Here's the 2016 Spring Exchange Chatter Thread!
 
If you haven't already, please go visit the Official Thread to get the questionnaire.

We can discuss what we are doing, get some ideas of things to do from each other, post some teaser pics of what we are doing, even post final pics of what we get or links to show-off.

Ok, so I had to move this one to the front of my desk even though I'm working on too many other things right now.  This is Dark Sword's new bust: Portrait of a Young Tiefling based on the T. Diterlizzi painting, sculpted by T. Meier.  I loves it!!

So, I recently took a class on painting realistic skin, and I thought I could use the practice.  I grabbed a photo online of Mila Kunis to use as my model, because I wanted to do a bronzed skin.  My theory here is to use a red- yellow skin.  I'll contrast that with green.  I'll also incorporate cream, black and gold.  Overall, I'll keep the palette fairly subdued, but not as pastel as the original painting.

Here we go!

First: Mila.  Thanks for posing, Ma'am!

So, hints of red, brown and gold in the skin.  I may go a bit yellower.  I was looking for a good olive and not having much luck.

here we are base coated with bronzed skin.  I went through my goldeny colors and liked this one best.  I went ahead and attached her to the column to have a handle, but I'm waiting to attach the kitty and the horns until I get some of the main bust done.

added some pumpkin orange.  I think I may just glaze with it later.  But it gives me a sense of where I want to go with the skin.

ok, I mixed some stuff.  Mostly spattered crimson, pumpkin orange and a bit of walnut brown.  Might have added a hint of carnage red, but as I went on, I decided I liked the spattered crimson better.  I'll be doing the horns in the reddish color. I don't fret too much about neat blending at this stage.  i probably could, but I like to paint quick, and I know I'll just go back over it with a dozen glazed layers, so... speed!

added the highlights with linen white mixed with the bronzed skin.  note my Mila photo has frontal lighting, so I'm putting the highlights in the front.  I want to build them up in geometric shapes more or less.

At this point I usually get tired of blending and try to knock the eyes out.  In a smaller mini, I paint my eyes first and then work outwards, but for this I like to get a sense of the skin.  Since the skin will have a lot of red shadows, I'm going to change poor Mila's eyes to green.  here's a quick step-by-step of the eyes.

lined them in walnut brown.  Painted the sclera (whites) with twilight blue.  scelera often have a bluish tinge.  unless the mini is jaundiced... 

moving on with shading of the sclera with aircraft gray.  Got impatient here and used thicker paint.  had to paint over it.  Sigh.

used palomino gold to start on the iris.  I wanted a slightly of-center gaze.

added IMEF oilive.  

skipped through a few steps, sorry.  I get caught up sometimes.  Anyway- I painted a pupil with pure black, added some pure white dots, and touched up the eyes a bit.  I'll go back and blend the sclera later, but it gives her some soul at least. I did add a bit of lined white next to the iris to lighten up the sclera. 

I went back and did some blending.  Added a base coat to the eyebrow.  The lips I mixed using bronzed skin, spattered crimson and some linen white.  Note- the upper lip is darker since it slopes back.  the lower bulges out, so tends to catch the light.

And I added in the IMEF olive to get a sense of the color balance.  The nice thing about this color scheme is I can use many of the same colors to highlight and shadow my cloth/kitty/hair.

This took about 3.5 hrs.  i still have a lot of blending to do, But I'm happy with the skin tone.

pretty close.  I need to glaze in some of my orange and pink up the cheeks, but that will be tomorrow.  Now, margarita time!

I have just completed my second mini from Infamy's "the Big Smoke" kickstarter and I must say this one was a bit of a challenge for me.  I am not used to handling the resin miniatures and I kept breaking off little pieces as I was handling the big guy!  There are a lot of small fragile pieces on this one!

I based him on a post industrial ruin as per the "Big Smoke" setting for the game from Infamy.   

Enjoy and feel free to comment or through things

Thanks for looking

Seems that everyone is getting into this game, my group and I included.  We have only read the books at this point, gathered our rough warbands and talked a bit about what we wanted to do with the game.

I grabbed a bunch of terrain from 4Ground, awesome stuff, pre-painted, fairly easily assembled, it came in a pretty large box, happy times.

A good amount of buildings.

Vehicles too.

