88th Texas Naval Squadron (Colored) "The Black Knights" test

The first 4 "test" minis.

I am not happy about my lack of talent at painting stripes, but if you disregard this, I'm pretty happy how they turned out.

These are repainted Clix minis.

Monopause figures and why they are great

In the 90s the plastic injection technology was not what it is today. You did not get a multi-part orc kit from GW, you got 10 identical orc boyz, basically 10 copies of the same miniature.

Do not get me wrong, I do not want to go back to these days. The plastic miniatures today are amazing! Great details, tons of it, multiple options at a decent cost. However, sometimes there are too much details. Taken the new Stromcast Eternal from GW, they are loaded with details. Now imagine painting an army of them...same for the new Primaris Marines...either you got to skip some details, dumming down the mini or it takes you forever to paint them.

As a test figure for my Frostgrave warband, I dug out an old Heroquest orc in my lead mountain. It was so much fun to paint, and I did it quickly. There is a kind of elegant simplicity to these old monopose miniatures, it is refreshing after spending ten minutes painting the studs on the belt of a BB zombie to see that the belt is a simple strip. So base coat, Agrax Earth and a basic edge highlight and you are done!

The monopose figure, the perfect "palette" cleaner, the perfect remedy to the details monsters of today, the perfect relaxation painting method.

The humble test figure

One of the thing that helps me in my hobby is a recent concept that I came up with, the test figure. I pledged the core set in the Bones 2 Kickstarter, so I go tons of miniatures that I may not be able to use in my gaming. So I usually grab something and use it to test colors, washes, etc... Then I work on it semi-seriously in order to refresh my mind between or during projects. This is a mummy on which I tested washes, glowing eyes and snow effects (this one obviously did not worked but gave me some ideas on how to make it better).

Da Sista

Sometimes there are figures that just speak to you. I picked this one randomly out of my Bones 2 pack and put it on my table as a little side project and it just took over. It was a ton of fun to paint.

I named her, Sista Mo'nik, the vodoo buster. If I play a zombie apocalypse game, this is going to be my character.