20 LEAGUES UNDER MY BELT - REPEAER BONES DEEP ONES

 

Not exactly a league's worth of minis but they could be if you built them on the tougher side of how Deep Ones are portrayed in literature and RPGs. These are the Deep One minis from one of the Early Reaper Bones runs. they are still done in the original soft white stuff and will really mess up your paints if you don't wash them properly - a mistake I made. 

I based coated these in black over which I did a drybrush of white. Over this I worked with Speed Paints and let them do their thing. To this I added a Strong Tone wash. This wash ended up making their bellies a bit too dark so I went in with a white and stiples it in, leaving a good amount of the wash still visible to give them that mottled, dirty but pale look. The eyes were finished with white paint to give them eerie, mily eyes inspired by Golem from the Rankin and Bass Hobbit animations.

For the basing I used a custom ground text paste, made from a combination of Mod Podge, brown paint, tea leaves and grout mix. Over this I applied some static grass - loose and not with an applicator, and a few tufts with a sprinking of tea leaves. This was seled with PVA and isopropyl alcohol. This left a pretyt natural looking, mucky, marshy ground effect. 

I really like these figures and even though there are only three poses of them in the range they are suitable generic enough in their poses to allow for them to be bought in multiples. Add to this the inconsistent way in which Deep Ones and their hybrids are supposed to appear and you could easily mix in models from other manufacturers without much issue. 

I also have a Deep One Priest from the same range, all painted up in a matching style but with Dep One gold.

20 Leagues Under My Belt - The Indomitable Thag

In the jungle, something stirred - first just a rumble, then a thunder. Suddenly, the trees seemed to burst from within sending foliage and splintered wood flying in a shower of organic shrapnel. Beasts cried out, whooping and howling their dismay as they fled in every direction and into the air. What burst from the trees left us stunned. 

Our terror seized us, holding us in an icy grip, even as we clutched our rifles much to the detriment of our porters. The towering, scaly colossus, allowed them no quarter, tossing them about with wide sweeps of the tree trunk it now wielded as a weapon. Their rag doll bodies sailed in great arcs as the heavy feet of the mammoth denizen of this deep, hidden land lay eyes on us and set us as its next victims...

Thag is a monstrosity that haunts the deep, fern-carpeted jungles of the primordial Hollow Earth. He preys on all who would follow upon his terror, wearing their bones and gorging on their flesh. He will represent another potential Terror in my Pulp Alley games set in the lost world of my Hollow Earth.

He began life as a Reaper Bones miniature, a Swamp Troll I believe. I had no need for such a miniature and as I was still in the sculpting mood after finishing the Devourer in the Dark, I was inspired by the plates on his back and a conversation with Alex Bates of Forge of Ice to convert him into a sort of humanoid stegosaurus. The name Thag was suggested by Alex, who informed me that the spiked tail of a stegosaurus was called a "thagomizer", a term I had not heard before. Thag it was.

The named fit my idea for the creature who I decided would hail back to the old Marvel Monsters. This collection of giant fiends were always depicted in bright colors with almost unapologetic, goofy monstrosity. Thag would be colored around an orange pallet. I added a touch of accent by giving him a blue tongue and mouth that was inspired  by a Skink lizard.

Look at the Bones!

Reaper Bones II Kickstarter Enters its Final Day.

With just 30 hours remaining at the time of this posting, Reaper's newest Kickstarter campaign is proving to be a great success. While not the out of control train that the first one was, this second Kickstarter is more thoughtful, viable and still every bit as lovely.


For those of your have been holding off, waiting to see what comes out, now is the time to pitch in. Not only will you make sure to get your hands on what is already there, but the added pledge funds will only make this monster grow. New stretch goals are being unlocked all the time, both in the Core Set and the three Core Expansions that have been opened up (Core Expansion One did reach it's final goal).

So if you haven't pledged in yet but are planning to, or you haven't updated your pledge to include those add-ons you wanted, get on and do so. They have a great pledge manager that makes it easy to figure it all out.

Let's kick this thing into over drive on this last day!!!

Thanks,

-Eli

Reaper Bones II Kickstarter!

I am sure many of you have already heard, but I figured it was worth getting the news out as much as I could. Reaper Miniatures has released a new Kickstarter that continued the juggernaut that is their Bones range.

I should start by saying that the initial core set of figures is a generous lineup of useful Fantasy and Pulp denizens. They have also color-coded their release art so that you can easily recognize what is associated with what -

• Purple = Core Set. 
• Orange = Add-Ons. 
• Gold = Core Set Expansion Set #1

The image below shows the current (4:14 PM 10/1/2013) lineup including expansion unlocked from stretch goals.

Now, if you made it to the bottom of the image, there is more news. This Kickstarter is a much simpler approach than their first Bones was, having taken a queue from some of their experiences there. There is really only two ways to enter in - $1 and $100. This means you can jump in just for the add-ons ($1) or ride the wave of freebies with the Core Set ($100). 

In addition to this though, a second stream of stretches has been introduced with Core Expansion Set #1. What this does is allow you to add-on $50 to your Core Set pledge and get a large group of add-on minis that will also expand as the campaign grows. You can still add-on individual add-on sets as well, but this allows Reaper to be generous without breaking the bank.

I think they are handling this really well so far. The growth has been mind-boggling and the speed of updates is indeed the product of many posts ready to go at a moment's notice with so poor team riding keyboards and gulping Red Bull to make sure it all goes smooth.

I'm in for $150 so far.

Let's keep the fun rolling!!!

-Eli