84 - Vampire Counts Crypt Ghast (Originally the Reaper Ghast and Crypt Miniature)

Woot! This guy was as easy to paint as I suspected. I needed that for sure. With him out of the way, I'm now 2 miniatures behind my schedule. I currently have a Blood Raven meltagunner basecoated Opaque Red sitting at my painting station. Hopefully, the motivation for painting I feel at the moment will help me finish him before bed.

Now about the Ghast - he's actually not from the Games Workshop Crypt Ghoul plastic kit. He's a Reaper Miniature I purchased almost a year ago, back when I first started this hobby. The first dozen or so models I bought were mostly Reaper minis; the detail, diversity, and, most importantly, cost of their line of miniatures really appealed to me. Before discovering cheap miniatures on eBay, the idea of paying MSRP (or even at a 20% discount) for GW minis made me recoil in horror. So I figured I'd ease my way into the hobby by painting some cheaper, moe affordable miniatures that were equal in quality (in my opinion).

I've pretty much segued almost entirely into GW models right now. I'll occasionally buy a Reaper miniature as a stand-in for a Warhammer Fantasy special character/ lord/ hero type because, again, the prices GW charges for these independent characters is mind-boggling. Why pay $50 for a Lord of Change when I can get a close equivalent from Reaper for $15? (In fact, I managed to purchase that exact Reaper minature for about $5 on-line from a secondary retailer.) Granted, the actual Lord of Change is much more detailed and probably larger and taller, but the Reaper equivalent isn't that far off. Or an even better comparison: why spend $20 on a GW Mounted Vampire Lord when you can get a similar figure from Reaper for $12? Now, again, the GW model is much more finely detailed but in this particular case, the Reaper miniature is pretty damn cool too. In fact, you wouldn't know it from the description of the model, but it comes with two heads - the helmeted one you see in the picture and a non-helmeted one showing the Vampire in all his dark majesty.

Just in case you're wondering, I don't work for Reaper or for Miniature-Giant (the on-line retail store I've linked to in the previous paragraph). I'm just a very frugal collector who, as it is, spends way too much money on this hobby. Anytime I can trim costs from this very expensive past time, I will (e.g., buying decorative basing material from general craft stores rather than from dedicated hobby stores/ manufacturers, buying stand-in minis from Reaper or some other maker rather than from GW, using craft paints rather than specialty paints, etc.). At this point, all of those things have served me rather well in terms of producing decent table-top quality miniatures. About the only thing I might replace in the future is my use of craft paints. If I get to a level of painting where I think craft paints are holding me back, then I'll make the invesment in Vallejo or GW or Reaper paints. I'm obviously not there yet.

Finally, a little bit about the paint scheme for the Ghast. I pretty much followed GW's online article on how to Crypt Ghouls - I basecoated him with Dolphin Gray, then gave him a liberal ink wash with Leviathan Purple. After he dried, I went back over the upraised parts of his musculature with a drybrush of Dolphin Gray and also added in some watered down streaks of Opaque Red into some of the deep crevices of his skin to give the impression of infected, torn flesh. The tombstone, by the way, was from a Halloween decorative kit that Michael's was selling over the holidays. I think for a set of 4 or 5 tombstones, I paid about $5. The relief seemingly carved into the front of the tombstone is actually a plastic Empire shield scavenged from the Warhammer Fantasy Giant kit. Overall, it took me about 2 hours to complete the Ghast.

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23 - Juron, Mystic Knight

Well, I decided to take a break from the Games Workshop models and instead turn my attention to the large batch of Reaper Miniatures I have scattered about my workstation. Reaper Miniatures were, in fact, my introduction into this hobby. It was always the painting/ modeling/ diorama aspect of miniature figures that first caught my attention, and Reaper's line of models immediately appealed to me with their detail, diversity, and, most importantly, affordable price point!

