This blog is about the world of gaming miniatures, as seen from my perspective. I've been collecting and painting for over 30 years now, and while my primary focus is miniatures for D&D, I also enjoy many other games that use minis, so we'll be covering those as well. Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year!

So 2014 is almost done and I'm totally ready to dive into 2015. The year ended on a bit of a high note for once, as I squeezed in a fun-filled FR campaign session (recap pending), my birthday, and I finished two giants and entered them in the Reaper Miniatures Forum's Year of The Giants painting contest. Whew!

You can see the two threads by following these links:

Reaper Giants

Non-Reaper Giants

My entries are under TollHouseGolem. The cyclops is just a very nice piece of old school lead. It was my first serious attempt at NMM, as I was going for an aged bronze look. The end product looks more like worn leather, to be honest. I don't think it is orange-y enough. Oh well, it still came out pretty nice overall, and I am pleased.









My Reaper entry is an Ettin by Jason Wiebe (DHL 02479). This is a super fun and super busy mini! The overall sculpt is very nice, and I really like the way the right head is thrown back - it gives the pose a little oomph in my opinion. And there are just so many freaking details, it really gave me fits. Piercings (both metallic and bone), a piggie, and a child's doll just add to the overall flavor of this beast. I missed a major mold line that ran up his left side, but oh well, this is for the gaming table and not a display case. And my friends think it is all that and a bag of chips.








So there you go, proof of finished minis! I have no expectations on how my entries will fare in the contest, because it was really more about finishing them and getting them entered than any potential prizes.

I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year and a great 2015. Thanks for stopping by this past year.

Tom

3 comments:

xredmenacex said...

Nice giants!

Luca Tempesta said...

good job with those minis!
happy new year to you!
bye

Allison M. said...

Random drive-by here... (via Menace Miniatures)

I really like your cyclops. He's got that old-school slightly goofy look that gives him a lot of charm. :) I've struggled with gold/brass/bronze NMM a lot too, and I think the key is contrast, nice dark brown lows and highlight up to tiny touches of white. With bronze, some greenish patina in the recesses can cue the viewer to understand what they're looking at, too. But on the other hand, this looks very good as leather armour so you may not want to change it.

And for what it's worth from an internet stranger, hang in there with the "real life matters" :)