I thought we needed surfaces to play on as well so I picked up two play mats from Deep Cut Studios.  I went with the mouse pad material and it is pretty fantastic.  Doesn't move, great color and detail AND pretty importantly it can get rolled up to save a little space around here.

More to come as I get all this assembled and add a little paint.

Bryan's thread is fun, so I totally stole the idea. And anyway, as the Official Forum Mascot it seemed a good way for people to get to know me better. And see what cannot be unseen, learn what cannot be unlearned.

I think somebody suggested this long ago, even.

Anyway, have at it. (answers may be "based on a troo story")

Ok,  So I've noticed that when I don't maintain one of these WIP thingies I tend to be a worse procrastinator than I normally am.  So if you haven't received your exchange mini and still want to be surprised, please don't look behind the spoiler tags.

Feel free to post spoiler C&C behind spoiler tag.  Ub3r has been giving me great advice, but I haven't felt the accountability since not using a WIP.

So i've been having a very difficult few months, that has reduced my interaction on the forums even further than I've already been reduced...

Namely, I've been dealing with health issues from reoccurring colds, to a un-diagnosed lump on my left hip I'm still trying to get identified and treated.

My step-father is the biggest issue that I could really use some thoughts and prayers on. He had surgery months ago, and since then has been dealing with chronic pain. It hurts him to swallow, to drink/eat, to talk, to do anything. He's lost 70 pounds since January and barely eats anything, and he spends most of his day curled in his chair in pain, hardly moving or talking and it kills me to see him like this and knowing I can do nothing. He has a second opinion doctor that he won't be able to see until May, and I hate to think of what a month more of this is going to do to him in the meantime.

On top of that, we're looking to move houses and so that added stress isn't helping me at all, namely due to there being so little available right now. And storm season is starting up, so tornadoes are going to be at threat for the next few months as well.

I dunno, it helps to just vent things here a bit. But if you've been wondering where I've been, this is what I've been doing. Hardly done any drawing or painting.

I need to finish  my Spring exchange, then i'll probably stop participating in exchanges for a while until things look better for me.

I picked up a bones mini the other day and I made a few mistakes.  I treated it like a lead mini and just primed it and now it is shinny and sticky.  I know now you need to just wash then paint.  But I was going to do my usually soak with Castrol Super Clean (works great to 40k stuff) but then I thought I ask here.

What is the best way to strip the primer off a bones mini?  Will Castrol Super Clean melt it?

Thanks
Jon

This is the current thread for Bones minis we would like to see.
 
* As the compiler of the data in the thread, I have a request, please don't spend a lot of posts on off topic chatter in this thread, it makes my compiling harder.
 
* it would make compiling this into a list much. much easier if your post included a brief list of your request at the beginning and then you follow with the paragraphs of text you wish to explain your requests. When clear items are not easily found, they may not make the list that gets forwarded.
 
* Warlord Game expansions that is requests for specific models for Warlord are encouraged to be made in the Warlord Forums. Warlord Models are part of Game Development and not part of Fantasy Line Development.

Off Topic Chatter and general sillyness will be removed.

thank you.

This has been a while in the making, going back to Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets) when I was 3 or 4....
Anyway, I've invested "a bit" in "a couple" of big stompy robot kickstarters over the last few years.

Over the last year a few parts of a couple of them have arrived, and recently I've had the urge to get started on painting some of them.

Here are a few of the bots to paint.  You see the early bird Ace from the Bones CAV kickstarter (in white), and the Bonus add-ons to the Wave 1 portion of the Palladium Robotech RPG Tactics kickstarter (in grey (Zentraedi) and brown/beige (UEDF)).

I've also get Heavy Gear Blitz coming at some point.

Oh and I do have the Oathsworn robots too...hmmm

And I wouldn't be surprised if there are some others I've completely forgotten about.

Oh, like the limited edition convention Robotech figs coming.....

So as you can see, there are a few very different manufacturing techniques here (Bones, hard plastic, resin and metal so far), and ,from what I've looked at, painting bots is a bit different, so I'm going to go through the process and see how they come out.

As I'm currently painting some bugbears and working on my fall exchange, my first steps with these will be assembling so regult battle pods and watching videos on painting bots.

If anyone has any links on bot painting or suggestions on assembling these Robotech (like superglue vs plastic glue...) please feel free to post here.

I'm also undecided on the realistic vs cartoony painting of the robotech stuff....thoughts?

