Need some diversity in my mini's.

[Anderas]

I just added two pictures to the Gallery that show my first attempt to paint a different skintone than standard-GW-Colors-White-Skin.

Cyntia or every other woman, please don't feel offended.
I bought the miniatures with the sole purpose to train painting skintones; so i was searching for models which were really fully covered in Skin instead of clothes. This special range of models has the additional advantage of realistic Head proportions (even if other proportions are not really realistic); so the first time i could try how difficult a head in realistic proportions is to paint. Coming from Games Workshop models, i am used to oversized Eyes and Heads and Hands which are easy to paint, but look a little strange on the finished model.

Other than gaming miniatures, i spent a full day only on this one miniature to get a result that was vaguely pleasing me - on gaming miniatures i spend much less time.

I tried Latino Colors: So it is a dark haired model with white base skintone, but with reddish/yellowish brown shadows in every corner. I am not really pleased with the outcome, because the final result really is a white person.

If you click on the pictures, they will become about 4x to 5x bigger than the reality, so you will see every single failure. I still have to learn to make pictures in 1:1 size in order to hide little painting failures.

Front side


Back side


Just for the proportions, here is a little size comparision with one of my 40k Ork Boyz


Just befor this one, i tried to paint a latina which was really dependend from equatorial Indians, maybe mixed with some african slaves - so the skin is all brown and red. I was not really happy with the mini itself. It is from Hasslefree Miniatures and has a head like a GW model. This is why I was finally buying the Pinups of Death to continue the little project.


Interesting about this one is that I used matte colors only - but on the photo she is quite glossy. The problem was, I was just painting her without priming her. So underneath her skin there is no black color but just hard gleaming metal.
In the fierce Toulousian sun; the metal was shining through the color, giving her the appearance of being painted with high gloss color. It is a failure I will never repeat.

[Goblin-King]

Cyntia or every other woman, please don't feel offended.
I bought the miniatures with the sole purpose to train painting skintones; so i was searching for models which were really fully covered in Skin instead of clothes.

Yeah, the same way I have a folder of pictures for "anatomy studies". Got'cha!

[Anderas]

You have an extra folder for..... Zombies?

[cynthialee]

I have found that Dryad Bark by Citadel works rather well to make a really dark person.
Other browns...not so much but I am working on the diversity.
In my drive for diversity I painted up a goblin to look like a white person. {Because why should all hominid monsters have green skin?} Makes him look really creepy. Puts him in the 'uncanny valley'.

[knightkrawler]

Dobby?

[cynthialee]

Dobby?

Didn't think of that.

I figure I was gonna use him for a very wicked and nasty NPC.
His strange color was almost the death of him. He was tormented by his tribe as a youth due to his odd nature. So he fled his tribe to escape their torments. Then he discovered a great power, a relic that made him nigh unstoppable. So he returned to his tribe many years later to discover a tribe of orks had enslaved his people. This greatly upset him as it was his place to subjugate his people, not the place of lowly and slow orks. He turned the powers of his artifact against the orks, his people and the tribe of fimir on the other side of the valley his people reside in. He is a heartless and cruel taskmaster who is amassing an army of monsters and mercenaries. His sole drive in life is to seize political control of all the lands. His army has cut a swath of death across the lands. He serves neither Law or Chaos but sees himself and his army as the eventual master of even the gods.
His people hate him, they have suffered more than anyone. The orks, fimir and chaos dwarves hate him as they see him as a peon who got lucky. The ogres, dark elves and dragons fear him and the new order he has sworn to inflict on all the species. The men and forest elves fight a losing battle to prevent him from enslaving their lands also.
Zargon and Mentor have teamed up to remove this great (yet tiny) menace from the earth. Their great battle put on hold while they combine forces to remove a fiend from the earth who has the power to enslave wizards and simple men alike.

The idea for the story being that he comes out of nowhere and he is severely upsetting the balance of power, reducing the struggles of good and evil to a simple passion play of petty mortals. Even after he is defeated the lands are ravaged and the wars between Order and Chaos reduced to petty skirmishes for the next few centuries.
Should he finally seize all of the lands he will turn the powers of his relics against everyone and cause an age of mere survival to arise. The petty wars and conflicts of great powers will be put aside as men nor monster will have time for such worries when just living another day is all anyone has time for.

This NPC hates everyone and everything. He is bitter and devious. And it is his goal to turn earth into a basic battle ground for survival where morality and ethic has no place. Even Zargon does not have such diabolical plans for the planet.

He still needs a name and an artifact or two that make him godlike in power. I have the storyline scaffold figured out...

[Anderas]

Dobby for the name.

How many Quests do you plan with him?

[cynthialee]

Dobby for the name.

How many Quests do you plan with him?

As it stands...I have no idea if I will be able to run with this idea. Currently my players are deeply involved in a new campaign that they are just a few game sessions into, playing a new storyline or any game other than our TT RPG is unlikely.

Currently they are trying to secure the ancient elven homeland for the elves in the face of rapacious men who seek to seize the lands for profit. The main protagonist is a young woman who has the birthright of the title "Queen of the Sky People". She is the sole survivor of the royal court, which was slaughtered in a double cross by the humans. She rides a Pegacorn (Unicorn/Pegasus hybrid) into battle with her trusty companions; an assassin who has become disillusioned with her liege and turned coat, and an anthropomorphic Armadillo/Shaman who is affectionately known as the 'Sharmadillo' to his friends. Together they are fighting the forces of evil that would kill off her bloodline and steal the lands of the elves.

I have found over the years that my best storylines result when I make one of the Players Characters the main protagonist with the other players running supporting characters. But one must get a group of players well seasoned before they are able to set aside ego and play a supporting role in the story. But by then the role play abilities of the players will raise above the petty and they will be able to embrace the concept of story over personal advancement.

[Anderas]

Now the real question is: If a white Goblin can achieve THAT, what could a white Orc do?

[Goblin-King]

-And so you see my heroes it is much better to be white... Now go hang those cottonpicking black orcs!

-Yeah... We are not gonna work for you anymore Mentor.