Today I have a model from one of the Bones campaigns. It’s a model that I started a few years ago since it looked like it could fit in with various Zombie games and such. As it’s made from the original Bones material, it’s not something that I managed to finish until last weekend when I asked Marouda to choose a model from the desk for me to finish painting. She chose three, and I’ve completed two of them so far…
It’s a fairly simple and straightforward model, though I had trouble deciding on the scheme for it, and actually overpainted my previous effort last weekend. I eventually looked up some images of Undercover Brother to get some ideas.
I didn’t enjoy working on this model at all. If you like the look of the sculpt, I’d recommend spending just a couple of dollars more and getting the metal version – at least then you’ll get a model with sharper detail, a non-mushy face, and you’ll know it won’t be tacky and all paints will work fine on it rather than being forced to only use Reaper HD paints. You can then also pick up a Cool Sister model to go with your Undercover Brother.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
You’ve done a great job on this bones model mate, and the shirt you’ve done looks amazing, totally looks like a paisley patterned shirt, did you paint the detail, or was it a happy accident that happened from another technique ?
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Thanks Dave! More an experiement than a firm plan – I simply stippled the yellow onto the red and hoped for the best!
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Piasley shirts now that brings back memories. great paint work!
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Thank you, David! 😀
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Yep that shirt is fantastic! Good job on this, I know the Bones material can be a bit of a pain to work with.
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I have to admit, I’m not a fan at all of the original material. Bones Black isn’t nearly as bad, thankfully!
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Oh I didn’t know there was a new one, only ever seen the white stuff.
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Yeah, they also have “Bones Black” now, which is a harder PVC. It takes paint like more normal PVC/plastic, can be spray primed, etc. Huge improvement as far as workability.
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Sounds great, I’ll keep an eye out
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Nicely done! 🙂 Great shirt and flared jeans to go with it!
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Thanks John! Luckily I never had anything like this in my wardrobe! 😀
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Lovely work on that shirt mate – he’s kinda cool!
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Cheers Alex!
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Great work on the brother. That shirt looks great.
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Thank you!
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You’ve done a great job on what is basically a horrible model, so out of scale, it’s unusable in games.
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Thanks – and I’ll have to check the scale against some others and see, now! 🙂
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Nice – love the shirt! Any tips on working with Bones models? I’ve got a couple in the backlog that I’d like to get done for current projects if I can, but in the past I’ve found the Bones range to be a nightmare for being tacky and not taking paint well. Do I need to get this Bones HD paint you mentioned (hardly seems worth it for a couple of miniatures)? The main attraction of them right now is saving some cash by using models I already own but if I need to buy special paint or something then I’m not so keen. Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated!
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Thanks mate!
There’s a lot of talk online about Reaper’s HD paints being the best paints to use, and it’s true that they don’t seem to get tacky after using them. Another trick is to paint “prime” them entirely with a thin coat of Liquid Greenstuff, or Reaper’s Brown Liner (I think it’s the brown one). Also, to avoid the use of aerosol cans entirely, including the varnish layer.
I tend to go all-in on multiples of the “tricks” since I reeeeally don’t like the tackiness.
Funny thing is my first Bones models were bought at retail, long before their first Kickstarter for the stuff, and they took paint and varnish just fine, so it seems they did (knowingly or unknowingly) alter the plastic formula at least slightly at (or by) some early stage of the KS stuff….
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Cheers – those are all useful tips, I’ll give it a shot and see how I get on. 🙂
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And if not, I understand that they make great Firestarters.
Twisted Firestarters.
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We don’t own any plastic Reaper Bones miniatures, and frankly when we saw them in stores they didn’t appeal to us … Now your post and previous comments have convinced us that we were right not to succumb to the lure of too cheap miniatures.
Great admiration therefore for your stoic desire to give a layer of paint even to the less fascinating miniatures. And anyway you managed to improve the appearance of this figure a lot!
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Thanks! The early ones were fine but with the Kickstartered ones they seem to have gone to a slightly inferior material. Now the newer Bones Black is fine, but I don’t always see the use in getting them at retail as the savings are sometimes not that significant from getting the metals. Now he’s painted, this guy will make fine fodder for any Zombie-type games we play, and there might even be a custom Zombicide Survivor card out there somewhere!
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You did a great job painting up this sub-par sculpt. There seems to be very little detail on this mini and yet, you’ve put a lot of life into it with the texture on the cloth and even in his face. It may not have been fun but you elevated this mini quite a bit, I would say 🙂
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Thanks Kuribo. The most important thing on this guy is that he’s now finished, I think. I also got to use him as an experiment canvas, which I guess always comes in handy as well! 🙂
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Actually, thinking about it, that experimental aspect might be the most important part of him over actually getting him done!
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This is close to my favourite Reaper mini, although I think you are right that the soft plastic doesn’t do him justice.
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Yeah, the images of the metal verison look just that much sharper and more crisp!
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Fantastic- a very characterful model.
Cheers
Pete.
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Thank you Pete! 🙂
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That shirt! I just love what you’ve done there to get the pattern just right. It’s a shame you didn’t enjoy the painting process but at least he is off the Pile of Shame now; I know that early Bones figures were notorious for inadequate sculting and frustrating material selection.
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Thank you, though the shirt is more random than a “justr right” plan. 🙂
I gave away a lot of my first Bones models, and now treat them very judiciously when it comes to painting – there are sooo many other models out there to paint – especially with the priomise of 3d printing – that the promise of a few cheap(ish) large PVC models is a lot less exciting…
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Wow! Man! The 70’s are back!
Love how you’ve done his shirt, ‘Cool Dude!’
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The shirt was actually far easier than I’d expected – simply stippling on the paint with a larger, old brush I mostly use for drybrushing now. I did test it on some paper first, but then it was a matter of “what the hell?” and going for it.
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Well, it worked a treat😃
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More importantly – pretty easily replicable for me and probably a lot of others!
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Great job on that shirt. Not sure how you got that wild pattern on there, but it looks great. You’re right on the metal vs plastic Bones minis. A number of times I’ve bought some plastic Bones on the cheap only to regret that I didn’t shell out the extra bucks for the metal ones. I recently got a few of their plastic Kobolds done, and I ended up needing more so opted for the metal ones. Looking forward to seeing the difference between the two.
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Hey man! Good to hear from you again! The pattern was simply getting an old, medium-thick messed up brish that’s only useful as a drybrush and then stippling some yellow paint over the red. I’ll occasionally still paint the original boned models (like I just did recently) but I’ve got a lot of other stuff that deserves my time a lot more….
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