A sleepy Skeletons WIPs straight from the workbench

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

Here are some shots of Kelly Kraken from scale75's Smog Riders line. I'm painting her as a gift to my girlfriend and she asked for a purple dress and green belt/bow.

I'll plonk her down on a scratch built beach base with some water effects later when she's done and because of the beach environment my girl wanted the mini to have a darker, sun tanned look and I think I'm almost there. Though I could add some more shadows, I think.

She's definitively a cute mini and fun to work on. Also that smug smirk is deadly!

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

I snapped two quick shots before leaving for work this morning of this old Reaper vampire I'm finally working on.

I'm using Stuart Semple's Black 3.0 on the cloak's inside. It's the mattest black I've ever seen but a bit temperamental to use on small minis but the result is worth it. I've used it on a rubber duck with great success becore

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

I've spent a lovely afternoon on the balcony attaching wings from a Dark Eldar mini (Scourge?) to a Frostgrave Demon body to see if it works. I've got another pair of the bat-like wings and two pairs with feathers in the bitz box for more.

I've also cleaned up and primed a Reaper bones black Chicken swarm. I need a Link now too i guess 

Gonna swing the brush a bit tomorrow, today was mostly chores so I'm really excited to get back to painting.

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

Done a bit more work on the skellies from Wargames Atlantic (really nice kit) and a sassy Oathmark skeleton.

[Luigi]

The winged demon is a great looking chap.
But the OM skeleton obviously steals the show

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

And now it's time for one of the hobby areas where I find my skills lacking: Figuring out basing.

From left to right it's Vietnam ground from MIG, GW's Battlemire with a drybrush of orange and last another MIG dried earth.

Maybe the Dried Earth with a couple of darker tufts would work for these guys. I'll try after work

[Daeothar]

Dried earth is too similar in tone and colour to the bone of your skellies; they would simply disappear against that background (when seen from above, on the tabletop).

I personally like the GW offering the best; the middle one.

Question though; why not simply do PVA glue and sand? Give it a basecoat, a wash and a drybrush, couple of tufts and done. Cheap and easy, and it never fails to deliver. You can choose the colour of your sand as well, which I would suggest to be a darker tone to go with your skellies...

[Luigi]

I agree with Daeothar,
sand would work best. But among the 3 options presented the middle one definitely stands out as the best

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

Gosh! Sometimes I really suffer from an extra helping of tunnel vision . I had the pots with the texture pastes in a cupboard right at eye level and somehow that meant I absolutely had to use them .

I'll need to pick up some new pva, the old one dried out, and I'll get to it with the sand tomorrow.

Cheers guys for the heads up and reminding me that yes, I could just use sand and paint it how I'd like it to be.

Edit:
Just a bit of sand, some Vallejo Terracotta, a bit of drybrushing and some small tufts and I'm happy with the look of the bases. Sometimes (un)life can be so easy

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

Today's a public holiday over here in Germany and so I've spent a nice sunshiny late morning on the balcony and turned a Victrix Anglo-Dane priest into a skeleton necromancer.

I Drilled out the hood from the Victrix kit and added a Wargames Factory skele-head and arm. The wand and left hand are from the Frostgrave Wizards kit. He'll probably get a few more doodads on his belt, maybe a book or some scrolls and a dagger. I think he'll get a bit of a bigger base, maybe a 40mm one, and I'll have a skeleton crawling out of the ground next to him, all freshly raised

[Luigi]

The basing came out great, and the conversion is outstanding.

Will he serve an actual role game wise or is he more of a unit filler?

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

Thanks for the kind words 

He isn't really planned for any specific game/thing. Just going with what looks cool.

[Daeothar]

Rule of cool is always good 

The conversion is really excellent and the pose actually supports the notion he is casually pulling skellies out of the ground with his vile magic, while walking forward.

I'm sure he'll find his lich niche in your army

[Sleepy Snoozy Skeletons]

I'm sure he'll find his lich niche in your army

That's what we're all about here

While building the two WGA skellie archers I broke one's arrow and, of course, the tip fell somewhere never to be seen again so I played around with a bit of uv resin to get something like a magical fire blob arrow. I started with a bit of GW Lamenters Yellow and once dry I'll follow that with some orange, red and a slight black drybrush for the very edges. Fingers crossed it'll work out! 

[Luigi]

Mater artium necessitas

Necessity is the mother of invention, and I'd say you proved the proverb right.

great job!