In what is perhaps the quickest turnaround for miniatures for me, I received my Reaper Miniatures Bones 6 Kickstarter a few days ago, and then managed to paint all of the terrain in the Lost Tombs of Hakir expansion box. This is a desert themed expansion, more specifically Egyptian, more specifically a fantasy Egypt. It comes with lots of Egypt themed enemies, NPCs, and heroes. What I was really here for was the terrain, as I thought it would make a nice addition to my collection (hehe).
As always with Reaper Miniatures, you get what you pay for. They're cheap, so don't expect anything like hard plastic. But, I will saw that these were quite lovely. I had minimal work to do to clean it up, and I recently learned an additional step to fix warped miniatures. Originally, I was just heating them in warm water, bending them into place, and then running cold water over it, but I'd find that over time it would warp back into its original warped shape. This time around, I used a hairdryer to heat it, bent it into shape, ran cold water over it, and then promptly put it into the fridge for about 2 hours. The shape has set, and it's been about a week and they're still holding in the position I put them in.
Unlike the grey plastic from previous Bones Kickstarters, these came cast in an orange color. Since you don't have to prime them, that orange served as my basecoat, and I just drybrushed khaki, almond, and then pure white to get the sandstone look. I used a makeup brush, which made the drybrush look much smoother and less chalky and scratchy. I then lined in the masonry lines with Agrax Earthshade and filled in the hieroglyphics with a yellow wash.
The sand bothered me a little, as I wanted the structure to stand out from the ground. I tried a red sand and a purple sand to get a high contrast look to it, but I didn't really like it. I think the issue is that, even though it's fantasy and meant for D&D, it is obviously Egyptian. So your mind finds it weird when the Egyptian building doesn't look like it's in Egypt. So I went back to yellow sand and the little screaming voice in the back of my mind was satisfied.
One little piece of Dungeons & Lasers terrain did sneak in here as well. This obelisk is from one of the many stretch goal boxes, honestly I can't remember which. I found it in my bits box, and I thought hey this looks like it would match the vibe and so I threw it in with the rest. I basecoated it with an orange-yellow to match the original plastic of the rest, and I think I did a good enough job to get it to work.
I really liked this kit, and about the only complaint I have is that I would have loved if it came with 2, maybe 4 more pillars. That way you could make a courtyard of sorts. I'll have to keep an eye out to see if they ever sell them separately. Oh, and it's been almost all of October and this is the first thing I've made with any undead theme, so I'll count it for Spooktober. And if you can consider ruins as part of an apocalypse, then maybe Dave could count it for his Apocalypse Me event. Up to him though!
-The Space Dinosaur
The sandstone painting is very effective SD, sounds like you are getting to grips with resetting the plastic as well, you can always use the freezer, to speed up the process, or even freeze spray. I think you could call Egypt an apocalypse event, with the many plagues and curses they had.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave, and yes now I'm looking at all of my other Bones plastics and think it wouldn't be so bad to work with them. The freezer probably would work better, I just didn't have any room at the time of working on it! And excellent, that works for me.
DeleteExcellent looking Egyptian terrain! Good call on sand coloured sand, I'm with the little voice in your head but will stop now as that sounds weird?
ReplyDeleteBest Iain caveadsum1471
Thank you very much, and I get what you're saying haha!
DeleteThat is a quick turn around. Probably saved a lot of time bc you didn’t have to prime, but then again lost any gains while waffling about sand color. 😀
ReplyDeleteThe pieces look great. Nice job.
Ha I was thinking that myself, I did lose some time with the sand, but hey, experimenting is good.
DeleteTruly lovely and most interesting pieces. Really cool colour, they all look so natural!
ReplyDeleteThanks Suber, nice to know all the hemming and hawing got me somewhere haha!
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