Painting and Miniatures Part 6: All that the Eye Can See

Another Painting update, hurray! I've been on and off again with the painting the past month, but I finally found the motivation to focus and get some of it done.

I'll start with what I finished right after my last post.

My first griffin! Well, not the first I've ever painted (I don't think I own that model anymore) but the first of this year at least.

Bald Eagle Griffin will totally eviscerate you.

Rawr.

This is a Reaper Miniatures griffin model, from the Bones line so it's plastic instead of pewter. I'm glad to have gotten this one done, it was the first really inspired model I've done recently, at least as far as finding the inspiration in me, rather than other characters. I did a bald eagle for the front half, and a lion for the back, tried to bring out the fur of the lion half a bit. The wings are brown fading into grey. The brown is lighter browns on top of a dark brown, while the grey is on top of black, trying to give it some depth there. I've mostly done highlights and dry brushing on this one actually.

Next up, my second griffin!

Golden Eagle Griffin this time, just to have some variety.

This one is smaller than the Bald Eagle Griffin, so you could also think of it as Juvenile Bald Eagle Griffin. If you like.

This Griffin is from Nozul's Marvelous Miniatures. It's smaller in scale than the Bald Eagle Griffin, so it was pretty fast to paint. I took inspiration from the bald eagle, though I kept the lion the same as that's easy and I wanted it on hand in case my Wednesday group fought more griffins. I picked out a few feathers in great to add some contrast to the brown feathers, which actually is suitable for a Golden Eagle anyway. Their wings are a bit more mottled even than I managed here I think.

Finally, from last round, we have my first (ever!) Beholder!

It brushes its teeth.

Eyes on the back of its head...

I don't remember what brand this one came from. It's technically an "Evil Eye", and it had tentacles when I got it. I just threw the tentacles off, as it's obviously a beholder knockoff and added the pin to make it float. I like green, so I went with a blue-green for its skin, and put a variety of colors in for the various eyestalks. I was looking at official D&D beholder miniatures, but they're surprisingly expensive. I suppose Beholders are a D&D thing though, so they'd want to get what they can out of it.

Next up are a few older models that have been sitting on my desk for months.

An old Wood Elf Forest Dragon from Warhammer Fantasy.

I've always loved this model, I actually have another one unassembled and sitting around somewhere.

This is my second painted Wood Elf forest dragon. I actually magnetized the back of it's neck so that I can have one of my two Wood Elf generals can stand on it (with magnetized feet. I should take pictures of that sometime, but I didn't for this post. Someone remind me.) I painted this one about 8 years ago, in 2010 or 2011, but since then the new Age of Sigmar came out. So what I did was add the large oval base underneath it's older rectangular chariot base, and put on the sand and flock before applying a matte varnish. That's the theme for these four, is the base update.

One of my favorite Treeman models, the Treewoman. I wish I could remember what company made this one.

I had options for the hands, and went with one of each.

This is a Tree Woman model I got to represent a Treeman for my Wood Elves. Again, the base is updated, it used to sit on that rectangular piece of grass and roots, and I added the large oval. My big job here was adding the sand and flock (it's really messy when I can't dip the model in my flock box because my box is too small for the base... lots of sweeping after these.)

Finally an older Griffin with High Elf Rider, also from Warhammer Fantasy:

Still my favorite Griffin rider model Games Workshop has made I think.

Feel the might of CAW!

 This is another model I did in 2010 or 2011. The model is from one of GW's introductory Warhammer boxed sets. One of the last ones before they switched to Age of Sigmar actually. I was feeling particularly daring with this one, going for those tiger stripes on the back. Again, my update now was to add the large oval base. It used to subsist on a smaller square base denoted by those grey rocks I added in my original job.

My very first dragon.

Elf on a dragon has got to be better than Elf on a shelf.

And this is the first dragon model I ever painted. Probably in 2001 or 2002. The original wood elf dragon rider (so far as I'm aware), I made the pennants and the banner myself out of coloring paper. The triangles with lines at each point are a personal symbol I made for myself in my angsty middle school years, and I made that tree free hand! This was a more complicated finish, as I actually had to take the model apart a bit, put a pin in its right ankle, and glue it back together again to fix damage from the move. And hopefully keep it intact for years to come. I also had to put some modeling putting on the banners to more firmly attach them to their poles. The putty job is not my best but it's functional. You can sort of see in the picture here, but these dragons were ORIGINALLY on 50mm square bases (there's a rock I put on that) which were later upgraded to the rectangular chariot bases (I put newer wood elf sprites on that when I made that upgrade a decade ago), and now I have it on the oval base. So this dragon is actually on 3 different GW bases.

Next up, an idea I had several years ago in the Omaha zoo. We saw a bird called the violacious turaco:

I had to search google images to find the right bird for a better picture than the one I got on my phone, but I managed it!

I'm really glad I made the search, because I'd otherwise have missed the red undersides of the wings.

So I saw this gorgeous bird and I naturally thought "I should make that a griffin."

Behold!

My second favorite GW griffin model.

I'm not quite happy with the wings, I may give the red another go. I'll have to mix some white in with the red if I do though, I built up to my brightest reds but it feels dull still.

This is a griffin I had started last month, and then took a hiatus from painting, and finally finished yesterday. The model is an old metal Griffin rider model for the Empire in Warhammer Fantasy. I've always liked the pose, so I got this one off of eBay for this purpose something like 3 or 4 years ago. I may add a rider someday.

Finally, my project of the past week.

Eye can see you! Also, there's a cat.

I made these for my Wednesday D&D campaign, as we're facing beholders and Nozul's Marvelous Miniatures recently released gazer (the two small ones) and Spectator (the larger one) models. Five bucks for all three. The cat is a Reaper familiar, which I got painted because Sy has a cat familiar in our game, and now that familiar can be on the map.

And that's my painting update! Hope to do another one soon!