What we have here is Juron, Mystic Knight from Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends line. This is my 4th attempt at painting him. My first 3 attempts were pretty miserable, but that's to be expected considering how new I was to the hobby when I first purchased this figure. I'm mostly satisfied with this most recent paintjob, although my Juron's resemblance to Batman is purely concidental! It was only after I started painting his chest symbol Antique Gold did I stop and mumble to myself, "Blue cloak, grey breastplate, yellow symbol on his chest...holy subconscious - I've turned him into the Caped Crusader!"

Interestingly enough, this Juron paintjob was not only a marked improvement over my earlier efforts, but it also took less time to do. At this point, much of my Beginner to lower Intermediate level painting skills have become muscle memory and instinct, which is a good thing. The fact that one can see gradual improvement over time so long as one continues to practice makes this hobby potentially much less frustrating. Of course, it all depends on what you want out of this hobby. If it's the wargaming aspect that interests you, then speed is probably more important when it comes to painting your figures than anything else. And that's perfectly fine. Being able to consistently achieve table-top quality is a skill in and of itself. If it's the hobbyist aspect that interests you (like it does for me), then the fact that you can chart your progress month by month makes you more likely to press on, anticipating that next milestone achieved on that next model. Now, I'm pretty sure at some point I'm going to hit a plateau with the progress on my painting abilities. Some of the miniatures on sites like Cool Mini or Not, or in the pages of White Dwarf take my breath away with their subtetly of shading, glazing, and attention to detail, and at this point, I can only dream of approaching that level of quality. Well, when I do reach that plateau, I'll just move on to another aspect of the hobby - I'll become more adventurous with my conversions, finally start sculpting with green stuff, dive into the mad and elaborate dioramas I have planned in my head, maybe even start wargaming if I have the time, etc. - before going back to painting. Regardless of where I am in the hobby, in other words, it is a deep enough and complex enough hobby that I believe I will constantly be finding something interesting about it for years to come.

Please click here for more pics.

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5 - Reaper Miniatures - Ridley Darkedge, Male Thief

This is my second attempt at painting Ridley Darkedge. Overall, I'm very pleased with how the scenic base turned out. The broken arch was scavenged from a dismantled VHS cassette tape (remember those?) and the cobblestone floor was sculpted using clay purchased at a craft store. The only "non-scratchbuilt" part of the base was the skulls and chain which was a plastic bit taken from a Games Workshop Chaos Space Marine Rhino sprue.

As for Ridley himself, I'm semi-pleased with his paintjob. I'm getting much better at shading with washes, and my patience with applying multiple layers of paint to cover a surface has grown as well. This has led, in my opinion, to smoother painted surfaces. Well, except for the faces of miniatures. For some reason, I'm still struggling with getting a smooth coat of paint down on the faces and heads of these models. More often than not, they still end up looking like they've been afflicted with some evil sort of flaky, splotchy skin disorder. In general though, I'd say Ridley's paintjob demonstrates slow improvement in my technique. You can view a gallery of this miniature here.

Next up, either a continuation of my Imperial Guard Cadian Shock Troops project (assembling and painting the vox-caster operator of Second Squad, 1st Platoon), or painting the Juron, Mystic Knight miniature I mentioned in my previous post. I'm leaning towards the Cadian Shock Trooper because I'm actually formulating a plan to use Juron in a large diorama involving multiple miniatures which I haven't quite committed to, motivation and time-committment wise.

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3 - Reaper Miniatures - Callie, Female Rogue w/ Bow

My first attempt at a more scenic base. The miniature is a resin-cast from Reaper Miniatures. This paint job is my third attempt at painting the figure. I'm still not very satisfied with the painting, but I like the base. The tree was created by cutting and painting the discarded stalks of silk flowers my wife purchased. The base was created by gluing together two 2" diameter wooden discs. A gallery of the figure can be found here.

I'm pretty sure at some point, I'll probably strip this model again in order to give her a proper paint job.

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