Frostgrave: the Giant

 Introduction

Among my purchases at Carronade 2021 was a model giant; part of the Reaper "Bones" range.  I stated at the time that I intended to paint him up for use in games of Frostgrave.  Well, I finished this model a few weeks ago and have finally managed to find enough time & enthusiasm to post a quick article, so here he is!

The Frost Giant

I suppose I could have painted this model in human flesh tones - probably as a pale Caucasian rather than anything else.  However, I really wanted to mark him out as something different - a creature firmly rooted in the icy wastes.  To emphasis this, I chose a cold, pale blue for the skin and an even paler blue for his extensive beard and hair.

As a warm contrast (and to avoid iron), I used gold, brass and bronze for the metal parts of the giant's armour and weapons.  The non-metallic parts of his equipment are a dark grey.

Finally, the furs he wears around his shoulders and boots are also very pale.  I think the paint I used for the middle highlight (i.e. the one which adds most of the colour) was called "linen" or something like that.  Whatever it's name, it is a very pale brown with just the slightest hint of green in it.

So, just how "giant" is this model (I hesitate to call it a miniature, because it really isn't - at least when compared to most of my other figures)?  Well, here's a photograph of the frost giant alongside a 28mm human.

As you can see, he's maybe 2.5 or 3 times taller than a man; also this giant is very solidly built.  I'm really glad that this is a plastic (PVC?) model, as if he were metal then the figure's weight would be substantial!

Conclusion

I've wanted to have a frost giant in my collection for some time.  Well, now I've got one!  The model was relatively cheap and (I think) painted up nicely, with only a slight bend in the shaft of his axe to hint at the soft plastic material.  He'll do nicely!

A May Mixture...

Introduction

I'm supposed to be writing an All Things Zombie battle report, but I'm procrastinating.  Battle reports are a lot of effort!  Instead, here's a bunch of oddments that I'm working on or have just finished...

Frostgrave

The Golem

This guy is a Reaper Bones golem; I intend to use him as a large construct for Frostgrave.  He is certainly large: that's a 40mm base on which he is standing!

This was a very easy model to paint.  I used a pale grey base coat with gold bands and fittings, all covered with a black wash.  Once that was dry, I added some colour to make the eyes glow and that was it!  A cheap, simple model, but I think he's quite effective.

More Ruins

I recently ordered a fair quantity of MDF ruins from Blotz.  The package arrived promptly and I spent part of a couple of evenings gluing it all together.  Now comes the tricky part, though!  I intend to mount these permanently on building-sized bases; the picture above shows one possible configuration that would give 3 separate ruined houses of roughly equal size.  But obviously there are other ways in which this could be done.

Once glued together, I plan to add more detail to the bases so as to make these a bit more "lived in" (although that's not really the best turn of phrase for abandoned structures, is it?).  But that's where I'm having difficulties: how to turn these base pieces into plausible, but still playable, ruined buildings.  Hmm...

Super Dungeon Explore

Not so long ago, I discovered that buysend.com has a fair number of Super Dungeon Explore sets available at a very reasonable price.  I've now bought more of these than I should and I still have the best part of 2 complete warbands to paint up.  Here are some heroes and villains that I've finished recently:

Dragon Blade

This hero comes from the Kobold warband set "The Claws of the Wyrm".  It's not clear from the short description on the packaging whether he's an elven hero with a magic sword or a kobold hero with a magic elven sword.  Either way, he's growing on me...

Candy and Cola

Candy is something of a mascot for Soda Pop Miniatures.  In this incarnation, she has (some) armour and a large sword.  She's always accompanied by her pet, a 3-tailed squirrel-thing called Cola.

Nyan Nyan

Nyan Nyan is another hero, though in this case she looks as if she'd be more at home at a pyjama party.  She's dressed up in a tiger costume and wears a pair of oversized gauntlets equipped with large talons.  Very odd...

