Friday Rucht Hour: That is Not Dead, Which Can Eternal Lie….

The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!

- H.P. Lovecraft, Dagon 

You saw my preview of this model earlier. Well, it's finally done! When last you saw it, Cthulhu was mostly done except for his wings and his base. Now, the whole model is complete. It was tremendously fun to work on. I especially had fun working on the veins in Cthulhu's wings. Those were a nice touch. The Reaper Bones mins, at least the large ones, continue to be fun to work on. 

Here's the base that I've put him on, from Secret Weapons Miniatures. Interestingly, the only problem I had was figuring out where to put his feet! The whole base was just so cool, it felt bad to cover up any part of it. The whole thing was easy to paint. Just some dry brushing to get the details out. Dry brushing white onto the maggots was done so that they would appear distinct. Of course, the rune stone that Cthulhu is stepping off of was original with the model. Just had to saw it off of his original base. 

One more note - primer! It was advertised that you didn't need to primer your Reaper Bones minis…. I have now found that not to be exactly the case. The Bones plastic is flexible. So when it bends, paint which has dried will flake right off. The dry paint simply doesn't flex. 

You can see the result of this below. I'm going to definitely have to coat it to hopefully affix the paint to the plastic. The paint hasn't been flaking off of the rest of the mini, so I think you're only in danger on the flex-y parts. Anyhow, be warned! Primer your Reaper Bones unless you're in a hurry! 

Friday Rucht Hour: Cthulhu Awakens!

The painting of Reaper Bones minis continues!

I've painted about six to seven Bones minis already - and three of them are of large size or above. So far, I've got the giant and dragon that have both been posted here.

Right now, I'm working on Cthulhu. I have to share this story with you guys…

I got Cthulhu via trade with Mik. He got some trollbloods, I got the Elder God. No big deal. Well, our buddy Andy comes over to visit that night and takes a gander at the model. That's the white, unbased picture below. Well, once Andy saw my prize…he almost wet himself. He couldn't believe it. He literally did a walk around of the entire model on the table. You would have thought I had just gotten a motorcycle.

Guys, if you like painting minis like this, I can't recommend Cthulhu enough. He's really big. His pose his great - he's poised in mid-stride - and he's even on a neat base. He's stepping off of a massive rune stone, in case you were wondering.

Now, as cool as his base was…I had to make it even cooler. With my trusty Dremel, I sawed off the base of the Elder God, leaving only the really cool rune stone. He'll be mounted on that base filled with fungi and maggots that I posted about earlier.

Anyhow, you guys will be the first to see the final product!

P.S. Note how I didn't base the model before painting it? They said you don't need to base your Reaper Bones minis and they were right! Amazing!

Friday Rucht Hour: Reaper Bones II

Yep. I'm doing it.

As of this writing, I'm dropping some money for the Reaper Bones II Kickstarter. Why, do you ask? You'll note that the second round of Reaper Bones has fewer minis than the first offering. That is actually a draw for me. The first Reaper Bones featured so many miniatures that it was overwhelming to me. I couldn't imagine using many of the figures offered and I already have a large backlog of unpainted minis. (As does any hardcore enthusiast. Amirite?)

However, looking over this offering, it has fewer minis but I like almost all of them better. The minis they are offering are bigger, more dynamic, and more complex. Plus, they are offering a lot of the bigger minis. I am already drooling over some of the dragons, giants, and demons. My experience with the large-scale Bones minis has been quite positive. Aside from the difficulty I had slicing the Bones minis apart, they are a dream to assemble. Just stick the plastic pieces together and they stay together. You almost don't need glue.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But they stick together very well. For example, check out ol' Cthulhu here. This mini has not been glued together. Simply dry assembled.

But for people who only want some of the big minis, there is an option. Just put down a dollar and pick up some of the extras! This is the route I almost took. I probably would have taken that route, except that so many of the core minis were amazing.

One day left, people! What do you think?

Friday Rucht Hour: 120 mm Bases and Reaper Bones

I was recently down in Mik's neck of the woods and I made a trade for some Reaper Bones minis that he picked up as extras. I received a Cthulhu and a dragon for my trade. The Cthulhu "mini" was well worth it, of course. I use the term loosely, because it's pretty big. It's probably now the biggest mini that I own.

