Painting D&D miniatures

Introduction

Painting the nuns was an exciting project, but it was monotonous... I will never ever paint a unified army for any gaming system again. As a quick break, I painted some random miniatures for D&D. They are from D&D boardgames, and are not that high quality, so I broke out the Contrast paints. Ever experimenting with speed painting, I decided on mostly applying just 1 layer of highlights on most areas. I am quite satisfied with the results.

Note: yes there is a miniature from the Magic the Gathering boardgame that has sneaked in to these photos. Nevermind him.

Painting with Contrast

I was inspired by the painting tips, but I did not take them to the second highlight. I just did:

• Snakebite Leather, Filthy Brown
• Cygor Brown, Beasty Brown
• Black Templar, Basilicanum Grey (these two give the most magnificent black undercoat), Cold Grey
• Skeleton Horde, Off White
• 2x Darkoath Flesh, Heavy Skintone
• Apothecary White, Dead White
• Darkoath Flesh, Elf Skintone
• Blood Angels Red, Heavy Orange
• Shyish Purple, Hexed Lichen (I think a lighter purple would have served the purpose better)
• basecoat the silvers Basilicanum Grey
• basecoat the golds Aggaros Dunes

Now, to take a closer look.

I painted Jarlaxle as a generic human rogue/pirate.

I did not bother highlighting the feather, as Iyanden Yellow looks pretty good on its own.

The halfling's coat was painted Gore Grunta Fur, which I had no idea how to highlight. Khaki looked good at first, but it desaturated a lot on drying. I did a second, smaller highlight with Hot Orange.

Drizzt had the most details, including a small fur patch which I did Gore Grunta Fur, and highlighted with a small brush Hot Orange, as above.

Finally, I wanted to do something more for the barbarian. Otherwise, the color palette, while natural, feels lackluster.

I tried experimenting with Contrast fur, so I did Wyldwood then Gore Grunta Fur on the furs, somewhat like here. I drybrushed the entire cloth/flesh part of the mini using Khaki, allowing me to be less careful, before doing the highlights on the flesh and leathers.

Aggaros Dunes for the hair, highlight Filthy Brown, at the same step.

Finally, as I realized that the highlight just matted/desaturated the orange fur, I did small highlights with Hot Orange.

Painting with metalics

Weapons and some armor plates here and there - speed silver.

Basing

Woodland base. I initially contemplated something else for Drizzt, but I just painted the rocks he's standing on Wyldwood, then did the woodland stuff around it.

Finished!