Captain R

Finally, here's an evil mini-boss: Captain R.  He's an undead pirate captain - I really don't know where they get these ideas!  Most of the front of him is beard and face, whilst most of the back is coat.  He's carrying quite an array of weaponry, as might be expected.

Conclusion

I'm a bit surprised to see that all these models are for either Frostgrave or Super Dungeon Explore, as it doesn't feel to me that I've been concentrating solely on these two games recently.  Indeed, my painting table is full of stuff for Pulp Alley, Saga and Congo right now.  Perhaps I'll show some of them soon - right after I write up the ATZ game I should have produced last weekend!

Reaper's "Desert Thing"

Introduction

One of the several monsters I bought recently was the "91008: Desert Thing" from Reaper Miniatures.  As with my other purchases, this was made from their "Bones" polymer material, which makes it very cheap.  It's a very unusual monster; it is clearly an ambush predator that relies on its prey approaching its (static) hiding position close enough that it can entrap them, a bit like a gigantic, land-based sea anemone on our own planet, or a smaller version of the Sarlacc from Star Wars!

Now there are many excellent versions of this model available to view on the Internet; many of them put my own painting to shame.  However, I deliberately made this up in a quick and simple manner, partly to save myself time and partly to show that it doesn't have to be hard.  For any reader who says "I couldn't do it as well as you", here is my recipe!

Preparation

91008 comes as an 8-piece model.  That may sound like a lot, but it isn't really.  There are 6 tentacles, an inner "mouth" and an outer "shell" part.

As sometimes happens with Bones, one part - the outer shell - was slightly distorted.  I started by straightening this, using alternate immersions in hot water (to soften it) and cold water (to re-harden the reshaped piece).

Once the parts fitted together to my satisfaction, I glued the mouth and shell parts to a solid base (in this case, a perspex disk) and added some sand and grit around the outside.

Block Colours

So, simple painting.  I painted the teeth with white, the tentacles in lichen grey and the rest of the creature in (Caucasian) flesh.  The surrounding dirt was undercoated with a mid, yellowish brown.

First Wash

I had intended to detail this model with a single, simple wash; here's the result of the attempt.  I used a slightly darker brown and made up a fairly thin solution to paint on.  As you can see, the creature still looks very pink and this wasn't really the effect for which I was hoping.

Second Wash

To counteract the pinkness, I gave the piece a second wash.  This time, I used the same colour for the wash as I used for the dirt's undercoat.  I also made it into a thicker, more-heavily pigmented solution.  The monster now blends in with its surroundings much better, though its teeth have lost some of their brightness.

Finishing touches

To finish, I drybrushed the dirt twice (pale tan, followed by antique white) and then added some static grass patches around the outside.  The model was then varnished for protection.  Job done!

Conclusion

This isn't the best version of this model that I've seen, but it will do just fine for my gaming sessions.  It was a very quick and easy piece to build, as well as being fairly inexpensive.

I'm thinking that this might see initial deployment in a "Tarzan-based" game of Pulp Alley that I hope to play in the next month or so.  It would make a very good "extremely perilous" terrain feature, perhaps on a jungle path.  Of course, I could also use it in a desert setting, or an alien planet, or...

Addendum

After feedback - and my own reflections - I've touched up the beast's teeth in antique white.  I hadn't intended for the second wash to colour them so much; this change restores the teeth to more of my original vision.  Much better, I think!

Frostgrave: The Worm

Introduction

Another Wednesday and the sinking realisation that I've missed a weekend post yet again!  Honestly, I think that twice weekly updates are too much for me, yet I've got so much that I want to show and discuss.  Real Life (TM) just keeps getting in the way...

OK, a quick post for today.  Here's another Reaper "Bones" monster, based up for Frostgrave.  This one is strange for me because it's a pre-painted model; I usually like to paint figures for myself.  Partly thats because I enjoy the model-making aspect of gaming and partly it's because I can usually make a better job of it than some hastily-coloured, factory-produced figure.  However, this one came pre-painted and I decided that it was a decent enough colour scheme for my needs.

