My Kingdom for More Earthtones

Well, that was fun.

After several very long weeks, I was able last weekend to put the finishing varnish coats on what can only be described as "the country's single largest collection of corpse models in miniature." My original count of 43 was actually off a bit- turns out it was 48. And that number includes a few minis that feature multiple "bodies," meaning that I am fairly spent on painting dead guys now for a while. Here's the family portrait of the bunch; nary a healthy, strapping young warrior amongst them:

1000 internet points if you can spot the AD&D reference

And with the (eventual) posting of said family portrait, it means I also get to share a few of my own collection, painted as usual using excess paint on the palette in between base coats. I am continuing to plug away at the wonderfully sculpted Otherworld adventuring party, destined to visit a barrow near you in the future.

Barbarian, Thief, Acrobat. . . no, wait. . .

When I added these three to the rest of the group I already had done, I noticed something rather striking- I am getting quite addicted to earth tones in my old age. It probably serves me right- my first painting attempts way back circa '96 were Space Marines daubed in in bright, lemon yellow power armor with fire engine red shoulder pads. Quite an evolution to my new style, which is brown, dark brown, tan, and more brown:

Perhaps I should just start buying my brown paint at Home Depot

Man, I love that fat friar. There are simply not enough fat human miniatures in my collection, and I resolve to remedy that. I am starting to think that all your super-hero looking skinny dudes are a thing of the past. Give me some girth for adventurin' wif.

And finally, one little parcel of Ol' Skool Citadel. I mentioned way back at the beginning of this blog that I was going to try to adhere this year to a "five out, one in" method in an attempt to thin out my lead herd a bit. Back in February, after finishing my first few dwarf crossbowmen, I "rewarded" myself with this little gem from the mid eighties- the "Dwarf with No Name." He'd been on my most wanted list (no pun intended, but hell- I'll take it) for years, and very serendipitously popped up for a steal on fleabay just as I was looking for a bargain. In a sort of homage (a concept that seems to be poppin' up more and more these days in the Oldhammer movement, no?) to a childhood fave Friz Freleng, I went with a version of this Citadel classic decked out as Yosemite Sam:

I'm the hootenest, tootenest, shootenest bobtail wildcat in the west 

It's probably been done before, but when I saw that pose, this was the only paint scheme that made sense to me.

I hope this finds you well, wherever you may be. Happy leadhunting.