Something very rare for me...

[Wappellious]

I almost never get a chance to paint a miniature these days. That sounds a little crazy, given that I spend around 16 hours a day painting miniatures nowadays. :-)

What I mean is that I never get the chance to pull out one of the many fun little Reaper figures I have collected and paint the darn thing. This is one of those times! I wanted to experiment some more with flow imnprover, mixing it with various colors, mediums, etc., to see what would happen.

It was very fun!

Here she is:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/312779

[freakinacage]

I like her

[marjedi]

Such great work! Love it.

Now off to get the gf to do a million sit ups!

[KruleBear]

Nice. The base work really adds to the simple figure. I assume this had the typical Reaper brocoli base. Did you completely cut her away fom the stock base or build the new base around it?

[Wappellious]

Thebroccoli base was very tiny, so for the sake of stability, I incorporated it in the base.

[boubi]

I believe that now so many people are on the way to get 200+ minis from Reaper, lots of experiments will be done like yours without the fear of throwing to much money in case of failure. And hopefully all the experiments will be as good as yours!
I really like what you've done.

[Wappellious]

I am massively bummed that I didn't find out about the Reaper kickstarter until yesterday... when it ended! Grrr. I have loved Reaper minis since 2000 when we started switching from 2D art to miniatures. I would have loved a big ole batch of Reaper figs coming my way...

If you look at my Tomb Kings army on the blog, you will see a veritable painting meth lab of experimentation. All sorts of new techniques for sculpting, converting painting... you name it! That's what the armies are for, aside from making opponents curl into the fetal position and cry for their mommies, of course.

[TrystanGST]

Glad to see you take a break from the armies! Seeing your version is making me want to paint mine! Well done.

[Wappellious]

He he... not much of a break from the armies, I'm afraid! There is a sculpting/assembly phase going on with both the Dark Eldar (tons of reaver jetbike conversions) and the Tomb Kings. I am also painting 2 LOTR armies for a tournament in November.

Yes, it's crazy!

[TheDrescher]

Looks awesome as usual Jim! I'm another one of those who didn't hear about the reaper kickstarter until the 11th hour, but I figure I've got about 100 sedition wars minis due in around the same time so I don't think I'll go wanting for something to paint. Did you find anything interesting from your latest round of experimentation?

[Wappellious]

The latest find was the flow improver. It was verfy helpful with freehand, but I also noticed that you can mix it with the GW base/foundation paints and make them flow as well or better than regular paint, which will be handy!

I also found out that it would be possible to do some fun coversions to the reaver jetbikes. Not only is that important from a hobby/painting standpoint, it is necessary to tell the various bikes apart from each other. Of each squad of 9 bikes, 4 of them have unique gear. Now that the shooting casualties come from the "closest" instead of whoever you want, I need to know which guys to keep safe!

The jetbikes needed bigger bladevanes in order to accommodate the blood and gore spilling out of the freshly sliced assault marines. That is going to be verfy fun!!

[AndyG]

That sure is a lovely mini and a great paint job.

Reaper minis used to be my main stay cheap reliable and great for my d&d group, their best sculpts are easily as good as GW or Rackham on a good day. Then also you get a run of total lumps as well. But for the price and range they're top notch IMHO.

[Wappellious]

Thanks! There are definitely some less than spectacular sculpts, just as you said :-) Some the sculptors are just not as talented. You wonder what some of the random blobs are supposed to represent!

The utility of the whole line is pretty amazing. I can find all sorts fo figures that would go very nicely with my Tomb Kings, and even as Dark Eldar Archon Court figures. The snake guys! And they are not Finecast! Yea!

[AndyG]

Snake guys with big ass falchions +8 sculpt. Not finecast = +100.

[Wappellious]

While I thought that Finecast could be a bit off when it first came out, I didn't expect it to be that bad, and that it would get dramatically worse over time, and not better! I can make better casts myself in my basement.

There are some larger versions of the snake guys from Reaper that I had never seen before until the other day. If I don't use them as parts of my Tomb Kings army, they could be very helpful as terrain, or as part of some kind of campaign, etc.

[supervike]

Holy crap, that is an amazing looking mini! I take it you liked the flow improver then?

[Wappellious]

Thanks! Yes, I was quite surprised at how much I liked that medium!

I had been shying away from it for a few reasons, primarily because it has a tendency to make paints dry faster, thus counteracting the glaze medium I am always putting in my paint mixes. This was not really the case. If I covered the paints, it stayed wet for quite a while!

I assumed that flow improver would make freehand a bit easier (especially with a brush that might be geting past its prime), and that was certainly true. By this I mean freehand in those hard to reach curves, etc. That was great.

I was amazed at how well it worked with the GW base/foundation paints. I used them on an Imperial Fists Apothecary (he's up on the blog), and the Tausept Ochre flowed very nicely with that improver.

For those of you familiar with my Tomb Kings army project, you know how much I have been working with the Fluorescent paints. They can be very thick at first, and Flow Improver is much more effective at thinning those down than water, that's for sure!

[Rofen]

Interesting colors!

[KruleBear]

What particular brand of flow improver did you use?

[Wappellious]

This is the Reaper flow improver. I think my wife uses the Vallejo, so I will have to ask her :-)

I have a Dark Eldar project in the works now where this flow improver is going to be vital. That will all play out on the blog...