The Grind to paint minis...

Sometimes, there is a call to action...

The players, who know you are a SCI-FI gamemaster, with a hundred or so SCI-FI fully painted miniatures, say... "hey, can you GM a fantasy game?"

So I take the players on and of course, my miniature collection has very, very few Fantasy figures.

So, I went to my local store and pick out a set of minis that look like the players characters... then I collect up Gnolls, Orcs, Goblins... a giant, an Ogre... 30+ some odd miniatures later, you have a problem when game time is a week away and you hold down a full time job and you got a family as well.

Well, the only solution is to stylize... and so I have, Statuesque Miniatures.

So we mount our subject onto a 25mm base, this being a Barbarian Gal from Reaper bones...

and we mix up a bit of milliput to blend out the mini-base to the miniature, I usually do this in batches, getting as many miniatures based as possible. This stuff is sticky and messy on your fingers. It does dry rather quickly and rock hard. A couple of hours tops.

I try to get the appearance of rough ground on these bases so you squish it onto the base with fingers, then use a dental tool to help mash it on solid... and damp down with my fingers to pat it down evenly.

A grey primer works, I'm also trying to match the natural grey color of the Wizkids minis, fresh out of the package. This bones figure needs to look like a grey Wizkid mini... note the other minis and the effect I'm going for.

After the base primer is dry, it resembles the same grey as the others, time to wash it.

I use a combo of black primer, Airbrush Thinner and Airbrush flow improver (All Vallejo as well).

And with a final dusting of grey once again as a drybrush...

Looks good enough to tabletop for now...

All the minis are painted like this and when I finally have time to mass-paint all of these, I'll break out the colored paints and go at it. They are ready for color when the time comes.