Here’s another proxy job for my 40mm miniature collection, it’s funny how much energy I spend trying to find that “goldilocks” scale! Rogue in classic MCP suffers from Jim Lee design syndrome, and again… I’m not knocking Jim Lee’s design, I would just like to acknowledge that she’s had other, really cool costumes!
Luckily, I had extra bases from other MCP figs, so I swiped an engine piece from a Necromunda model for her to perch on, and she looks pretty cool!
This is probably my favorite Rogue costume ever, so kudos to the folks who put in the work on it!
I am currently working out some fantasy prints in this scale, as I’m realizing that there are some benefits to working large like this. I love the challenge of painting 15mm scale minis, and you can’t beat the storage options, but 40mm has it’s charms as well! I’ll explore them more in depth in an upcoming post!
Here’s my first Moonstone miniature for 2025, and he’s one of my favorites! (They’re all my favorite, who am I kidding?) Boulder the Troll borrows a lot from Ludo the rockfriend from Labyrinth, but Ludo’s cool as hell, so I’m not faulting Goblin King Games for paying homage to such a great character!
In game, Boulder can summon rocks, which sounds pretty familiar. He also has a cool trick that lets him sing to Moonstones and bring them higher up out of the ground, effectively reducing the amount of time characters have to spend digging them up!
I went with a couple of oil washes on this figure, with a little Payne’s Grey on the cool colors, and a burnt umber wash on the skin tones. This toned down the greens pretty well, and really helps the figure stand out on my display shelf!
Boulder can be played with a goblin crew, I’ll have to post a shot of some of them together with their big friend!
I am blaming my friend Randon for this. I just fell helplessly back in love with Marvel Crisis Protocol. It’s not entirely his fault, the models are incredible, fun to paint, and really easy to collect… but I’m blaming him, primarily because he’s a fun guy to pal around with, but he’s also an incredible painter, which can get the inspiration juices flowing pretty easily!
The first model off the workbench is Cain Marko, half-brother of Charles Xavier and the wielder of the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak… but you probably know him as the Juggernaut!
This model is incredible! He’s so dynamic, and the base alone conveys the brutal stompiness of the character in such a huge way! I also love that Cain just grabbed a stoplight to hit someone with on his way to the fight!
Juggernaut is one of those characters that I’ve loved since I was a kid. He’s a bad guy most of the time, but he seems to have some redeemable qualities. There was a run in the early 2000’s when he was a member of the X-Men that I loved, especially his friendship with Sammy the Squidboy. Good stuff, and it still hits me like a ton of bricks 20 years later!
There’s a bunch more MCP on the way, but Juggernaut is a great way to kick off this year’s projects! He also lets me check off a hobby bingo square, since he’s been sitting partially finished on a shelf for almost two years! Woohoo!
This is a first for me, I don’t normally post enough to warrant an actual year in review, but I’m getting healthier and a steady posting schedule has helped keep me motivated! The unpainted horde is slowly shrinking, and that’s a good thing, right?
I started out 2024 in the hospital after a nearly fatal bout of necrotizing pancreatitis, which I’m still dealing with today… and probably will for the rest of my life. My motor skills were shot, and I had lost nearly a third of my body mass from atrophy. It took a few months, but I was eventually able to control my hands well enough to paint for more than a few minutes, and now, rounding out the year, I’m back to a pretty steady level of quality and able to chip away at the horde.
I also came really close to throwing away a couple of big, horde type armies, one a Tyranid group that was doing nothing but piss me off, and the other a Kruleboyz army that was just gathering dust. Spearhead helped me get over the Kruleboyz blocker, and I’m close to finishing off 1,000 points of painted figs for AOS, which will be cool.
The Tyranids were a whole other story! I have always loved the bugs, but I struggle with painting the same damned pattern and color scheme on a hundred models. I got bored. I changed my color scheme a hundred million times. I also played a game of 10th edition 40k, and freaking hated it. I go You go HAS TO GO!
Since then, though, I’ve played two games of boarding actions, and had a bit more fun. It’s still a giant pain in the ass, but I see some fun to be had here… only because my game group is amazing. If I was playing modern 40k with random folks? I would become a hermit and leave society altogether.
I also settled on a color scheme, which is essentially ALL THE COLORS. I’m happy with that, and the combined effect of all these colorful bugs makes me happy. I’m close t0 500 points of painted bugs, mostly chaff, so I’ll be sure to fill that out in the future.
The Marvel Zombicide figs are coming along, with about a dozen figs finished out of several hundred. I’ll be making steady progress on those in the year to come!
