Category Archives: Repaints

Dwarvember Week Three

We’re past the halfway mark for Dwarvember, and this week has some of the best submissions yet. Let’s dive right in with this awesome dwarf piper conversion by TMP’s Balin Shortstuff!

I’ve said previously that being a dwarf and a piper pretty much make a miniature the best thing it can be, and I stand by it. (Click that link to see my pre-Dwarvember Bob Olley dwarf piper, if so inclined). Balin couldn’t recall the manufacturer of this figure, but I wish we could get a shot of what it looked like before the conversion. Well done!

Returning again is TMP’s 144artist, with two Mantic Warsmiths:

My favorite is the blond warsmith on the bottom. Great base work too! Although I painted up some Mantic dwarfs from Kings of War a while back, I have yet to play any of their games. Love the look of the figures though. Thanks again, 144artist!

Black Cavalier returns for Week 3 with two more dwarfs. First up, a Chaos Dwarf mortar crewman. Love the fangs on the old Citadel Chaos Dwarfs.

And another Reaper dwarf: Freja Fangbreaker. Personally, I don’t have many female dwarf miniatures painted, which is something I will try to remedy soon.

TMP’s punkrabbit returns joins us this week with some GW Battle for Skull Pass Thunderers he’s using in a Frostgrave warband. Any chance you’ll save the wizard for WizarDecember, punkrabbit? It’s just around the corner!

You can check out punkrabbit returns’s blog in the sidebar under Tumbahelada De Punkrabbit, where among other things he discusses his decision to jump into Dwarvember this week. Thanks for the submission!

TMP’s CBPill once again joins us with an Egyptian-themed dwarf, Big Bukka Bloved of Bes, a dwarven bard.

There aren’t many dwarf bard miniatures out there, and I’m betting this is the only Egyptian dwarf bard figure in existence. So thanks for sharing, CBPill! Remember to check out his Duelling Scrolls blog in the sidebar for more pics!

My submissions for the week follow. First up, a repaint of a recent plastic AD&D miniature, the Duergar Champion from the underdark set. Here’s the original paint job:

Actually that stock photo shows a much better paint job than was on the miniature I had. I’m not a fan of these latest AD&D figures. The scale is all over the place, the sculpts are generally bad, and they all pretty much look like they were painted by Janice in Accounting. I saw no reason to keep him a Duergar, so I added some color and here is the result.

Also, I managed to get those Ral Partha Dwarfs painted after all. The dates on the bottom say 1986, so they’ve been awaiting paint for a while!

Next week is the last week of Dwarvember, so it’s time to start looking ahead. What say you all to “WizarDecember” next month?

Alpha Flight

Don’t ask me why I did this. For those who don’t know, Alpha Flight is the first all-Canadian superhero team, created by John Byrne (a Canadian) in 1979. Byrne is legendary for his artwork on X-Men and Superman, among too many other credits to name.

Alpha Flight made their debut in X-Men #120, and soon had their own book. The thing is, Alpha Flight kinda sucks. I mean, to call them second-raters is an understatement. To call them third-stringers is still a kindness.

Still, I thought I’d have some fun and repaint and rebase some Heroclix for Supersystem. So here they are.

Starting in the back, R-L: Snowbird, Guardian, Aurora, Northstar. Front row, L-R: Marinna, Sasquatch, Puck and Shaman.

Despite being a really lame team (and that’s being kind), most of the Clix sculpts are pretty good. To me, Shaman, Snowbird and Puck really stand out. Shaman required the least in the way of repainting; he actually had a pretty good paint job right out of the box. The others, however, required a bit more effort to make them look good.

Now I have to find something for them to fight.

(WEN-DI-GO!!!!!!)

Expect a new SS3 After Action Report featuring Alpha Flight soon!!!

Some Old-School Miniatures

I went on a bit of a buying spree these past few months on some old Grenadier and Ral-Partha stuff. Mind you, I already have a ton of this stuff from my days of youth, but lately I’ve been feeling somewhat nostalgic. I present to you some of my recent painting efforts.