I'm sure many of you want to see that...but its time to appear here will come. Never worry. Right now, I want to talk bases. 120mm bases. I've always wanted to try one out. Here, I went and got two of them. I got my bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures. I came across my site a couple years ago, when I was looking for my ideas for my Cryx battle engine.

Anyhow, here's the base Cthulhu will eventually sit on.

It's all covered with fungal growth and giant maggots. It's going to be nasty and fun to paint. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. My dragon. 

So, here he is. Fantastic pose. As you can see, he already has an amazingly dynamic base. He's perched up on a statue's face. By the way? The figure you see above hasn't been glued together yet. I've fond that's a nice byproduct of the Reaper Bones plastic. It's very slightly "squishy" and so you can actually put pieces together without glue so that you get a sense of its shape and pose. It was very helpful to be able to pre-assemble the figure. 

Here's the 120mm base he finally got mounted upon. The whole process was quite interesting. First thing to note - Reaper Bones material is not that easy to cut with your Dremel. It's malleable, making it want to often bend or flex when it's being cut. But in the end, I cut it just the same. I kept the statue face, of course. 

And...below is the final product. I just used a piece of real wood to prop up the dragon a bit . I really like the result of this dragon on the super-large base. I probably need to add some flocking to the base before I'm completely done.

Friday Rucht Hour: Next Reaper Bones Project - The Giant!

As I told Mik, the only reason you'll ever paint minis is having a reason in the first place. It doesn't really matter how gorgeous a mini is or how cool it is - you really need to have a purpose to paint to get the job done.

And by purpose...I mean you have to have an excuse to play with your toys. Andy proposed that he and Mik set up a painting schedule for his Reaper bones minis. Maybe take up painting a whole team of minis at a time or something like that. That may work with some folks, but in my experience, it won't.

Now, if you know that you are playing a game in two weeks and you need four specific miniatures to play your game, that's a different story. When you take on a project like that, suddenly you have a deadline, and suddenly you find your motivation.

So, here's my latest completion. The Reaper Bones giant that was included in the Vampire set.

Here he is most of the way done. I haven't gotten in and done the fine details, yet. I've experimented here and use plain old cardboard to create my own base for him. He has a base that works fine...but it's just so-so. 

And here's the final product. I was okay with this base, but it's not anything to write home about. I did add a little flair to the base of the model. In my portion of the mini purchase, I got a bunch of skeletons. I cut them up and created a small pile of bones, a shield, and some skulls nearby the giant's feet. 

Next up on the Reaper Bones painting queue...a dragon!

Friday Rucht Hour: First Reaper Bones Painted!

So, as you know from my last post, I got my third of the Reaper Bones Kickstarter. As I said in my comments, the best motivator for me to paint is purpose. So, I quickly painted this guy up from use in an upcoming session of Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords. Everything about this guy was hastily done.

The base was constructed out of some spare Hirst molds pieces I got a few months ago from my buddy Nick. He imagined them being used a sort of pedestal. Instead, I have it as a pieces of rubble in giant skulls. There are plenty of giants in Rise of the Runelords, so the idea is that this bad guy is stepping across the skulls of his own minions. That piece of rock is actually a piece of mulch. 

The base isn't nearly as cool as it could have been had I had the time to really craft it. If I could do it over again, I would have shaved off pieces of the figures base, so it really looked like he was standing on the paved stones more. I might have also mixed in a lot of human-sized skulls with the giant skulls to make the base look more thematic. 

But again - time. Just didn't have it. However, you guys can see how well a Bones figure takes the paint. It takes it very well! There were no differences that I noticed in painting this from a metal figure, except, of course, heft of the model. 

All for now. 

Friday Rucht Hour: Reaper Bones Kickstarter Arrives!

Hey, this is a big, huge shout-out to Jared, for mailing me my third of the Reaper Bones Kickstarter!

Right when this thing kicked off Jared, Scott, and I when threesies on a $100 Reaper Bones pledge. I'm very glad that I did. I'm also very glad that I went in for just a third. I have so many unpainted minis anyway, I think I would have been buried under a flood had I gotten the whole shebang.

