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.  

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.

Finch Lives

Eh, close enough.

I'm back.

Yes, this is indeed the dreaded I'm still alive post.

2016's hobby efforts, which began with promise, ended with a resounding thud as my Zomtober participation fizzled. It was all downhill from there.

Rather than dwell on past failure, I choose to emerge back into the light and move on. To that end... some work-in-progress pictures seem appropriate.

Spurred on by some rather nifty textured rollers from Green Stuff World I got for Christmas I'm easing myself back into the hobby.

I've seen these in use by James Wappel on his blog for some time. They did not disappoint.

While Mr. Wappel uses modeling clay run through a pasta-maker that is then baked in a toaster-oven, I gave simple plumber's putty a whirl. Unlike green stuff, plumber's putty is brittle when cured. It also sets very quickly and thus allows a limited window where it's workable.

I kneaded the two components together, rolled it out like so much pie crust (on a plastic sheet cut from a freezer bag), rolled the desired texture into it, and called it a day.

When fully cured, I peeled off the plastic and attacked with plyers.

Two unpainted refugees from the aforementioned Zomtober debacle have been based using the resulting fragments.

The larger of the two is from Gamezone. The smaller (he's still pretty large) is from Heresy with its original weapon swapped for a mace from a Reaper miniature. Its left foot was attached to the putty fragment first, then the resulting subassembly was attached to the base. It seemed much simpler to do it this way than to try to get the angles right on the base before attaching the miniature.

At this point convention dictates that I tease what's coming in my next post. I'm tempted, but given my recent track record convention must be tempered by reality. I'm gonna take this one day at a time.

Zomtober 2016/2: Making Headway

I nearly finished on time... nearly.

My contribution to this week's Zomtober festivities is Otherworld Miniatures' Penanggalan. An unusual mini and a triple threat: 1) Zomtober appropriate, 2) Sculpted by Paul Muller, 3) Found in the Fiend Folio.

The Penanggalan is from Malaysian folklore. A bizarre beastie to be sure.

This has been painted in the same scheme as last Zomtober's red ghouls. More to follow.

The Year Ahead

Happy New Year to one and all! My gratitude to those who visited Minis by Finch last year and especially to those who left comments. Knowing that others, however few, take interest in this secluded backwater of the internet is a great motivator. Thank you so much.

The Holidays took their toll as my paint table was pressed into service as a Christmas wrapping-staging-area. No space = no prep = no paint = no posts. Happily things have returned to normal and while the painting machine is spooling back up it seems appropriate to lay out a mission-statement for the coming year.

• The blog goes straight to Hell: A boatload of Fractured Dimensions stuff on hand and a commitment to paint for Mike at Mortal Arrow means we'll be spending some time on the lower planes in 2016. Pack your fire-retardant underwear.
• It's a Wyrd, Wyrd, Wyrd world: Wyrd miniatures' new plastic stuff isn't half bad. That said, their sadly discontinued metals are much better. In 2015 I added a new range of foothills to Lead Mountain while gobbling up as many first edition minis as I could lay my grubby mitts on. Some of these will work their way into the rotation in 2016.
• The bloom is off the rose: I've largely lost my taste for Kickstarters. Mr. Solarz at Center Stage Miniatures saw to that. I may, however, make an exception for Cauldron Born Miniatures' campaign if and when it goes live. 
• The Muller-Man-Crush continues: It bears mentioning that much of the aforementioned Fractured Dimensions, Wyrd, and Cauldron Born stuff was sculpted by Paul Muller. What can I say? I'm a fan. 
• Zombtober rocks!!: It's never too early to plan.
• Lest we forget: Reaper's excellent Peryton (sculpted by someone not named Paul Muller, oddly enough) remains fully prepped but unpainted. That needs to change.
• Fantasy Staples: I've painted some giants in the past but strangely no dragons. Can I paint one or both in 2016?
• Outside the box: I really can paint non-fantasy subjects. Honest. Something to prove the point may be in order.
• Conversions anyone?: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's been a while since my last serious conversion project.
• The Prime Directive: Have fun. This is a hobby, after all. 
• Same time next year: The ramblings above are starting to look suspiciously like New Year's resolutions. Whatever they are, a re-visitation of the list next New Years Eve seems in order. 

So ends the stream of consciousness/blather portion of the program. I conclude with two pics; one of the overflow from last Zombtober's Red Ghoul Project, the other, a first look at Bael, Duke of Hell and his retinue. They barely qualify as work in progress pics but I need to start the new year somewhere.

One can never have too many red ghouls.

Lady devil arrived New Years Eve.  Went straight onto workbench.

Zedvember 2015/1: Ghoul Power

* Zedvember being a chance to complete some not-quite-done undead...  the brainchild of Bob Kinnear at BZA Bob's Zombie Apocalypse in 28mm and Chris Hird at Chris's Miniature Woes.

By my estimation, the first installment of Zedvember equals the sixth of Zomtober. Loose ends have been tied and hatches battened, t's crossed and i's dotted. Translation: the red-ghouls are done. Many pictures to follow.

The whole red-ghoul pack is pictured up top. The last member completed was the boss, a Reaper miniature featuring the world's largest meat-tenderizing hammer and a lovely belt ensemble made of flayed skin, severed heads, and assorted viscera. Yum:

The ghoul-hag is, at long last, truly done:

 The boss with the hag & with the original Fractured Dimensions perribos:

The grunt-level ghouls by Otherworld as well as a side-by-side comparison with one of the same minis painted some years ago:

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Paul Muller can do no wrong. The sculptor did an especially good job on all the faces. Some yearbook photos to illustrate the point:

One final piece of good news: anyone wishing to get some perribos of their own is in luck. Fractured Dimensions miniatures are now available through Mortal Arrow. More on this next time.