Up first are these two knights. Both are repaints of miniatures I first painted when I thought using Testors gloss enamel was a great idea. I’ve been trying to identify them from The Lost Minis Wiki, but I haven’t been able to. I could have sworn they were Grenadier or Ral Partha, as I’ve had them since the early 80’s at least. For some reason I want to say the guy on the right was labeled a cavalier, but I’m not 100% on this. Anyway, they both have morningstars (or maces-and-chain, depending on who you ask), and that wasn’t so common on miniatures in those days. Any assistance identifying these guys would be most appreciated.

UPDATE: Thanks to some fellow enthusiasts on The Miniatures Page, I found out that the one on the left is from Superior Miniatures (Knight with Mace-and-Chain). The one on the right is from TSR, part of their “AD&D Heroes boxed set. And sure enough, he’s a cavalier!

I love miniatures that tell a story and aren’t just “generic guy holding weapon”. This one is an old miniature I bought recently. It was part of Grenadier’s “Woodland Adventurers” boxed set. I don’t have the rest of the set, but I love this halfling sniper. This is not a repaint. In fact, I don’t believe this miniature was ever painted before I got him.

I’m under a pile of lead now, but I’m going to continue to take a break and paint (or repaint) some of these old miniatures every now and then.

A Fistful of Kung Fu: First Wave

A couple of months back I picked up a copy of Osprey’s A Fistful of Kung-Fu in the hopes that I would one day play it. Lord knows I have enough miniatures to jump right in (they just needed to be painted first), and whatever I didn’t have would give me an excuse to order more of Hasslefree’s Martial Artists.

After perusing the rulebook, I have to say I’m left with a definite “meh” feeling about the rules. The fluff and concept is terrific, the official miniatures by Northstar rock, but mechanics-wise it seems to be a very chart-heavy game. In other words, it seems like you’ll be spending a lot of time looking shit up as opposed to playing. Note that I haven’t actually PLAYED the game yet. These are only my first impressions.

Anyway, I don’t own any of the Northstar miniatures, but I have more than a few others can can serve well for this game. Above are Shaolin Monks by Rattrap/Brigade Games. These guys are for use in their .45 Adventure game (and in fact will be used for that purpose on this very blog, coming soon!). The sculpts on these suffer from some obvious proportion issues, but who cares? Even though I’m happy with the results, I found them difficult to paint. Orange is one bitch of a color to shade well. At least for me. The figure in the foreground is Osato, from Hasslefree. The Asian-themed terrain was a cheap find at Petco: clearance terrarium pieces!

Up next are some of my old miniatures. I painted these about two years ago, and I notice some obvious flaws. In fact, I’m thinking of repainting them but I have too much to do. On the left is Hasslfree’s Tanshiro, facing off against Golgo Island’s White Tiger. You can get both from Hasslefree nowadays.

I’ve found that some of the best miniatures for AFOKF come from the Clix lines. Above on the left is a repainted IndyClix Boon Sai Hong, facing off against a Marvel Clix Shang-Chi. I should note that Clix and some of the Hasslefree martial artists have a wide stance, so basing them requires a 30mm base as opposed to 25mm. So if you play with rules lawyers, beware. As a lifelong Master of Kung-Fu fan, I really enjoyed repainting and repurposing Shang-Chi.

Reaper’s Chan Li (50190) from their Chronoscope Line, bears more than a passing resemblance to the late, great Bruce Lee. I painted him in homage to Enter the Dragon, complete with gashes.

HA-DO-KEN!!!!! I couldn’t resist picking up a starter pack of Street Fighter Heroclix just for Ryu, on the left. I’m not a huge fan of the clear plastic energy effects so common on Clix miniatures, but this is an exception. I repainted and rebased him and he’s currently my favorite miniature I have painted for AFOKF. Facing off against him is Hasslefree’s Tetsuhara. I painted him to look like everyone’s favorite sumo wrestler, E. Honda. You can see the difference in base size above (Tetsuhara’s got a pretty wide stance). Ryu is on a 25mm base, Honda (Tetsuhara) is on a 30mm base.

Another shot of Honda.

And one more of Ryu.