I've mentioned on here before that my other main hobby is marshaling for motorsports.  For those unfamiliar, marshals are volunteers who go out to race tracks every weekend and try to keep everyone safe by manning posts and waving flags at the drivers to inform them of assorted things, as well as reporting issues to race control, and doing such fun things as picking up parts of cars/bikes on track, putting out vehicles on fire, assisting the rescue guys when they are dealing with injuries, and a whole mess of other things. It's very enjoyable and satisfying.

So I've been marshaling for 6 or 7 or 8 years now, and I've been going to Montreal to work the Formula 1 the last 2 years, with my third coming up in June.  For Montreal I'm part of a team of marshals known as Team MISFITS and our "mascot" is a flying monkey.

The mascot came out of an incident involving nearly the entire field of a Star Mazda support race in 2006 that our team "caught".  As seen here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRXKt1G5fec.  At some point (it was before my time) a reference was made to the "flying monkeys" and the rest is history.

This marks the 10th anniversary of that event, and as I'm always looking for ways to combine my hobbies, I've decided to paint up 50316: Wild West Wizard of Oz Winged Monkey, mount it on a scale rotor (the Star Mazda's ran rotary engines) and give it to our team captain. I plan to paint it up as if it were made from parts from the assorted cars involved in the incident (shame they didn't have 1080p back then.....).

So far I'm just at figure prep but I wanted to get the "back story" post done.

So, I had this Golem that I was painting up in the 'messing about' thread of mine... 

And I messed about... and dropped it! Straight into my palette... And then it bounced off and landed on the floor... carpeted floor...  

So, today I gave it the heave ho, and soaked it in nail-polish remover and started over.

First I used liner. 

Brown on the skirt/kilt/whatever, then grey on the rest. About a 6drop liner/1 drop water mix on both.

Frankly, it doesn't look half bad... Give it red eyes and a dip in varnish, and call it 'Tabletop quality'...

As if I could ever do something that sensible...

The skirt got a treatment of MSP 9001 Red Brick, the body got AP Wolf Grey, and the belt and bracelets got a rather uneven coat of AP Lava Orange.

Some MSP Pearl White got added for eyes and Belt buckle. Belt and bracelets got some MSP Tarnished Brass.

More Tarnished Brass got added, I cleaned up edges and slip ups with more Red Brick and Wolf Grey.

And eyes and belt buckle got a bit of Tamiya Clear Orange. (That stuff STINKS!) 

The second layer of Tarnished Brass was thinned with Vallejo Thinner Medium. And yeah, I think I will stay away from thinning metallics with water from now on. The Thinner made for a much more even coating. 

The plan now is to dry-brush on some MSP Concrete Grey, possibly add some verdigris to the brass, varnish(mostly with matte varnish) and figuring out how the base should look. 

The main reason it's photographed from the front is that less mold lines are visible, then. This is mostly a painting exercise and to test out stuff. Also, this is a Golem that will look as if he was made of concrete. The mold lines may be intentional... Or that's what I would claim... 

Thought up this thread as a result of others talking about their past D&D (or other TTRPG/RPG) characters and figured it'd be fun to share names, races, classes, personalities. Then others can borrow your ideas for these characters in their games and have more flavor added to their NPCs and whatnot.

• Malen Isnell - Human Shoanti Barbarian very large, quiet, soft spoken, shy.
• Tileon Gregom - Halfling Sage/Writer, companion to Malen who was saved by Malen a few years ago and now writes about his adventures.
• Fijit - Gnome summoner (in pathfinder), always refers to herself in the 3rd person, has a summoned Eidolon named "Squeakers" which is a big winged wolf.

Will add a few more to this post later. Please feel free to add as many as you like!

So I got an email from Capital One this morning about my card being used and their fraud detection going off on the use. There were multiple purchases to the Windows Store made and the biggest was $497 (XBOX One and accessories maybe?) but they canceled it since their fraud detection picked up on something. 

They canceled that card and are sending another but the plot thickens.  I mentioned it on FB and someone I have met through Reaper made a reply about the same thing happening to them today.

I was curious to see if anyone else here had this happen to them today or in the past couple days.  It was strange enough that it made me wonder if something was not compromised with some payment processing place that has been used for something done at Reaper.  It could even be from a vendor at ReaperCon last year.

