Old School D&D miniatures

 I used to have a collection of those figures. The giant is the one I remember. That was some time ago. It looks like the ones you have, have survived rather well. I don't believe any of the figures I had survived. I think I gave most of them to a freind who gamed AD&D. It sure does bring back some memories. Thanks for posting.

Best Regards

For work done nearly a quarter of a century ago, they look excellent. Did you use the old Ral Patha acrylic paints or enamels? I used to play AD&D and MERP (Rolemaster) a lot in those days and figures were an integral part of the gameplay.

My wife paints miniatures and figures. Whilst rumaging through my cupboard of oddments, I came across a Ral Patha Amythest Dragon and of course the Dragon Lords Wyvern. She loves Dragons so these where snapped up and started immediately. The Amythest Dragon is most impressive, using Reaper accessories to make the vignette, entitled "Magic of the Orb"

Cheers

Mike

 Hey madmike,

 I used the Ral Parthe acrylics, they came in those little plastic tubs with snap on lids. We had a group of freinds that played every Sat. afternoon. The dragons you have are very nice.

Thanks for posting,

Best regards

madmike:

:For work done nearly a quarter of a century ago, they look excellent. Did you use the old Ral Patha acrylic paints or enamels?

Heh, yeah they're pretty old. On the elvish knight, the Steel color on the barding has begun to corrode. If you look closely, you can see that I transfered the blue and white check pattern to the rear of the barding as well, but the underlying corrosion has dulled it to near invisibility...

Back then I used acrylic paints manufactured by a company called The Armory (they sold figures and dice markers too) and the Polly S Advanced D&D line of paints. Both are long out of production. Polly S paints were the best, w/ colors like "Slime Green" and my all time favorite "Canine Brown", which was actually an excellent all around tan color. Looked just like old concrete.

For metallics, I used Testor's enamels. Acrylic metallics just didn't give me the same effect.

My wife paints miniatures and figures. Whilst rumaging through my cupboard of oddments, I came across a Ral Patha Amythest Dragon and of course the Dragon Lords Wyvern. She loves Dragons so these where snapped up and started immediately. The Amythest Dragon is most impressive, using Reaper accessories to make the vignette, entitled "Magic of the Orb"

Thats some pretty nice work there. The heavy drybrush, high contrast style always looks great in photographs. In the first photo, what did she make the base/floor from?

Highlights on the orb are nice too. What paints did she use?

SG:

I've been looking into trying some warhammer 40k figures.  I dont play the game, I just think the pieces are cool.  I just dont have enough money right now to buy figures and paint and glue.  Someday I'll try it.  I'm really into fantasy stuff so those figures all look great to me.

I've been looking at those 40K figures too. I went to a game shop for the first time in years last week, and I saw some Tau(?) minis and vehicles that looked sweet.

I've been seeing a lot of nice mini dios lately too, like this one by bultenibo in sci-fi:

/forums/929591/ShowPost.aspx

...so I've been jonesing to paint me some minis lately. Maybe I'll do a WIP.

Heh! I got this one...

Ok, waaaay back in the day gaming minis were cast in lead. They were sold unpainted by various companies, most notably Grenadier and Ral Partha. They were very inexpensive; w/ the exception of the chaos dragon, not one of the above figures cost me more than $1.50.

Then in the early ‘90s, Congress outlawed the use of lead in minis as an environmental hazard. Mini companies had to come up w/ new metals to cast the figures in. This caused the price of minis to go up by about 300%. Since part of the attraction of painting these was how cheap they were, a lot of people stopped buying them.

Grenadier and Ral Partha didn't do so well...

Games Workshop (the makers of 40K) however, had always cast their minis in a non-lead metals, and had always been expensive. When the Congressional ban came down, GW was relatively unaffected. They basically kept the market alive.

When Wizards of the Coast released D@D 3^rd edition in 2001, they wanted in on the mini market that GW had made. They began producing a game called (imaginatively) "D@D Miniatures", and began selling poorly painted collectible vinyl game figures to support the game. Those are the ones you found.

Did that help, or did I just add to the confusion?

When I'm in the mood to paint some, I find them here:

http://www.nobleknight.com/

Click on the "Miniatures and Games" page. I like Reaper Miniatures' Dark Heaven line of figures.

One WIP, coming up.

Cosmic J Thats some pretty nice work there. The heavy drybrush, high contrast style always looks great in photographs. In the first photo, what did she make the base/floor from? Highlights on the orb are nice too. What paints did she use?

She used Games Workshop (citadel) acrylics on these but has moved over to Vallejo Game colour which has equivalents for all the Citadel paints.

http://www.perthmodelclub.org/01_magic_of_the_orb.htm explains all

Reaper 25mm Sir Michael of the Gold

Those are really nicely painted pieces, Cosmic.

I used to paint a lot of AD&D character figures years ago, about 21 years ago in fact. Do any of you guys roleplay at all?!

Thanks Eddie. Can I call you that? FE? Mr. Fingers? Which would you prefer?