My Frostgrave/Five Parsecs/Mordheim project finally got off the ground, but it’s mostly assembled figs with very little paint. Still, it’s progress, and I’m having fun getting the stories for the characters together and have started building out terrain.
I’m also plowing right back in to Necromunda, mostly because it’s a great game to kitbash figures from. I’m hoping to build out some scenarios in the future, but for now I’m focused on building out my warbands and terrain for the game.
Warcry is also something I should be focusing on more, it’s probably the best modern GW game, but I went overboard on it and have too many warbands. But, that being said, I did get a chunk of the terrain done and was able to use it at a Spearhead retreat back in September, which I loved.
My Malifaux projects have been getting wrapped up a bit as well, with several gangs getting finished up. I had grand plans towards collecting entire keywords of Malifaux figs, but I had a change of heart that has me strongly considering divesting a large amount of the figs from this game, and probably all the games I play.
Moonstone has continued to be the salve from Grimdark burnout, the minis are cheery and whimsical, tons of fun to paint, and look great on a shelf. Plus, my wife likes them, so that’s a plus! The other side effect is that I find myself painting my other stuff with a much brighter palette now, which is making me happy.
15mm minis took a huge amount of my attention over the summer, which was a welcome break. I really love painting the smaller figs, and the scenery is a ton of fun to paint up as well. As much as I dream of playing 15mm Mordheim, however, I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen, unless I paint up entire warbands for other folks to play. Still, solo play is an option, and I really enjoy looking at these tiny models!
The last big project of 2024 was realizing that I am only one person, and that during my rehabilitation period I spend a bit of time feeling sorry for myself and buying models that I will never get around to painting. I made a goal to re-home a lot of the unopened boxes, especially from games that have been sitting in storage for more than two years. That’s resulted in me gaining back a lot of space in my studio, and has helped me focused on prioritizing what I want to do with whatever time I have left in this world to do it.
That sounds a little glum, but it’s actually the opposite. The effect of nearly dying last year has been a rally cry for me; I don’t want my hobby to be a chore. I want to celebrate these toy soldiers, and I want to really explore how painting and collecting, mindfully and with purpose, makes me feel! It’s really cathartic, in a way, and has helped me cope with my new reality in a way that I never thought possible.
Using this blog to chart my progress has been really healthy, and has helped keep me motivated towards finishing projects. I have some huge, but attainable goals for next year, so stay tuned!
I hope you all have had a positive hobby journey over this last year, and here’s to hobby tranquility in 2025!
You know, the kind of guy that planned things and had a strategy for his blog posts would have realized that his December crew for Malifaux would have made an amazing post for Christmas day, but I am not, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be that kind of guy… so here’s my Woe crew, led by the always charming Pandora!
This crew has everything. Freaky Scarecrows. Dememnted Teddy Bears. Evil, stabby babies.
Baby Kade was a challenge, babies are not a thing that come across a painting desk that often, and I wanted his skin tones to be smooth and buttery, which is kind of the opposite of how I paint!
Iggy leads three Aversions, and they’re a ton of fun! Puppets, brain removal, and nose picking, woohoo!
The sorrows are also pretty neat, and really lend themselves well to oil washes.
The Poltergeist is last of the traditional Woe crew, and I painted it up like the Aversions and Sorrows:
Now, because Baby Kade needs a teddy, one is allowed in this crew!
And we’ll round out the Woe crew with The Carver, one of my all-time favorite sculpts from Wyrd!
This crew has been successfully re-home through my wildly popular catch and release program, which allows me to keep painting miniatures without filling the house to divorce levels of crazy little figures.
I am so happy to finally have this guy done! He is literally the first miniature I saw for Moonstone when it was first teased way back in the dark ages of my memory, and he’s one I was a little stressed about finishing, because he’s so damned iconic.
Moonstone is already an incredibly thematic, atmospheric game. It’s also the only game that I know of that has a mechanic bake into it that allows for a farting dog that is used as a mount for a jousting goblin knight, so if that gets your gaming engines revving, this game was made for you!
That goblin knight’s name is Pubert. He kills folks and steels their money, but he also seems to be really attached to Doug, and I can’t hold much malice towards someone who is that devoted to their dog. I can’t imagine Doug is the best choice of mounts, after all. I’ve known far too many pugs. They’re like the drunk sidekick in every relationship; entertaining, gassy, and just a bit wobbly.
Doug and Pubert are also my first Goblin mini for Moonstone, and I’m really thrilled to be heading into this faction for the game!
I love Groot! His miniature from Marvel Crisis Protocol is pretty sweet, but alas, I don’t have a personal aircraft hangar to store MCP figs, so I’ll have to do with these Marvel Zombies figs from Zombicide.
