Reaper 14405: Dwarf Miner (Tom Mason – Mo’vember ’21)

Reaper 14405: Dwarf Miner, Tom Mason

As readers will no doubt have noticed, my painting focus recently has been pretty well set in the Western Desert of World War II. While that’s going to continue for awhile yet, I will be dipping into other genres here and there again – and after realising that I’d entirely blanked on a couple of months worth of community painting challenges and finding out that Roger from Under the Wargames Table is running a “Mo’vember” painting challenge – where the focus is to paint model(s) featuring facial hair of some description, I scanned the overflowing tray on my painting desk for something that would be appropriate. This guy – alrteady half painted – fit the bill, so I dusted him off (literally) and got to finishing him!

Reaper 14405: Dwarf Miner, Tom Mason

I present you all with…. Dwarf Miner, from Reaper Miniatures. Such an evocative and interesting name! Despite this, when I first saw it, I thought the model’s sculpt looked pretty nice while being something quitre different to the typical Games Workshop-style depiction of Dwarf Miners – not that there’s anything wrong with that – but yeah, I liked the look of this guy. I painted his armour some time ago when GW released their new metallic paint – Canoptek Alloy – and wash – Cryptek Arourshade Gloss – (that’s a mouthful!) alongside 40k 9th Edition Indomitus because I liked the look of them and wanted to try them out on something that was essentially an inconsequential model – so the steel armour I’d been working on previously became the base coat for the new paints. I call the model inconsequential as it’s not part of a unit of similar models and is very much an individual, I did still use the same basic cloth colours that I’ve used on previous Dwarf individial “adventurer” types, so aside from RPGs and Board Games, I’ll potentially use him in a unit of “adventurers” in WH/AoS/KoW/etc.

Reaper Bones 44021: Maggotcrown Bonesack #Monstermarch5 (C.Lewis)

Reaper Bones 44021: Maggotcrown Bonesack

Another intro here from Azazel – Mostly I’m pointing out that this is the second one of Marouda’s Models for the Month of March. This here is Maggotcrown Bonesack, and I think it’s one of the better models produced in Bones. I’ll discuss why and the model itself a little more at the end of the post…


Marouda – This one, I cant quite remember how I attained it exactly. Azazel was showing me the model and saying how easy it would be to paint and described the process of different shades of flesh and making the hands and feet purple a well as the flesh around the stomach tear. Anyway I ended up painting him along with the Iguana and large model (yet to be revealed). It was fairly painless to paint except for a couple of things.

Reaper Bones 44021: Maggotcrown Bonesack

I almost had a painting disaster when Azazel left the pot of purple undiluted wash next to me and I covered the whole model in it, I didnt realise it was to use on specific areas very sparingly. Luckily I showed Azazel my work as soon as I had done it for praise, and he ran to the sink to wash off the purple ink. So the model was reset and after he was dry I could apply the ink under the arms etc. Azazel has been showing me painting mistakes he still makes, like stuffing up teeth, but how they can be easily fixed. Azazel painted the teeth in the stomach area as this was too fine/small for me to paint. With the very fine detail work I have been giving everything a go and doing what I feel comfortable with, but I find myself almost going cross eyed trying to be careful and neat with the painting. I found this model a lot more fun and easier to paint than the iguana.


Reaper Bones 44021: Maggotcrown Bonesack

Our Modern and Fantasy heroes show how easily this model crosses genres.

Azazel again – Sooooo yeah. This was a model that I wanted to paint myself for both Swordmaster’s Monster March and Ann’s “Neglected But Not Forgotten” painting challenges, and while I was prepping it by compelting the process of pinning it top the base and adding sand to one of the worst of the GW Shattered Dominion bases, someone seemed very interested in it. Not wanting to discourage Marouda, even though I’d wanted to paint it myself (like the Iguana!) I instead guided her through the process, and did things like demo ways to apply paint, contrasts, etc – and also ended up doing the finely detaily bits – and also the base in my usual style. So in the end it was a bit of a collaboration, and this obviously explains why it looks like one of my figures. Once Marouda gets more reps in, I’m sure she’ll develop her own style, but let’s face it – there are worse people to be tutored by than I – turns out I’m good at teaching! 😛

Anyway, the model. It’s a good size and a versatile enough sculpt to be used for a lot of things in my opinion. Undead Ogre. Chaos Spawn of (probably) Nurgle (I mean, that is –or was- a human who has been seriously punished by something!) It could be used as an Abomination in Zombicide, an Science Experiment Gone Awry, an Alien Virus… quite a lot of options for this one. So Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Modern, Pulp. A very versatile model for such a disgusting mess. I also like the fact that it can easily read as either male or female, and between the shape of the breasts and the very slight and subtle vagina dentata it’s got going on, that’s my own personal read of the model. (And yeah, If it was completed earlier I’d have submitted it for Fembruary, as well. After all, females can be monsters, too!)