Ben's Miniature Gallery

Auresh of the Red Robes [Aramil, Evlen Mage] added Sep 23, 2005
With a new campaign comes new characters, and therefore some new minis. The current game is using the Dragonlance setting, and I'm playing a freshly-Tested half-elven Red Robe wizard. I didn't have any minis on hand that really fit the character, and I used that as a flimsy excuse to spend money on a new one. I did a minor conversion to start out with, which was to hammer the end of the staf flat and cut and file it to portray the Staff of Magius. You can see the original staff by following the link in the title. Fortunately, it was a big, chunky gnarled staff, so I had plenty of material to work with. I may go back and add a tiny bit of putty to do some carvings on the staff head, but that can wait until later. I had originally intended to just get all my new minis glued to their bottle caps and primed last night, but I ended up staying up and finishing this one completely. I knew he was going to be wearing red, but I wanted to make sure there was still some color variation. I decided on a red/bronze color scheme for the robe, since I thought gold would be a little too flashy. I followed the same scheme for the "apron", with the tunic beneath yellow. I did a black wash on the robe and then built the colors back up with the base red mixed with yellow. I took my time and was rewarded with what I think is a very nice blend. I did a red wash on the yellow tunic, and highlighted again with yellow. I also tried to bring out the folds at the hem of the tunic and apron with more highlights. The bronze lining of the robe was highlighted with a little bit of gold just to give it some shine. It actually looks much richer than the "wings" on the shoulders that were painted pure gold. I was quite impressed with the sculpting of the head and hands, even more so than with Sandra Garrity's usual fine work. There were even sculpted fingernails, though they were easier to see on the hand holding the staff. I did a fairly simple paint job on the flesh tones, and painted the hair yellow with only a light brown/black wash on the braids and white highlights. I had done a black wash in the eye sockets, and only tiny dots of white remained at the center of the eyes. I was going to paint the eyes white and then add irises, but instead I decided to just paint the light dots the appropriate eye colors. The end effect is more like glowing dots of light in each eye socket, one red and one green. The red/green eyes were the "mark" left on him by the Test of High Sorcery, so I decided to leave the creepy eye efffect as it was to make them a little more distinctive.
category: /reaper | permanent link