It’s a pretty solid sculpt, with plenty of room to play with tints and really break away from the monotony of painting a guy made of wood.
Here he is with Drax, the galaxy’s greatest saxaphone player!
Time for an update on my Moonstone back log, and perhaps the beginning of a fresh strategy to get these done!
In the past, I’ve just put together whatever I had in front of me, and set out painting that backlog without any real strategy. That has led me to feeling like I’ll never finish any of these collections, since there’s simply so many figures, and I’m doing a terrible job of not buying more!
So, I’ll be taking them on by boxed set, and since the last Moonstone mini I finished was the Creep from the Masquerade box, I figured I would follow up with Duchess, and eventually Claudia Duvel. That should at least help me feel like I’m making some progress as I check off each box completed!
The Duchess is a really fun mini, and challenged me to try some new approaches to color. I wanted to go super bright on everything, but she’s also pretty sinister, so I needed to go bright and sinister, which I’m hoping I pulled off!
Here she is with Creep, looking like they’re ready to poison some canape at the next Grand Ball! Claudia is already on the paint table, so I should have her up soon!
The Masquerade Troop box is available online directly here, but you could be a real champ and order it from your local game store!
Still playing catch-up on the never-ending mass of miniatures from the Marvel Zombies Zombicide game from CMON! Today it’s all about Drax. Or Mr. Destroyer, if you’re feeling fancy.
I’m pretty consistently surprised with the quality of these figures from CMON, considering the first Zombicide minis I painted were not the best of experiences!
Also, I LOVE that these miniatures have base details already. That’s a really great addition that goes a long way towards selling the mood of the game!
I still haven’t played a game of Zombicide, but it could happen. Regardless, I’m happy to have these around for any super-hero action that might come along!
Since absolutely no one has asked, I thought it would be fun to put together a quick guide to how I paint ork skin. This is a speed paint method that I have been tinkering with for the better part of 20 years, and allows me to get a squad of orks (or goblins, or green dwarves, or emerald halflings) on the table pretty quickly!
Step One:
Start with a good foundation. Deeznudds here was sprayed with a coat of black primer, then I gave him a zenithal highlight pass with gray paint. Then, he got a downward drybrush of light grey paint. I’m going for high-contrast here, so subtlety is absolutely not a goal.
Step Two:
I blocked in the skin with some Sap Green ink from Daler Rowney, mixed with just a tiny bit of airbrush medium to dilute the pigment just a little. With the pre-shading done in step one, the skin could be considered done at this point and look just fine on the table-top…
Step Three:
…but we’re not Barbarians, are we? At this point, I started picking out the upper left side of the highlights with a little bit of yellow paint (Army Builder Babe Blond to be exact). Any light yellow will do the trick. I took a couple of passes to build up the lighter effect.
Step Four:
Why yellow? Well, Padawan, green is made out of yellow and blue, therefore it really likes being highlighted with yellow, and if you need to shade, blue works a wonder. At this step I have mixed a little Army Painter Arid Earth in with my yellow, and my highlights are getting smaller with each layer. It’s also time to paint that manky damned eye.
Step Five:
This step is completely optional, but I really like the effect. I paint in the highlights on the lips with a lighter skin tone, this adds a cool effect to the face and breaks up the monotony of a purely green face.
Step Six:
This is where I block in final highlights on the lips by adding a little Army Painter Arid Earth to the flesh tones.
Step Seven:
Deeznuddz is looking pretty fierce, it’s time to line his gums and his manky damned eye with some Flesh Tearers Red Contrast Paint from Citadel.I also painted in his teeth with some Menoth White Highlight from Studio P3.
Step Eight:
The gums get a little highlight action by adding a little Army Builder Arid Earth to the Flesh Tearers Red. Yes, I do try to highlight with the same color, good eye! This is a good place to coat the teeth with some Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint from Citadel.
Step Nine:
At this point, all that’s left is the teeth. Since highlighting with a yellow based paint won’t give me the effect I’m looking for, I’ll be using Menoth White Highlight from Studio P3. Deeznuddz is ready to smash some skulls!
The same technique that was used on this face works perfectly for any green skin, whether it’s arms, torsos, or even squishy little goblins. Have fun!
Now, the colors may seem a bit washed out, but that’s because we’re looking at this guy much bigger than he is in real life. Look at your screen at about what his real world size would be, and you’ll see what I mean!
If you enjoyed this guide, let me know! I’m thinking about starting a series to help people navigate learning to paint miniatures!
Grimmleigh's Lab 