Last in this wave of miniatures is a familiar face: Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. To be more accurate, this is RAFM’s Burt Jackson, Trucker from their USX Modern Day Heroes line. Northstar made their own limited edition not-Jack Burton, and it was great, but it was only available if you ordered all the starters and doesn’t seem to be available anymore. I had RAFM’s version for a while, so I recently painted him up and posed him next to the cab of his Pork Chop Express. Hope you like him.

Maybe someday I’ll get around to actually playing A Fistful of Kung-Fu, and then I can more accurately give a review. In the meantime, it gives me an excuse to paint more martial artists!

More Heroclix Repaints

Took a break from my usual stuff to paint up some more Heroclix for use with Supersystem 3.

First up: The Wrecking Crew. Thunderball, Piledriver, The Wrecker, and Bulldozer. Although they’re a bunch of losers, I’ve always like the Wrecking Crew. I have to say that the Piledriver miniature is one of the worst miniatures in the Heroclix line. He doesn’t even scale well with the other Crew members. I really like the sculpts on the other three, however.

Next up: the original Uncanny X-Men! Iceman, Marvel Girl, Angel, Cyclops, and Beast. I’m pretty happy with the team overall. Iceman’s base is the only one I made from scratch, the rest are modern urban and tech bases from various companies. I was reminded how much I hate painting yellow when I did this team, as yellow is notoriously difficult to shade without it looking like crap. I think Cyclops looks the worst, but I can live with it.

What’s Old is New

I’ve been on a bit of an old-school miniatures kick lately, no doubt inspired by guys like the Old School Grenadier Miniatures blog (now sadly gone, it seems).

A bit about that. I first started painting minitures in the 5th grade. Since I’m 40, I’ve been at it a while. I don’t claim to be a master painter; I learn more and more every day. But back then, and pretty much right through high school, I truly sucked at it. I painted all my miniatures with Testors gloss enamel paint, which doesn’t lend itself to shading, highlighting, mixing, or just painting in general. Not that I made any attempt whatsoever at any of those techniques. Most of my miniatures looked pretty gloopy.

It wasn’t until I started playing Warhammer and 40K in college that I discovered acrylic paint. A huge difference for sure. And although I have little love left for GW, I learned a lot from their publications and my painting dramatically improved in a relatively short period of time. Since I was building armies to game with, I painted GW figures pretty much exclusively from the early 90’s -2000 or so. Around 2003, I took a long hiatus from both wargaming and painting, having to pack up my paints and miniatures in storage. I only started up again about 3 years ago, and now I can’t stop.

Partly because of nostaligia and partly because I look at them and cringe, I’ve decided that in between my regular projects I’ll give some of my earliest efforts the repainting they so desperately need. Here are some of them.

Everyone I know who collected miniatures back in the early 80’s had the guy on the left. He’s from the Fantasy Lords set 121: Knights. I think he’s a pretty cool miniature from that time, plus he has a bec-de-corbin. How many miniatures do you own that are similarly equipped? Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of him with his old paint job, which was a true atrocity. I never bothered to base any miniatures before I started playing Warhammer, and I see no reason to base them for repaints. Next to him is a Ral Partha Dwarf: I can’t find the number. If any of you can, I’d appreciate you telling me. I recall he was in a blister labeled “Conquistador Dwarf”, but I’ve also seen him referred to as a “Dwarf Champion”. This guy never had any paint on him before now, so there was no “before” picture to take. I did base this guy, because I’ll probably be using him in my AD&D campaign as an NPC. I’m pretty happy with the way they both turned out.

Here’s an example of my work back then. Note the lovely Testors glossy flesh color on the charging halberdier. Impressive, no? Now just imagine if he had a face, how good that would look, and you get the idea of the general quality of my painting back then.

These are the repaints. The miniatures are some classics from that era: Ral Partha’s Chaotic Knights of the Skull (01-137). Like many of the miniatures of this time, scale was all over the place. These were supposed to be 25mm miniatures but they’re more like 32mm. The halberdier’s legs are far enough apart that you could fit the knight in the first picture within his stride. Although I think they’re both kind of silly, they were easy and quick to paint in between my current projects. I still don’t like the miniatures, but I like to think my paint job has improved over 25 years.

I think I’ll keep repainting old stuff and posting the results from time to time.

Dead Dick's Tavern and Temporary Lodging

The Angry Piper's miniatures and gaming blog.