Now I am not saying this is the case but wanted to see if anyone else has had this happen recently and try to help me narrow down where my card was compromised.  It is the first time it happened to me so has me going hmmm.

* Not Work Related Questions only please.

Good questions might even earn your House points (remember the houses? That's totally a thing we made up).

Bear in mind I generally dislike "Favorite X" type of questions, but would be ok with "Top 3" style questions, and in fact, will regard any question asking me my favorite X to be that you really meant my Top 3.

There was a thread about this previously, and it was a ton of fun, so ask away!

Fynch Brassfrog, Gnome Bard (03107).  Still need to seal him, but otherwise all done :)

Hello, Everyone.

I have recently begun using Happy Seppeku stamps to create some basic bases.

I have 3 different materials available to use. I am supplying links to the exact products because I know some of these have similar names, etc.

Magic Sculp

Milliput

Reaper Green Stuff

I basically need someone more familiar with these products to "check my math" if you will, as my "reaserch" leads me to believe that:

Magic Sculp is water soluable, so it can be smoothed out a little easier, however, may lack fine details.

Milliput is effectively a cheaper version of greenstuff, producing similar results.

Green Stuff will create the highest caliber of detail.

As I understand it, the Magic Sculp will work fine for an entire base, the Milliput or Green stuff will work well for "accents," gap filling should be green stuff.

Please, post your thoughts and opinions here, and thanks, in advance!

Welcome to the 2016 Summer Miniature Exchange!  This is the thread for coordinator announcements, questions, letting people know that packages have be mailed or received, and other "official"-ish stuff.  There will be a separate chatter thread where you can talk, get suggestions, and show off the awesome mini that your partner sent you.
 
If you've never done an exchange before, how it works is like this: Everyone who is interested PMs me with the questionnaire below filled out (please don't just send an old one, as the questions may have changed). I then match you with a person whom you will paint a mini for, and a second person whom you will receive a painted mini from (sometimes it's the same person). You have until the deadline to send your mini out (please try really hard to do this, though we understand if sometime life gets in the way). That's pretty much it, feel free to PM me with questions.

The organizers will do our best to keep things running smoothly, and we ask that everyone keep us up to date with your progress on a regular basis.  You can send a PM or post in the chatter thread, even just a "I'm still procrastinating" message is helpful to know you haven't forgotten or disappeared.
 
For this exchange, we're moving to three months of painting time.  This should be more than enough time for even the slowest or busiest painter - get started early so you don't keep your partner waiting.  Signups will run from May 15th to May 25th, with assignments going around June 1st.  Miniatures should be mailed by August 31st.

How does it work?  (tl;dr version)

• Fill out the questionnaire below and send it to me via PM.
• Paint your partner a mini and mail it to them by August 31st.
• This thread is for news and updates only. Use the chatter thread for random conversations.

Full Rules

• Reaper minis are the focus. If you want to paint more than one miniature, you may do so. If you wish to include other gifts for your recipient, you may do so, but please keep them small. There is no hard and fast rule, but keeping the value less than the price of a single miniature is a good rule of thumb. The focus of the exchange should be a Reaper product.
• Fill out the questionnaire below and send it to me via PM. Please fill out the current version of the questionnaire, as some of the questions may have changed.
• Please don't contact your partner unless they have listed themselves as okay with contact. I've included it on the questionnaire, so you'll know who wants to keep it secret and who doesn't.
• Try really hard to get your miniature out by the deadline. Let an organizer know if you are going to be late.
• This thread is for official business/discussion only. That includes stuff like questions for me, or updates about sending and receiving packages, but discussions about what you're painting or how awesome the mini you received was should go in the chatter thread.
• If you are mailing internationally and plan to send more than just miniatures/paint, you must contact your recipient to get any "bonus items" approved. We don't want any trouble with customs.  For example, plant matter or powders can cause a lot of trouble.
• The organizers (fanguad, SGHawkins09) can help facilitate any anonymous conversations you want to have with your partner.
• Have fun!

Deadline
The deadline to mail out miniatures for this exchange will be three months from when assignments are sent out, on August 31st.
 
Assignments Deadline
The organizers will send the assignments out in about two weeks (June 1st).  Please let me know if you're interested by the 25th.  I can't make any guarantees if you're late, but I will try to make arrangements.
 
Exchange Assistant
SGHawkins09 will be helping me run this exchange.  She will coordinate and communicate with approximately half the participants.  You can contact either of us if you have any questions or issues.

