Painting Miniatures

 One of the things that I have done over the last 9 years is painting miniatures for RPG's and board games.  There is nothing like having a fully painted game in front of you to help you to become more emersed into the game.  Whether that be a tabletop war game, a session of your favorite RPG or playing that cool board game with all those miniatures. I haven't painted much in the last few months but I thought I would show off some of the things I have done in the last few years.

I am going to start off with some of my oldest miniatures first so that you can see a bit of progression.

This was done for someone who asked me to paint a miniature for their D&D campaign.  I wasn't confident in my abilities but she was happy with the result.  This was right after I had started painting miniatures.

For a while I did a lot of commissions for her and others for a while.  So much so, I completely stopped painting for myself mostly during this time.  Here are some of the miniatures that I did during that time.

The following picture was taken before I painted the face.

The following picture was a pretty good paint job that turned out to be a totally failed miniature.  After I put the clear coat protectant on in, it stayed sticky.  I don't know what happened other than there was some weird chemical reaction.  Years later and the thing is still sticky where the coating is still entact.

I am almost embarrassed the following two pictures.  These were micro machines that I repainted parts of them and then made them grungy with a little bit of shading.  I didn't paint the majority of each miniature, only modified the painting that was there.  I painted these for someone who was wanting to play X-Wing but refused to do the painting himself.  I did offer to show him how to do these simply.

The next miniatures were part of a whole group of miniatures that I did for a 10mm historical game.  These are the miniatures that I hated the most.  They turned out looking good, but I am farsighted and these hurt my eyes to paint.  I will not paint miniatures this small again.  I know that one is a pinkish/purple and green.  The person I was painted these for asked me to do more.  This was my response.  I told him I would not repaint it.  I didn't either.  Don't worry he was a friend and took it in stride.

The following were more commissions.

But during this time, I painted and crafted a few things for myself.  The first were statues I made out of dollar store plastic figures with medicine measurement cups.  My thoughts were that these statues could have many uses from cursed princesses to witches and beyond.  I am pretty proud of them.

I created this little hut out of an old ribbon role, cereal box cardboard, chop sticks, toilet paper rolls, foamcore board, popsicle sticks, a jump ring and a ton of glue, LOL.

Another commission.  So, this miniature didn't have clearly defined eyes.  I told the client that it would be best if I didn't try to paint eyes on it. But she insisted and told me the eye color, so here we are.  I did the best I could.  Now I tell my students not to try to paint eyes that are not there.  This is why. I used little microbeads to represent a magic spell.  I like the effect that it gave to this miniature.

This next one was for my favorite fairy (I'm looking at you Dim).  He picked the colors.  This model was fabulously flamboyant.  I wasn't finished at this point, I just took pictures of the progress, but never of the finished mini. I did that a lot.  I kept forgetting to take pictures of miniatures I was painting for people.

Next, I tried my hand at making my own miniature.  I used 3 different plastic skeletons to create this monstrosity, bwhahaha (and toilet paper, one bead for an eye and glue) I created this partial dragon skeleton as terrain or a possible zombie dragon.  I like the way it turned out.

And one cage for your torture chamber.  This was made out of a dollar store hair curler and a bunch of spear food picks.  I think it turned out great.  

The next miniature has a story behind it.  I do what I affectionately call "Paint and Play" days at my house from time to time.  My favorite fairy was at the house and he was making a girl beholder.  We were joking around calling her a sheholder.  He asked me to paint make up on it so I showed him out to do it, then we were joking that it needed eye lashes.  Well, being the crafty person I am, I happened to have some cheap dollar store eye lashes that I had to make dolls.  We made it happen.  It turned out so cute, that I decided to make on myself.  I sculpted lips on mine then painted her up.  I present "Diva, the Sheholder!!!"  LOL.  I love the way she turned out.  But beware, she will kill you if she doen't like the way you are dressed.  Of course the first thing I did was drop her on the floor and break the flight base.

The next is the spectator & gazers.  I decided to go pastels in honor of kaboodles from the 80's.  Yep you read that right, I chose the color based on kaboodles and the love the 80's had for pastels at one point.

I painted the next miniature with the intention of creating a video.  I wanted to make a "Paint with me" or "Paint Along" video where I gave instructions on what to do to get these results.  It never happened.  I would still like to make the video.  

Last but not least, doesn't every campaign need an evil alter?  Well, here is mine. I know its not exciting but it is what it is.  

I know that the pictures were not the best in the world.  I take pretty horrible pictures but I am getting better.  I've painted way more than I am showing here.  This is just all the pictures I have of my work.  Hope you were entertained at least a little bit.  I do plan to make some posts in the future on miniature painting including videos of other people showing instructional videos on painting miniatures.  I hope to get my own as well, but I need to learn video editing.  

I have been teaching miniature painting classes for the last 6 years.  I truly enjoy teaching how to paint miniatures. I have thought about going back and getting my teaching license so that I can teach art.  I have the background.  But for now, this is what I do.