And it burns burns burns...

 ...the ring of fire.

I loved painting these guys and put some degree of time into getting the fire the way I like it (it ended up being many layers of paint and ink in the end). I like the way they turned out, so lets take a look:

The cast; The Fireflow Denizens (missed off the spawn point from this photo... oops).

And, as always, lets take a closer look at the models:

Because I missed it off, here is the spawner. I did this (like the other spawners) with a fairly simple design - the fire around the pillar was the important bit, so I kept the rest stone.

The Gels. Hopefully, the blending comes out in the pictures once they have been uploaded to Blogger.
After painting all the fire I decided that the eyes would look best in a simple white - cartoon-like.
I love the facial expressions on all these guys, particularly the little gels.

Ember Hounds. For dogs made of flame, there were a lot of texture on these models. I followed the technique I used on the Gels to tie them all in. With the current iteration of the rules they produce lots of smoke and I considered painting the extremities of the fire (nose and tail) as smoke instead. However, I do not know if this will still be the case under Forgotten King, so I er'd on the side of caution and left them all fire.

The Blaze Beetle. I really like the posing of this model, bursting from the ground to burn everything - very menacing. I toyed with painting it black, rather than the dark red of the art, but I did not think it looked so good, to be honest; it was to stark a contrast. I like they way it turned out.
My only complaint of this model is the flat fire; would have liked it if it was a little more cylindrical (but admit, it would have been a design challenge to achieve it).

Now the bosses:

Rock Gut the stone troll. I like the way this guy turned out, but it was time consuming to highlight all the individual stones; worth it. I think the overall colours contrast well, with his mane of fire and lava body standing out from the grey stone of his hide. The loin cloth was painted brown to not distract from this contrast.

The man himself; Roxxor!
Love this model, very imposing. As with Rock Gut, the grey stone contrasts well with the fire colour. I struggled for a time with how to paint the other areas of the model and tried a few different colours. Eventually settled on the brass with the fire in the runes. I originally wanted the runes to contrast with the rest of the model and tried many colours, but they all took away from the overall effect and looked odd; the important bits are the fire and the stone, so I left the emphasis on these.

So, there you have it, all the enemies in the Caverns of Roxxor. I will post the 3 heroes soon and then the 4 expansion mini-bosses.

See you in the next update.

Heroes in a half shell...

Admittedly, a reference to Mario would have been more apt for the Rock Top Gang... erm... anyway, on with the pictures:

See? Koopa Troopas.

I like these models, they have bags of character; what is not to like about dancing/Mexican waving turtles?

Lets take a closer look.

Meet Blue, otherwise known as the Crusher. He crushes things. And he is blue.

This guy is imposing on the board and a really great model.

Red, otherwise known as a Roller. Though the model does not actually look like he is rolling, I do love how far his neck sticks out; looks very comical. 

And this is Green, or Slowpoke. I really love the dancing ones! Though probably not actually dancing, that is what they look like to me - I imagine them doing a very slow turtle speed version of Thriller! Great models.

Bob-ombs? Bombadiers in SDE speak, anyway. I did these red because 1) I did the shell tokens 4 green and 2 red and 2) I did not know what other colour to do them... I like these models but would have prefered their shells to be knobbly like the others, rather than smooth.

The aforementioned shell tokens - 4 green and 2 red, to differentiate (somewhat) the different turtles in shell form.

Finally the spawn points. I did these yellow out of some thought for the yellow blocks in a Mario game... *shrug* I did not know what other colour to use, really...

So, there you have it - The Rock Top Gang.

Next update will showcase the Fireflow Denizens and the bosses. I REALLY enjoyed painting those.

We could be heroes...

I have shown the Kobolds and Dragons from the base set of Super Dungeon Explore and, now, finally, here are the heroes:

I loved painting these models, they are great and I liked to spend time and attention getting them to look right. as with all my blogs, lets have a closer look.

The person I am painting for wanted the Deeproot Druid to be painted as a panda and I think it looks awesome this way; it really stands out. As Super Dungeon is 'cartoony' in look, I painted the fur onto angry bear as you would in an illustration and I think it turned out well. I love the look on the druid's face and giving him grey eyes adds to that wizened expression.

The Clawtribe Barbarian was always going to be painted in muted browns and dark skin tone, so the red hair and green eyes really adds some colour to the model. I love this model, it is one of my favourites by far.

Of course I was going to model the Hearthsworn Fighter on Gilius Thunderhead from Golden Axe! I had the music from Golden Axe on loop in my head as I painted this miniature. I think it worked well and he looks pretty grim and ready for a fight (or to kick some gnomes...).

