I'm close to finishing a group of 17 peasants for my older brother. I don't do commissions, but I often do favors. I only consider myself to be an adequate to above average painter so I don't feel right charging people to do this sort of work. For the peasants I broke out my minimal knowledge of medieval fashion and tried to keep most people in very earthy tones and the few slightly wealthy people have things like a black cap, which would have been an expensive purchase. Doing a group like this I wanted to see what I could do with a more limited, focused, pallet, and I'm pretty pleased with how they've come out so far.

Spawn handler skinks for the spawn of Chotec. These were fun little guys, I didn't really try any new techniques, as the creative part of my brain is still digging itself out of sludge. Mainly I just concentrated on keeping them clean and doing good highlights, since I often skip highlights.

I'm think I'm done with this objective/scrap marker. This was an old metal Wraith that kept falling apart every time I glued him, so I think terrain is a better use of this miniature.

Mental/emotional health doing a bit better, I don't feel as heavy. I just realized instead of doing something brighter interior I painted up the band of enslaved miners. These are part of a set from Etsy that is recreating the Mecca slave Walker from page 221 of the Rogue Trader rule book.

This messy fella is coming along, lots of dark washes and intentionally letting them puddle on his back carapace makes for a fun effect.

My father-in-law passed away this week so part of my creative side is just numb. I still feel the need to create, I just can't see the colors to paint right now so I'm focusing on getting things built in primed. I know one of the hobby cheating tips towards better productivity is to only have two projects going at once not 30, but I don't see all of these as being active projects. Everyone around me feels really heavy right now, that's grief processing I know.

This is a broke ass necron that I'm turning into an objective marker. He's been primed gray after being covered with scenic mud, and then I threw a heavy coat of earth wash on him to start. I need to look up some Rust techniques.

It's time to work on some more orks, because every month can be Orktober if you just believe! I think these were started 8 years ago so it seems like a good week to finish them.

The Tortle Sorcerer; slow to the battle, but wise in their spellcraft. Mainly because they are carrying every component for every spell they could possibly need.

Shout out to MoradinsForge on Etsy for their fine service! When ordering this miniature there are a lot of fine options and how I wanted his hands to work and I suppose I could have placed his walking stick so it touched the ground but I wanted it to look more like he was using it as a spell focus than a cane.

Star Saga objective item (the virus in a cool case), and a bag of gear that I think gives you an ammo reroll if you are lugging it around. These are two items that could easily have just been tokens, but I'm rather glad that they were physical objects because then it gave me something to paint and it's actually easier to keep track of a 3D object on the board, even though it can cause a little more clutter.

I am still working on my dry brush techniques, and in the picture there are two brushes; one of them is a professional dry brush that cost $7 and is starting to fall apart in the middle. The other was part of a makeup brush set from a dollar store and is not falling apart. They both work about the same, but if the cheap one breaks it's easier to replace. I found out about the dollar store makeup brushes by watching Tabletop Minions channel on YouTube where he has tons of great tips for miniature gaming and I highly recommend it.

The Tortle Sorcerer is trying to decide which brush deserves his wrath.

Finished a big stalking thing that stalks across the land like a...a big stalking thing. Big models are laborious. With this one I wanted to practice some dry brush highlight techniques on the blue parts. I primed him in medium gray, gave him a dark blue contrast wash, dry brushed a medium blue, then dry brushed a light blue, then a light gray dry brush on the edges to make it look a bit worn.

A skaven arch-warlock to lead my son's rat army. I'm looking forward to what the new sculpts will bring to the line, hopefully all plastic and slightly larger heroes.

Priming and prep stage for a GW Arch-warlock from my son's army and an Etsy resin Tirtle sorcerer and an Etsy resin old school Ork warboss. 800 minis later I've realized the importance of doing a meter job on this prep step. The skaven is a little uneven in the highlights and I know now that will cause me some problems with thin paint farther down the road. The other two are ready to go as they are.

One of the things I like about Etsy is the proliferation of artists who are creating new models in old styles, like this Ork War Boss who looks like he came from the sculptors of 20 years ago.

#6 on the list of 10 D&D Minis that every group should have is spellcasters! These are all Reaper Bones minis from the 2012 Kickstarter, I use Bones minis as testing grounds for different paint techniques and different color combinations. One of the things I'm currently working on is dry brush highlights that don't wipe out the detail, I'm trying to train my hand and my eye and I find the best way to do that is lots of practice. Cheap minis are very handy for this purpose.

My son had two Skaven clanrats, from both of the previous editions, mostly painted, but he didn't have any shields for them. I found some of the newer style shields on eBay to finish them up and I just saw this morning that the second edition clanrats are also going away. I'm looking forward to what the new sculpts will bring, I hope they go back to a more beefier look like the first edition rats.

Achtung Grotpanzer! Thanks to Etsy my Gretchin now have a tank company. Just fun little models. I also used this as an opportunity to try out Vallejo's Earth Texture Diorama FX on the bases. Since I put it on thick it took an overnight to dry but it was strong once it dried.

These squigs are hopping mad! Or maybe happily hopping, it's hard to tell with squigs. My son's other fun army is goblins on squigs, only a little of it has been built though.

Psychic jellyfish from Mantic's Star Saga and Warpath. The one on the left is plastic and the one on the right is white metal. The metal one came unassembled, it was a little bit tricky to get all those underhung tentacles in place. They have some neat powers in the games in that they can use mental blasts that don't require line of sight, and when they get into close combat their tentacles will flail around and hit everything close to them, friend and foe alike. They're fun little models and I wanted to play with some blue tones like I showed in a previous post.

Rats with scissors for hands! A pair of Skaven warlocks for my son's army. I love the little helper rats on their backs that are reloading their pistols.