From KeithS: A Morass of Monsters (142 points)

This past week was about anticipating and filling some near future gaming needs, as well as continuing to clean out my piles of old lead.

First up are two very big Minotaurs from Grenadier and...something else.  The former go with the ones I painted a few weeks back.  Somehow they got dropped into a box marked "demons and devils" and forgotten until I did some cleaning the other day.  I could not let them go unpainted when their pals were done.  The guy on the right was in the same box and I pulled it out too as it looked like another minotaur, albeit of different design.  I'm pretty sure it's legitimately a devil of some sort.

From the back.  I like these sculpts.  They have plenty of personality and look good painted up.

Since I've been running Keep on the Borderlands for some friends on a periodic basis, I knew I was going to need Gnolls at some point.  Happily, Iron Wind is producing old Ral Partha figures and I was able to procure a Gnoll Starter Army of a dozen pups.  There are five pairs with various weapons, plus a larger commander and a single archer.

I kept their shields fairly simple, though how a mangy guy got a nice colorful shield is anybody's guess.

It wouldn't be a Gnoll army without some flails.  But, all of the weapons were pretty nice.

Some more.  For the skin, the description Gygax wrote was grey-green, so that is what they got.  however, for the fur I went with a nice golden brown in honor of my Golden Retriever who kept interrupting me while I painted.

Also for the Keep, I'm going to need more zombies than the few I have, so I picked up a four pack with the Gnolls from Ral Partha (they're left).  The rightmost two were from the pile I got from my college roommate.  The thing second from left isn't really a zombie - in fact, I have no idea what it is, but it looks enough like a zombie for me.

From the back.  Nice, serviceable figures that will help fill out the ranks of a zombie horde.

Next up are three mismatched monsters, a medusa, djinn, and a cockatrice.  The Medusa will go with the Silent Sister project (and hence the reason they have no eyes; I painted four other Medusae last summer so I have an army of them now).  The Djinn was just because - he looks a lot like Captain Jean Luc Picard to me.  Last, the cockatrice also goes with the Silent Sisters project (as does a pair of Gorgons and other "turn you to stone" nasties).

They were a fun lot to paint, something a little bit different.

I like to paint in even numbers and, with only three monsters, I needed some filler -- I like to move around to different figures constantly to let paint dry but stay busy.  I went with these three lasses, two are from the same group I painted earlier.  The one on the right was, I thought at first, another medusa.  But, when I started painting her, realized she  just had big hair.  Thus, she is just a civilian, albeit nicely dressed.

Last up, and finished up in just a few hours work, were four goblins.  I didn't need them, and they don't match my other stuff.  However, I wanted something quick and easy to fill some time yesterday, and they fit the bill.  They're oldies, all from my old roommate's collection.

From the back.  They are pretty rudimentary in some ways (just look at the glob of a shield, which I should've filed flat and painted from scratch).  As I'm sure most people agree, it's harder to paint a poorly sculpted figure.

That's all for now.  I wanted to have some others done, but real life always gets in the way!  I am still procrastinating on my Scottish army for Saga while dithering with monsters, but at least I am making progress in clearing out the old lead.  Happily, I have today off, so more time to paint (until the missus finds things for me to do!).

Oh Keith, that's a motley collection of denizens. Impressive lead-pile clearing, how many miniatures is that so far? I like the skin tone on those gnolls, didn't realise that is the classic authentic colour. Really nice grey skin tone on the zombies too - what's the base for that? My favourite of the bunch is that cockatrice - super cute! I'd take one of those as a rather flamboyant pet.

28 figures that look to average out to 28mm across the lot, so a total of 140, plus a couple bonus for the colourful gnoll shields. Brings your tally over 1300 - amazing ! 

Phil