The Glimmerdusk Ranger is done in nice pastel blue, as opposed to lincoln green. I am not sure why I chose the blue from the card art, to be honest, but I think she looks pretty awesome.

The Royal Paladin already looked good in the blue cloak and blonde hair, so I stuck with that. I made his features a little more grim so he looks like he his ready for a fight (was not overly keen on the Final Fantasy look in his art).

When I uploaded my pictures, I only had this angle for the Ember Mage, but I suppose you can see everything you need to to see that this is a Final Fantasy White Mage. I really liked the way this model turned out, the white and the red contrasts really well and I painted the zig-zags on as these are part of the White Mage outfit. Great model, in my opinion.

The Hexcast Sorcereress was done in pastel blue rather than the white of her art and I like the way she turned out. The mass of shocking pink hair looks great in the art, so I kept it here. And, as you can see, I could not bring myself to give her little white knickers...

I saved my favorite hero until last. The Riftling Rogue is some sort of demon and I wanted her to have dark skin to go with her bright red eyes. I did not want the slightly pastel purple skin she has in the art, so I went with dark blue and I am glad I did because I really like this look.


As I had no where else to put them, I have included the chests here:

I did them gold, but Boo Booty sliver to contrast (thought it just looked better).

So, there you have it, the whole base set of Super Dungeon Explore.
I have painted most of the Caverns of Roxxor set and just have a few more to go; will post them when I finish them.

See you in the next update.

Can you train this dragon?

Last update I showed the Kobolds I had painted and here I present the Egg Clutch spawn point for Super Dungeon Explore.

Here is the Egg Clutch spawner itself. I used purple for the crystal because red did not look as interesting. I tied the purple in with the Dragon Priests cloak colour, to show some afinity between the Kobolds and Dragons.

The Hatchlings. I was very pleased with the skin colour I achieved on the dragons. It is sort of hard to capture in photographs but there are very subtle yellow highlights on them. They were a pleasure to paint.

The Whelps. Nothing more to say that has not been said above - I think I achieved a nice skin tone.

The Wyrmlings.

Starfire the Dragon him(her?)self. I used the same skin tone and colour scheme as the other dragons. A really nicely posed model and one of the best dragon models I have painted, to be fair. Great miniature.

So, there is the Egg Clutch spawns and the boss Dragon. Really enjoyed painting these, they are great models.

Heroes will be shown next update, probably posted tomorrow.

Don't feed them after midnight...

Someone has been waiting for these pictures.

Allow me to explain. This someone is a friend of mine who, pleased with my work on the Von Drak set for Super Dungeon Explore, did me the honour of asking me to paint all his other figures for the game. I jumped at the chance. I enjoy painting. and I enjoy it even more when somebody else appreciates my miniatures.

So, without further ado, I present The Kobolds...

Rex is missing from this cast list, but will make an appaerence further down the page. I must admit, these were not the most enjoyable miniatures to paint of the set. You can really tell that they were early sculpts; the detail is not so sharp and the miniatures are not that interesting (with the notable exception of the flingers). They have a certain nasty charm, for sure, and I do like the miniatures. In hindsight, I would have given them purple skin; I think they might have popped a little more.

Having said that, there are things I like. Lets take a closer look:

The Gougers. Skin and toga, thats basically what they are. I like the nasty little grin these guys have as they are about to stick you with their spears before running off into the dark.

The Knuckleheads. I love the WWI style tin helmets these guys have on. It was suggested to me to do these in a bronze colour and I think it worked quite well. I have not quite got the hang of painting NMM on Super Dungeon figures yet (as mentioned in a previous blog, I tried on the Von Draks initially) and I need more practice, so I did straight up metalics.

The Ironscales. These guys are slabs of armour and look quite menacing. I went for a sort of bronze - silver - gold (priests have gold on them) for the metallics. I think these look ok, but maybe gold for these might have looked slightly better? I'm not sure.

I like these models. I think the...bandages? give them a unique look that stops them being mostly skin like the gougers. They also look deranged, which you need to be when chucking firebombs around!
My favourite of the kobold miniatures by far.

The Warrens spawn points. They have been painted basically following the art from the card. Functional.

Dragon Priests. I quite like these models; the hoods make them look interesting to me. I decided on the purple cloak as a contrast and them emulated this in the Egg Clutch spawner to tie these miniatures in.

I love Rex. The miniature looks like an action figure rather than a miniature and I like the asthetics of that. I painted him simply as the miniature is impressive on the board anyway. I did emphasise the muscles as the miniature is so big.

Rex photobombs himself...

So, there we have it, the Kobold Warren spawn point.

Next up, the Egg Clutch...