So, my quick review of the Reaper Bones product. You can catch a YouTube review below. There are dozens and dozens of YouTube reviews if you care to peruse them.

Just as the video states, the Bones minis are flexible, but the details on them are not quite as crisp and clean as those on a metal model. Nor do they have the same solid heft or fell of a metal model. But that's okay, considering the price point for a Bones model. Another nice perk - they don't need basing. Many people are painting their models without any base coating and getting a good result. Finally, when the models bend, the paint doesn't crack on them.

Many of the Bones minis I got in the mail were bent or drooping, but a quick dip into some scalding water and they were right as rain. Here are some of my favorites from my third of the kickstarter. You might be surprised at what you see.

Here's a random assortment below - these guys were up for being dipped in hot water, so I just grabbed a pic.

Here, we have a lot of dungeon dressing. Dungeon dressing was one of the number one things that I wanted from the whole deal. Normally, to get a set of just furniture and stuff, you need to be willing to dish out between 25 to 30 dollars. For 50 dollars, I got a whole bunch of other stuff combined. 

Besides dungeon dressing, I was really looking forwards to getting some civilian figures. There have been so many times I've wanted some civilian figures on the table for various reasons, but I usually have to use something like a poker chip. And I could never justify buying a bartender figure for somewhere in the vicinity of seven dollars. Well, no more! 

Here's a giant - he's going to feature prominently in my campaign, soon. Heh, heh. 

This vampire lord looks awesome! 

I was looking forwards to some sci-fi figures and I was not disappointed. 

Well, that's my show and tell of the day. Let me know if you guys have any questions about Bones. I'm sure Jared will be about as well. He can probably answer some questions as well. 

Last Call for Reaper: I Did My Part

A few hours ago I joined the other 14,000+ people and bought into Reaper's Bones Kickstarter at the "Vampire" level. Last count, not that I've bothered, was around 225 figs. From dungeon crawling spider to halfling, storm giant to griffon, and everything in between.


Since my last post they have added everything you see here in this post, no small haul whatsoever, and I have a hunch that maybe some more figs will make the final curtain call. Which is in seven hours mind you (10:30 am EST as I type).


The overwhelming responses to that post were nothing short of awesome, and I based a large part of my decision in the discussions therein. My wife also had a great point; all that other stuff I want (Eclipse, Super Dungeon Explore, etc.) aren't going anywhere, I can basically buy them anytime. This Reaper ship on the other hand is pulling anchor.


So a big thanks to everyone who answered the "what do y'all think?" call the other day. As I like to drone on and on about, it's this overall global gaming community that keeps the fires lit in the boiler room that is Mik's Minis!


All right, you've got seven hours to get in on this Moby Dickulous deal if you're so inclined. As it turns out, it really was too good to pass up on in my case. Until then, as always, enjoy!

Friday Rucht Hour: Speaking of Reaper

If you read Mik's post on the Reaper Bones project, then you'll see the same kickstarter that everyone who does minis seems to be talking about.

In honor of Reaper I thought I'd pull out another one of my Rise of the Runelords minis out for people to gander.

If you've been keeping up with the blog, you'll know that Wayne Reynolds is one of Mik's featured heroes. The only thing that could be better than Reynolds' signature artwork would be minis designed after his artwork. His goblins with over-sized heads and teeth, for example. Or these now-famous Kreeg ogres....

This iconic picture is from the Hook Mountain Massacre chapter of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. But it also appears here, in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. A better picture is featured below.

Well, check out the mini! What I love is that the Reaper Pathfinder metal mini mimicked the pose and meaty build of the ogre. It's not an exact reproduction, as you can see. The mini has more "realistic" proportions, but the essence was kept by the sculptor. The menacing pose was what sold me on the model. That, and I'm using my Pathfinder game to motivate me to paint different models for each chapter. Besides all of that, the mini was a lot of fun to paint as well.

In contrast, check out the plastic and painted version of this guy. He's a lot more meaty and a lot closer to the original Wayne Reynold's artwork. Thoughts? Which is the better sculpt?