What is Best in Life?

 To paint your miniatures,

to see them finished before you,

and to hear the lamentations of the lead pile.

I've painted a lot of barbarians in the past year or so but I hadn't painted a "certain" barbarian with a square-cut black mane and a smoldering volcanic gaze... But I saw this figure hanging on a hook at a local gaming store and I thought: "Why not?"

I did some conversion on the figure because when I got it out of its blister-pack I found that the sword was a bit too chunky and it was bent too. I didn't have any decent swords to replace it with in my bits box so I decided on a spear. I also added a bow and quiver on his back. The spear (and half an arm) came from the Frostgrave Barbarians box. So did the quiver. The bow came from the Oathmark Dwarves boxed set.

The original figure is Reaper Black Bones. It's a decent figure but metal would have been better. Then again... I only really bought it because it was cheap.

He came out okay overall, and he'll make a good character for something some time in the future.

During the same shopping trip I also picked up this little beauty. This is another Reaper figure (metal this time) and I think it's supposed to be a female elf ranger. Whatever it is it's a nice figure. I initially wanted to paint her using only various shades of greens and browns. But I then decided to go for a bit of a Robin Hood effect and added the red fringe on her armour.

It has a nice dynamic pose and has some really nice detail that isn't over-done. I'm not a fan of figures that are overly busy with detail. I know many of those busy sculpts look really good when you see them on websites but I find them to be confusing and difficult in the flesh. Half the time I can't even make out what some parts of the figures are supposed to be. This figure had just the right balance of detail.

These next things are pretty boring. The crocodile skull is a Malifaux piece and I don't know what it's supposed to be other than a skull. The cart/wagon and the chrystal ball are both from WizKids. Nice little pieces. I'm going to make a draft horse for the cart.

And that's it for now.

Thanks for reading.

And... "To Hell wid choo!"