Yeah, still gaming after all these years. That's my other expensive hobby, although I haven't actually painted a mini in 12 years or so. Bought some new figures just last month w/ the intention of trying it again, but cleaning and priming them is as far as I've gotten...

I have not pen and paper gamed for a number of years now. There are four of us from the original group, all 40 somethings who meet each month for LAN RPG fun. Our game of flavour is the Never Winters Night series (AD&D)

However, just yesterday, Graham suggested a Runequest quick scenario at a pub Sunday session. Looking forward to that!

Cheers

Mike

Cosmic, you can call me that, but my real name is...Paul.

Call of Cthulhu was another fave roleplayin' game of mine, but I was always goin' insane! There was a range of figures for this game, not sure if they're still bein' produced now though.

Well Paul, you may call me John. It seems only proper.

CoC and Runequest. You guys have good taste, they are the same basic rule set.

I run a CoC game every year for Halloween (at least, every year I can talk people into it ). If you guys are ever in the States, consider yourself invited.

Very cool figures.

About ... 7 years ago my friend and I started playing Warhammer 40K. Stopped playing it around freshman, maybe Junior year in high school. I still have all 4 of my armies, and he still has his one army. I had a Tau army, Ultramarine, Dark Angels, and Tyranid army. I've been thinking about getting them out and painting some of the unpainted ones in between paint and gluing times on the models.

If any of you guys want some just to paint and dink around with, PM me and i'll send them to ya for free. I'll post some pics so you can see what they are. I have no use for them anymore and don't ever see myself playing it again.

Josh

Nice job, I still have some of those figures around somewhere. I had a huge collection I started around 5th grade. I'd love to get the CoC figures and do them up again, they were always my favorites.

I found a store while on vacation last year that had a nice selection of figures and I bought several. Here are a couple I've finished.

Yup. 25mm. The older figures (like most of mine) are actually a little under scale . The human sized ones are just less than an inch. The red headed giant is just less than 3" tall, and the Chaos Dragon is about 3 1/2" from the tabletop to to his wingtip.

Games Workshop minis (like their 40K line) are more accurately scaled, at about an inch from the tabletop to eye level.

Nice dwarves there Aaronw. Were they cast in metal or plastic?

Hey FastasEF, if your still offering, I wouldn't mind painting some of those minis. One of each maybe? I'd be willing to send you the cost of postage, and I'll post the results here, if you like.

Very nice selection of dwarves there!

They do look like Reaper figs, more in the 28mm "heroic scale" that Reaper do a lot of.

My wife Lori has around 100 figs from the Reaper line in her stash and some of the sculptors like Sandra Gerrity are extremely talented.

Cheers

Mike

Ral Partha was my favorite line of figures, but these Reaper figs are nice. Not as over the top as GW but the slightly larger size does make a difference for the details.

I don't recall who made them but there was a nice line of RuneQuest minis at one time. I'd love to be able to go back in time and raid the Games of Berkley figure counters as an adult with some disposable income, I'd get all the cool stuff I could only dream about getting then. 

What kind of paints are people using to paint their miniatures? I use Tamiya on my planes and am wondering if Tamiya would work just as well. I've heard Vallejo makes good paints, but they are not easy to find. I went to Michaels and found Apple Barrel which some mini painters I've read use. Seems like a big line of colors, but wasn't sure if the quality was there like Tamiya.

Any thoughts would be great. Also, if you have any techniques you would like to share would be great too.

Thanks,

Burt

Hello Centurion.

I use a variety of paints for different purposes. I took a long period of trial and error to find what paints I was most comfortable w/ in which application. My recommendation is that you should do the same, try lots of different paints on lots of different types of projects to establish a "palette" that you are comfortable w/.

For the most part, I use an airbrush whenever I can get away w/ it. Mostly I shoot Testor's Model Master enamels through my airbrush. I find them easy to use, easy to clean up and they give good opaque coverage in very few coats. I may be in the minority though, I think most modelers prefer acrylics when airbrushing.

When forced to paint w/ a brush, I prefer Apple Barrel Craft acrylics, or a similar brand. They are very cheap, have good opacity, you get a lot of paint for your money and they come in a huge selection of colors. They do not have popular military colors though, so you may be forced to look elsewhere for those.

I have heard that Andrea, Citadel and Vallejo make good paints, but I have little or no experience w/ them. There is probably something about them in the Painting and Airbrushing section of these forums.

I have also heard that Tamiya paints aren't so great when applied w/ a brush. My few attempts to use them that way lead me to believe that's true, but I don't have extensive experience w/ them. If they are working for you, that's all that really matters.

For techniques, I'm currently working on a figure painting W.I.P., but I have a lot of projects on my plate and might not get it up for a bit. In the meantime, there are lots of other guys around here that do some excellent work.

my wife and I have moved across to Vallejo for figure painting and detail work. In fact I use Vallejo now exclusively to paint my 1:72 AFV's.

Both Citadel and Vallejo are excellent, but to me and my wife, Vallejo is the better of the two.

I sometimes use Ceramcoat paints and the results are very pleasing, though not as smooth (no brush marks either) as Vallejo.

Cheers

Mike