Fear and Flame

He's a Bad Mother... (Shut Your Mouth!)

Currently on the paint-table is Randall "The Saint" St James from Funky Skull Games; being recast here as an eye of fear and flame from the 1e Fiend Folio. Between its covers the Ol' FF has an overabundance of interchangeable robed skeletons. A little creative licence seems warranted.

Besides, the notion of your run-of-the-mill, pseudo-medieval adventurers bumping into a severely anachronistic, undead dungeon-pimp tickles my fancy.

Russ Nicholson rules

The sunglasses are more than mere fashion, as our friend, however re-imagined, needs to conceal his eyes until the last moment.

Color-wise, I'm trying to strike a balance between pimp-gaudy and undead-somber. Accordingly, a lot of grey has been mixed into the purple, pink, and yellow to tone them down. The pink shirt/pocket square combo may (or may not) be changed to something more fuchsia-ish. Time will tell. Leopard-spots are probably mandatory on the hat-band and jacket lining. 

The highlighting needs to be completed followed by a liberal application of washes for the shading. It's been a couple years since I last completed a miniature. This guy needs to be brought to a successful conclusion posthaste.  

Brand New Year, Same Old Excuses

Watch this space. No promises... but I've had a hankering to get back in the mix for a while.

Thank Heaven for Little Ghouls

Pieface

Joey

Here follows a very short post on the current state of Pieface and Joey, the two smallest additions to the Red Ghouls. (Those are 20mm bases on both.)

Two creepy little dudes. It therefore seems fitting to riff on one of the creepier songs in popular culture for the post's title. An unsettling ditty if ever there was one.

As per my usual practice, all the basecolors are blocked in. This will be followed by highlighting, shading (with washes), and a whole lot of adjustments & touch-ups.

The colors are muted except for the red and the fleshtone of the infant Pieface holds.

It's interesting to see how light falls on Joey. The miniature has a turned head, forward-leaning stance, and an enormous teddy-bear tucked against the right side of the body, resulting in deep shadows in some unusual places. Having seen this, I'll keep the picture handy as a reference while painting.

PTS XVI: Addition by Conflation

Almost by accident, a new batch of Red Ghouls graces my paint table. It all started innocently enough with the intention to paint Wyrd's Baby Kade (sculpted by Edgar Ramos). The miniature's tiny size and single lock of hair make it a good choice to stand in for Joey, sidekick of Dennis (the Red Ghouls having recently acquired a Dennis the Menace sub-faction).

A setback to actually completing Kade/Joey in a timely fashion came with my discovery that Dennis the Menace has both a US and a UK version. (I was unaware of the latter's existence.) This information was provided in the comments to my previous post by Roy of Never Mind the Jankers!.

We here at Minis by Finch pride ourselves in maintaining cordial Anglo-American relations so another sidekick was added to the mix. Say hello to Pieface (AKA Stinky from Heresy Miniatures, sculpted by Paul Muller).

The lack of hair is a concern given that he's slated to receive the Red Ghoul paint scheme (with its red hair). Sculpting a Mohawk hairdo remains a possibility but I think I'll just paint some red spots on his noggin and call it a day.

By now I was in a miniature-assembly mindset and pressed on with a couple more items.

Last year I received some outstanding Midnight Hag miniatures from Mike at Mortal Arrow Miniatures. As I had one earmarked as a second ghoul hag, the time seemed right to finally pull my finger out and get on with it.    

Midnight Hag A (Flying)

Midnight Hag B (Floating)

MA offers two variants, each with multiple head/arm options. The heads from one variant won't work with the other variant's body unmodified due to the way the locator pins are designed. It's pretty straightforward though to address the issue and attach a B head onto an A body as I did.

  

A bubbling cauldron from Heresy (that accompanies their witch) was my final addition.

It's time to paint.

Something Newish This Way Comes

Three additions to the Red Ghouls are done. As the title suggests, the painting here isn't entirely new. The penanggalan was nearly complete last October while the boy and dog had their base colors blocked in at about the same time.

These, and a couple others, were intended for Zomtober '16. I'm either quite tardy with that or getting an early start on Zomtober '17.

All three miniatures were sculpted by the incomparable Paul Muller.

The Penanggalan is from Otherworld... a strange Malayan vampire that appears in the old Fiend Folio. The sculpt is a nice homage to the Russ Nicholson artwork from that book.

The boy/dog combo is something of an undead tribute to Dennis the Menace and his dog Ruff. I may be dating myself with this, I suppose. In my defense, I am rather old... cut me some slack.

Truthfully, it was mostly the sling that lead to this notion. My first impulse was to remove it so the mini would better match Otherworld's unarmed ghouls I'd already painted. Then inspiration struck... Dennis the Menace carried a slingshot... he was small in stature... so was the mini... he had a dog... I had a suitable dog mini languishing in the lead-pile. In short, one thing led to another and here we are.

The boy is from Reaper while the dog is from Wyrd's sadly discontinued line of metal miniatures.

The two were painted in the evil-clown scheme I've been using for the Red Ghouls; the only problem being that red hair was required while they were both bald. I addressed this by sculpting some hair on Dennis and, after rejecting red ears, painting Ruff's tail the appropriate hue.

Yes, Ruff is lifting his leg. Would undead canines need to relieve themselves in this fashion? Perhaps not. I guess old habits are hard to break.