of Amn) and both Icewind Dale games during my high school years and later. After a first cycle of adventuring (and some planar travels) he retired for a while, because i switched to a different kind of characters like spellcasters for some time. Then came 3rd edition rules (Dungeons & Dragons 3.0) and I chose this guy to approach the new game. Lots of tales again. Lots of enemies slain in the name of Rillifane Rallatil.

His name is Sol'Kanar, taken from a legendary creature of the game Magic The Gathering which has nothing else to do with my ranger. I just liked the name when i was a really young D&D and Magic player at the same time.

I chose a quite rare miniature (that came for free together with White Dwarf) to represent him: it is Aenur, the Sword of Twilight from Mordheim, the 1999 GW game. He was a high elf mercenary, kind of a swordsman. I like this miniature basically because of the cape and the sword, i found those things well representing the ranger fashion tipical of Sol'Kanar Fireblade.

I can't wait to play a new D&D campaign with him!

Alexei Draconis, cleric of Tempus

This miniature represents my very first D&D character which I created in 1992-93 circa when I was just a kid. At that time I used to play with an italian edition of the classic D&D boxed set and its expansions:

In the beginning he was a simple cleric, without any focus: the cleric was just a healer with some fighting skills even if he couldn't use any edged weapon; its "forgiving" nature of priest forbid him to make the blood run.  His name is now Alexei Draconis but in the first years was Alex of Dragons (which is kind of a silly name for a fantasy character but i guess that's how it goes when you are 7). With the shift to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules set, this guy became a cleric of Tempus but still he bore a morning star or some other bludgeoning weapon. The axe came with the 3rd edition of the rules. Needless to say that all this memories make me really nostalgic!

Right now Alexei Draconis lives in Cimbar, a city of Chessenta (in Faerun, Forgotten Realms), and runs a big temple of good gods. He's involved as a NPC in my last D&D campaign. I wonder if I will ever make him go to adventure another time with a party of adventurers...
By the way, this miniature is a converted Guard of the Citadel (from Lord of the Rings range by Harlequin miniatures). Quite rare stuff, I guess.

Battle Masters Orc!

When i bought my Battle Masters box it was 1992 circa and i was just a little kid so i had no skill at all in painting miniatures. After almost 20 years i'm ready to paint all of that miniatures in an old school fashion, like the way they were painted at that time.
This is an orc which i'm going to use for my Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I painted it to make it look pretty much like the leader of the mob so i gave him some bright clothes and a magical weapon. I'm really happy with the highlights of the skin (50% goblin green + 50% sunburst yellow) and also with the GW's Burnt Grass that is invaluable on a rock base like this one.

Hexagonal bases!!!

do you remember those hexagonal slottabases that came with Talisman's miniatures, back in the 80s? well, i have them! i bought them at Gateshead Gaming. i'm planning to use them for my Dungeons & Dragons miniatures, in order to spare my round bases for 40k. what a blast from the past!
[in the picture: Aenur, the sword of twilight, still WIP]

Fantasy Monday #3: Heroquest Evil Sorcerer

"Skeletor" is done! i'm not completely satisfied about this miniature but i don't think i'll strip it for now. i really don't like how the skull turned out, vallejo bad moon yellow doesn't provide a very bold coverage, which is bad. i will use a different approach next time... maybe i can try to give it a wash. i'll see what i can do to fix this fantastic miniature, it's a shame that i painted it this bad.

Fantasy Monday #3 (wip): Heroquest Evil Sorcerer

it has been a long time since the last Fantasy Monday so it's time to re-start! it will also be a smart thing to do to break all this sci-fi painting, i don't wanna get bored by my imperial guard so soon.
this miniature reminds me Skeletor from the cartoon HeMan (maybe names are different in UK or US editions, dunno) so i'm gonna paint it like that dude. for now i finished the skin.

Fantasy Monday #2: Battle Masters Chaos Warrior

a little break from Ultramarines painting, hope you like it. this is a chaos warrior from Battle Masters tabletop game. the first time i painted this guy (1993 circa) i used humbrol enamels, needless to say it sucked. so i stripped paint of with some degreaser and repainted it with the same colour scheme i wanted when i was just a kid and this is the result. i painted the halberd in that way to show it is magical, instead of choosing a flat steel colour. about the photo shooting tecnique: the one above has been taken with the flash, instead the following one has been taken without the flash

which one is better in your opinion?

