Awhile ago I posted a picture of Vanja the fire queen from Reaper and about how that mini made me love to paint again. Well I figured it would only be fair to show you a pretty far along WIP. So without further ado…

I’m actually really excited with where this is going. The spear is going to be a dark silver and the wrap will be the dark red leather. The base I’m working on is a huge rock. I actually found it at work while planting hundreds of plants. I’m going to paint it like slate or maybe a bit darker and I’m not sure whether to add a lava pool at the bottom or sand. thoughts? But on the rock I’m thinking I might put some tribal paintings, like hand prints and smeared paint.

All in all, I’m looking forward to having the time to finish this beauty and display her proudly on my desk!

Now that mom has launched her painting videos, if you haven’t checked it out yet, shame on you! you can see it here. 

So, if you’ve ever wanted to get that “gaming family” feel, we’re the family to hang with!

 As for me. I’m sitting here reading Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (who is an INCREDIABLE author if I do say so myself, “Neverwhere” is a must read) and tweaking the website a bit.

A few things…

• never try to beat 350 points of cryx with 5 khador models…swarming isn’t fun
• Robert Kennedy was an amazing man and met an unfortunate end
• school starts very very soon, and I’m excited to learn braille
• I’ve mostly finished painting the Reaper mini I’ve been working on. It’s nice.

Other than that. I’m going to get back to tidying up this blog.

I did have a question though. If you had to pick one person, ONLY one. in recent history, who is the “Hero of the World?” I’ll post who I think it is later on in the week.

 and a LINK to vote for her. I really did enjoy her and all the challenges she involved.

PS – Water Effects are fun!

 lets recap on what i’ve been doing paint, life wise

Paint.
~ finished the little girl, pictures have yet to arrive on CMON
~ working on putting together my Khador Warmachine army.
                        * the old witch of Khador really is a witch to put together.
~I’ve fallen in absolute love with Reapers “New” Fire Giant Queen

Isn’t she just gorgous! really really really do i like her, shes really gotten me to remember exactly why i started painting. Everything about her just makes me really happy. I’m [      ] this close to emailing Werner Klocke and thanking him for rejuvinating my love for this hobby. And before anyone says anything, shes the “dwarf” of the giant world, proportions and all that.  and I absolutually love how shes a little chunky. so much.

I’m going to have her in a diorama where she has just won a battle with another giant (since in D&D she’s Evil) and the big spear is the victory booty, (its the only way i’ve thought to make sense of the extra large spear)

Life
~ taking a summer class on English as a Second Language for my eventual visual impairments teaching
~ thank the Good Lord I’m back home for the next 2 years. That makes me a very happy camper
~ I’ve been working outside with the family and currently have the most wicked farmers tan.
~ for the next two weeks i’ve got more homework and studying than i can shake a stick at

I really would like to see Ratatoille, Die Hard, Happy Feet, the DaVinci Code, BOBBY, and some chick flick to even it all out. but all that comes with time.

other than that, just kinda doing my thing. Hopefully my old witches superglue is dry now. seriously that mini is hell on a stick to put together.

 hit me with ideas and insite to what you think might me lacking in our community.

 for the few people who read my site (which isn’t many, i know ) Go see the new Pirates! Forget the critics…

About this thing we do on a weekly, if not daily basis. Painting. There was a post over on CMON about being a geek that made me think about why I enjoy being a geek and what is appealing.  Why do i paint miniatures? why do i play D&D? Why do i enjoy reading the books and books of GW fluff?

I can’t really boil it down to anything else besides “I like to.” Which doesn’t really seem to fit the bill when it comes to answering the ‘big questions’ of being an uber-geek (scored a 62% on that geek test thank you very much). I think I actually enjoy the identity that goes along with being a geek. I have somewhere where I “belong” (CMON, my local game store, the library, etc.) and I have a family where we can all connect via the games.

I think I’m also pretty artistic and i like to be able to use that outlet and figure out how to quasi-improve and become a better painter.
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On another quite different note

I’m currently working on The Banshees by Rackham.

^ thats not my work. just to let you know. thats a stock photo.  

their background story is just to intriguing to not post as well

The laws of the Kelt’s are without appeal : any adulteress must be beheaded by her husband. Notwithstanding all the love they may feel for them, very few betrayed husbands have had the courage to overcome their resentment and to break the laws of their people to let them live.
The Banshees are the corpses of these women with an unhappy destiny, returning from hell to torment their cowardly executioners. Their dreadful cry expresses the absolute horror of death without peace… What pardon may there be for those that disturb silence ?

At least i find it intriguing.

I will say the skin on the woman holding her head above her neck, sucks. I’ve filed most of the veins and all that off. because, being the Irish girl i am, I’d like to think that banshees are still decent looking after death. I’d think thats a decent trade-off. getting your head cut off for being an adulteress musta meant you were pretty enough to go screw around in the first place, might as well not get ugly as a spirit. I also shaved off the octopus suction cups, because, seriously? adulteresses don’t become octupi, all those worth their salt when it comes to banshee knowledge know that they become squid. (duh.) and that color flesh, does.not.work.
so basically I’m doing a “cute” re-haul on these two minis. we’ll see how that turns out.  

but my eventual plan is to put these two in a little diorama. I want them to be resting on “magic” which i hope to produce from plaster. I wanted to put the “magic” on their graves, maybe? It’s one of those, work on it as i paint type things.

My mama’s birthday is this Friday. Her blog can be found here 

Wish her a happy one, as the rest of my family goes merrily skipping to the store tonight to shop for goodies for my beloved mama!

I’ve started a links section on Miniature Companies and my theoretical plan is to add a companies link and then discuss it a bit here. Today is Rackham Miniatures.

 Rackham has several games that their miniatures are designed for, the two most prevalent being Confrontation and Rag’narok. However these gorgeous miniatures can stand on their own as art. It also helps that their artists that paint the store copies are absolutely incredible as well.

Most miniature artists know about Rackham miniatures, so I won’t go into the basic details but I will list some pros and cons, feel free to add some if you think of any.

 PROS
- fine detail
- slender proportions
- uniqueness
- bigger than usual (hooray for eyes!)
- full of character (major bonus points)

CONS
- frailty of small fiddly bits
- can’t really use for RPGs because of size difference (big monsters are still OK, but player characters are a stretch)
- some minis are a bit bizarre
- you feel intimidated because the in-house painters are so fantastical.

Here  is a link to their May 2007 new releases. i think the angels look pretty spiffy

I have a lot of favorites from this line, but I’d say these are up there on my favorites.

the Sylvan Animae, i own these and they’re b-eau-ti-ful!

So, Rackham is an incredible miniature company that I am so excited to see what they continue to produce.

ch-ch-check it out!

 Its a Reaper Miniatures Familiar sculpted by Werner Klocke. Tiny little bugger, but a lot of character *which scores mucho points with me

take a gander if you’d like!