The Great Worm

So, what can I tell you about this creature?  Well, it's a pre-painted Reaper Bones model of (I presume) a Dungeons and Dragons "Purple Worm" - one of the baddest boss monsters around!  I've touched up the paint on the worm a little, especially around the teeth, but for the most part what you see is how it came out of the packet.

I created a base for this monster with a 70mm round blank, some Green Stuff and the Basius Dungeon pad.  Once the worm was glued in place, I added a few paving slabs made from offcuts of thick plasticard to make it look as if the creature had burst through the floor.  The effect looks a bit tame to me; perhaps I should have added more loose soil and other debris?

In Frostgrave, the worms were once bred to clean the sewers, but since the city's demise they have gone feral.  They're now a considerable menace to anyone who is unlucky enough to encounter one, as Oscar the Thief is about to find out.  I'm looking forward to seeing this creature appear in a game!

Frostgrave: the Demon Bones

Introduction

My youngest son and I actually played a game of Frostgrave yesterday - more on that on another occasion.  For now, here are some more pictures of monsters.  These are both from Reaper's range of miniatures and are made from the "bones" plastic.

Bones

Whilst this makes them very cheap, the bones material does require a slightly different approach to building and painting a  model.  My research suggests that gluing the parts together isn't really a problem (just use superglue), but that such figures should not be undercoated with an aerosol - they can turn sticky or tacky.  Indeed, the common advice is just to paint them directly with acrylics.

Since I wanted to base them and I did want to undercoat the bases, I had to make the models in a different manner from usual.  The bases were built and undercoated as normal, but leaving a gap for the figure's integral base.  Once the base was prepared and primed, the bones model was glued to it and the joint between figure and base was filled.  After that, painting proceeded as usual.

The Demon

My Frostgrave demon is built from Reaper Miniature's "Nabassu" figure.  As you can see, he's a winged, horned humanoid with fur down his back and some nasty-looking finger- and toenails.

I can't actually remember what colours I used to paint this demon, but I know I was aiming for a grey-green tinge.  He's not what we would think of as a healthy colour, at least for a human!

In Frostgrave, a minor demon is supposedly about man-sized.  Possibly this monster is a bit too big for that role, but I think the extra bulk (and height!) increases his menace considerably.

That's not a demon; this is a demon

Technically, this is Reaper's model "Agramon, Pit Fiend".  Looks like a demon to me, though...

This guy is huge!  If he was made from metal or resin then the cost of the model would have been more that I cared to spend, but in the bones material, he's not too expensive.

Agramon has gigantic, bat-like wings, a scaly skin and a long, reptilian tail.  He's holding a ball of flame in one hand, so it seems that he's fireproof as well.  Oh, he also has some very large fangs...

For this model, I used a red palette for the body and a much darker red for the wings.  I wanted the flames to stand out, so I deliberately kept the main figure quite dark and subdued; the bright flames then look especially hot.

For his spines, teeth and horns, I aimed for an obsidian effect.  They were base-coated in black and then edged with dark green.  I'm still not sure how well this works, though.

I've painted the dirt around his feet as if it were slightly scorched; the snow has certainly melted from these areas.  This demon comes from a much warmer climate and my guess is that he'll feel the cold of Frostgrave bitterly.  It probably won't improve his temper any!

I don't think that anyone could mistake this model for anything other than a major demon.  Once again, Oscar the thief has been placed nearby, just to give a sense of scale.  Oscar will be having nightmares about this encounter for a long time, I think!

Conclusion

Bones is a different material to work with, but I didn't encounter any real issues whilst building these figures.  The resulting models are light, cheap(-ish) and somewhat flexible.  Indeed, I don't think they would be significantly damaged by being dropped on the floor (not that I plan to try this any time soon!)  They have been painted and sealed as per my usual methods; it's just the preparation that's a little different.  No primer!