Fantasy Monday #1: Heroquest Chaos Warrior

today, november 2nd 2009, begins Fantasy Monday post series. as the name tells every monday i'll post some fantasy vintage miniature painted by me, just to break the sci-fi posting that can be a little boring if kept costant.

this monday i'll show you this Heroquest chaos warrior: it is painted in a quite unusual scheme: for the armour i used tin bitz highlighed with brazen brass on black basecoat. then the insignas and the cloth has been painted with an undercoat of regal blue and a highlight of enchanted blue. i wanted to paint the axe like a magical frost axe but soon i realized that the blue layers were too dark so i imagine this like a generic magical axe. the leather of the glove and the boots was painted black and softly highlighed with german grey because the classic brown leather would not suit the yellowish armour. the base has been painted with a dungeonlike stone blocks pattern and then glued with some flock in order to represent the musk of the humid enviroment.
do you like it?

Last rogue of my Reaper collection

As you can read in the title this is the last one: Reaper's 02045: Torin The Stealthy by Sandra Garrity. Blue cape and magical dagger for him. note the difference between an high resolution picture and a low resolution one: the better one really brings up every brushstroke, so i'd dare say too good pictures are excessive for miniatures photography.

Throat-cutter!

you all know that Forgotten Realms is a place full of thieves guilds so every tidy miniatures collector has to paint many of this nice guys... say hello to Eli Quick Night (02022) by Sandra Garrity for Reaper miniatures

Derses, another wizard!

I've painted another wizard for an upcoming campaign of d&d, the colour scheme reminds me the Azuth cult (Azuth is the god of sorcerers). the pose is quite static, recalls almost some roman senator you know, so i think i'll make the PC related with this miniature lawful, an alignment that in my opinion reflects really the behaviour of this guy. do you like it? by the way, this is Reaper's 02461: Cobart, Male Mage by Bobby Jackson.

EDIT: his name his Derses and he has been doing great things for the party!

Sagar, Shaundakul Cleric

This is my new cleric with which i'm gonna play a new D&D campaign this winter. the miniature precisely is Reaper's 03227: Garrett, Adventuring Cleric by Kevin Williams. I tried to paint him in a oldschool way, do you remember Elmore's fantasy paintings?

Anyway, his name is Sagar, there's already lots of story about him even if I didn't play yet with him. I'd like to type it down but I must save it for the sake of the narration, I don't want my buddies to find it here, no spoilers!


The heraldry on the shield is completely meaningless: i painted that double headed eagle because Shaundakul's symbol isn't that good, in my opinion. what do you think?

Female fantasy rogue!

More rogues: check out my Reaper's 02031 Michelle Dancing Blade by Sandra Garrity as always... this chick is gonna cut your throat!

EDIT: I don't like the way this is painted anymore. Going to re-paint and re-base it so soon...

Jadd Hatchen, chaotic good rogue

It has been a long time since the last fantasy post, so gotta add some pieces to the blog archive: this is Reaper's 02034: Kurff The Swift by Sandra Garrity, painted for a D&D Forgotten Realms campaign set in the Lake of Steam area. Do you like it? His name is Jadd Hatchen, took from an old gamebook by Chris Martindale of the AD&D series. Below the Italian cover. I just don't know anything the english edition.

PS: I realized the picture of Jadd is shot just sucks. Sorry. I'm going to re post one soon.

Red Knight's Paladin!

Ok, this one is 02119: Knight Templar, again by Sandra Garrity. Extremely oldschool looking miniature with that cylindrical helm and the robe on the chainmail, which is why i like it this much! 


I painted it like a Red Knight paladin, a (semi?)deity you should know if you're used to "travel" Forgotten Realms. Painting all that check pattern will turn out to be useful when i'll paint some Imperial Guard vehicle...

By now i'm about to use it as NPC for my campaign. He's a good guy but unfortunately is going to come to a bad end. I say: one must be a true paladin to the end no matter what!

Forgotten Realms interactive atlas

i love Forgotten Realms setting (as many of you i guess), i've set every my d&d campaign in there. some time ago TSR published the Interactive Atlas that now is discontinued... it would be amazing to see an updated version on the store shelves... so please sign the petition on the top of my blog to make some pressure on WOTC/Hasbro, thanks.

Battle Masters' beastman

yeah, another update about old forgotten games... it isn't my fault if they are perfectly suitable with d&d... with this one i started testing my brand new vallejos. the parts i like best are the horns and the shield (painted with 3 layers from orange to yellow). what can i say? vallejos are much better than GW's because they:
- never get dry
- no need of transport brush (who needs one when we have the dropper?)
- more matt (is it correct? my english is all but unbeateable)
- cheaper, even if you buy them one by one
- i like the smell
so, IMO, go for killer-vallejos and you won't regret it.

more Battle Masters stuff

mighty ogre from Battle Masters... i left the armor plate on belly plain red because i tought to paint it with some Gork face you know... but i'm too lazy for now also because tonight there's a Misfits' gig in my town so i gotta go!
die die, die my darling!