Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Behold!

Presenting: The Eye Tyrant; a.k.a. The Sphere of Many Eyes, a.k.a. The Beholder!

This figure depicting the classic D&D monster is from the Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures line by WizKids.

My wife purchased this casting and asked me to paint it for her to take to the office, where it will sit next to the giant I painted for her last year.

I was again very flattered that she asked me to paint a mini for her. Although she's not the gamer I am, she does appreciate my creativity and encourage me to pursue my hobby.


For this minature, I primed it black, then did a lot of drybrushing various shades of color-shifting paint from the craft store (mainly Blue Flash and Purple Flash, using Red Flash, White Flash, and Yellow Flash for the eyeballs. I also used some Army Painter Speed Paints around the mouth and tongue.

This model does come with six of its eyes sculpted onto the main body, and you have the option of adding plain eyestalks or eyestalks shooting magical beams (my spouse chose the former).


Here's a top-down view in case you're curious.

And the figure is very large when compared to human-sized minis; making for a terrifying opponent in the dark lower levels of the dungeon.


Or, in this case, menacing the other miniature next to my wife's work computer. Either way, I enjoyed painting it!

Monday, June 2, 2025

Clanmech binary

Some more battlemechs, this time from the Clan era. As an old-school Battletech player, I'm not much of a fan of the Clan Invasion storyline, but between the Alpha Strike boxed set, some Salvage Box purchases, and a couple of donations, I have amassed 10 of these miniatures. First is the Clan star that was included in the AS box (l-r): NovaPouncerFire MothWarhawkTimberwolf/Madcat.

Painting was straightforward, if a little messy. I painted the base color with a light tan Krylon spray paint + primer, then used an old toothbrush to spatter various maroon, orange and yellow craft paints onto all of these at once. I then brushed over some Army painter strong tone, picked out the cockpit windows with pearlescent white, painted the bases, varnished them, and called it a day.

The second star came from two blind purchases, a gift of two extra mechs, and the Blood Asp salvage box (l-r): NovaHuntsmanLinebackerWarhawkBlood Asp.


For this unit, I hit them all with a light blue paint + primer, splattered various greens and yellow with the toothbrush, and covered them with green tone before covering the bases in gray and detailing the cockpits, then finishing the bases and clearcoating.


I like this painting technique, although it does take a while to notice whether any paint is actually landing on the minis, and it isn't as fast as you might think. But combine the haphazard drops of color to emulate a random camouflage pattern with the way the wash picks out the details on these castings, and it has an overall pleasing effect. Has anyone else tried something like this on their wargaming minis?