 
2016 Summer Exchange Questionnaire
 
-Mailing Information-
Name:
Address:

-Miniature Information: Outbound-
What can you paint?

What do you like painting the most?

-Miniature Information: Inbound-
What do you want to receive?
What DON'T you want to receive?
What material do you want to receive?
Do you have a particular color scheme in mind?
What style of basing would you prefer?
Please give your partner some inspiration, especially if you have very few preferences above.

-Personal Information-
Will you ship internationally?
Would you be willing to have multiple exchange partners?
Would you like to know who is painting for you before they start painting?
Would you like your partner to know who is painting for them before you start painting?
Is there anybody you would prefer not to paint for?  (please include why)

-Special Requests-
For the organizer, your painter, or your recipient:
 
 
2016 Summer Exchange Questionnaire - Examples and Notes
 
-Mailing Information-
Name:         Fanguad Forumguy
Address:    1234 Liberty Dr.
                  Boston, MA 12345
                  USA
Notes: Remember to include your zip code and country.  Please format this correctly for your county in case you have an international partner.
 
-Miniature Information: Outbound-
What can you paint?  Fantasy PCs or monsters
Examples: fantasy, sci-fi, monsters, PCs, women, undead, demons, etc

What do you like painting the most? bugbears and orcs

Notes: if possible, the organizers will try to match you up with someone who wants this thing, but if we can't we'll fall back to what you "can" paint

-Miniature Information: Inbound-
What do you want to receive?  Fantasy enemies for my players to fight!  Monsters or human(ish) are both fine.
Examples: mouslings, necromancers, warriors, dual-wielders, etc
What DON'T you want to receive?  No nudity please.  Also, I have plenty of goblins so I don’t need more.
Examples: gross, nudity, undead, kobolds, animals, etc
What material do you want to receive?  I’m fine with any material
Notes: Reaper miniatures come in Bones, resin and metal
Do you have a particular color scheme in mind?  No preference.
Notes: If you’re asking for a miniature to be used in army, you can ask your partner to match the colors.
What style of basing would you prefer? Plain or basic - I will use these miniatures in my PFRPG games.
Examples: round or square preference? Unbased, plain base (simple black base), basic base (standard sized base with some scenic elements), or scenic base (fancy base not really suitable for gaming)
Please give your partner some inspiration, especially if you have very few preferences above.
I’m starting the PFRPG Adventure Path “Jade Regent” soon.  Try painting non-human skin tones.  My favorite color is blue.  “Spring has sprung!”
Notes: Consider this a non-binding word of inspiration for your partner.  If they’re stuck and can’t figure out what to paint, maybe this will help them.  No need to repeat your preferences above.  You partner may ignore this question if they already have an idea from the your previously answered questions.
Examples: Are there any books or movies you’ve enjoyed recently?  Is there a challenge or technique you’d like your partner to try?  How about some song lyrics or a quote from a book?

-Personal Information-
Will you ship internationally? Yes
Notes: Be aware that postage costs will be higher than domestic postage.  If you mail internationally, you will need permission from your partner to include other gift items so that we don’t run afoul of customs.  Most participants in these exchanges are located in the USA.
Would you be willing to have multiple exchange partners? Yes, I love painting!
Notes: If yes, specify if there is a limit (though it is unlikely we'll ask you to do more than 2)
Would you like to know who is painting for you? No
Examples: Yes, No, No Preference
Notes: If you say yes, your preference will be communicated to your partner.  It will be up to them to contact you.
Would you like your partner to know who is painting for them? No
Examples: Yes, No, No Preference
Notes: You can contact them directly to work out details or ask for advice.  We will attempt to match people with similar preferences, but can’t guarantee this is the case.
Is there anybody you would prefer not to paint for?  (please include why)    I painted for johndoe123 in the last miniature exchange.
Notes:  If you like to paint for a variety of different people, you can list those you’ve painted for in the past.  We will do our best to pair you with someone new.  Another situation is that you know certain people in real life, and would prefer to paint for someone you don’t know.
 
-Special Requests-
For the organizer, your painter, or your recipient:
 

I'm not sure what company makes this mini.  I no longer have the blister pack it came in.  If anyone does, please feel free to comment on it.  I did modify it: originally there was just a spear and I changed it to a halberd. 

Comments and suggestions welcome.