The Miniature
I painted an Ogre from the out-of-production Dungeons & Dragons Chainmail miniatures line. Overall, it's a decent mini. The sculpting on it is of a slightly lesser quality than what the industry standard is today. However, for a good tabletop villain, it's going to be pretty darn nice on the gaming table.
Materials
For the most part, the mini is painted with Renaissance Ink paints. Editor in Chief Bill asked me to give them a try. (A review is located at the end of this article.)
Paints:
- Renaissance Ink
- Reaper Master Series (RMS)
- Tamiya white primer
Brushes:
- Winsor & Newton Series 7 Miniature — sizes 0 and 1
- Winsor & Newton Series 7 — sizes 0, 1 and 2
Palettes:
- Two flower palettes from Dick Blick Art Supply
Basing:
- Greenstuff
Miscellaneous:
- Top to a primer can
- Silly Putty (to affix the mini to the primer can top, so you don't handle the mini during painting)
- X-acto knife
- Superglue
- Toothbrush
- Dish Soap
Prep Work
I did the standard prep work on this mini. I filed down some really bad mold lines on the legs, in particular. Once I filed everything down, I washed the mini and put it aside.
I then went to sculpting the dungeon-tiled floor on the round base the mini came with. Once it was sculpted, I let it dry.
The mini and base dried overnight. I then glued them together using a standard game store superglue, and hit them with some Tamiya white primer.
Methods to the Madness!
The method to the madness on this mini is actually inspired by responses on the Waggas article I wrote. A couple of people seemed to have an issue with the amount of time I spent on the minis I painted, because it resulted in a higher payment than what they thought was fair. So, in order to provide some contrast, I decided to do a "quickie" mini. I have completed this mini in ten hours. That includes everything from prep work to sealing it up. I hope everyone can see the contrast in the level of painting provided.
Here is a comparison:
The Ogre is an example of what I can accomplish in 10 hours. This is from start to completely finished. In 10 hours, I was able to prep, prime, sculpt, paint and seal this mini.
Below is a picture of my Reaper Con Sci Fi Sophie, that won first place at Phoenix Con this year. I spent 25 hours on this mini alone.
You can see that having that extra 15 hours to work on a mini makes a huge difference. I was able to focus my efforts on being more detail-oriented and creating a spectacular piece!