Minis!

A page for our little friends



Two normal adventurers haggling with a blacksmith. A handful of d&d minis on a blacksmith's shop battlemap, three kobolds in a trenchcoat and 200 cranium rats in a trenchcoat, haggling with a pewter man at a blacksmith's forge. A page for my minis!
I figure, a page is needed for my minis! I had four of them total when starting the page, and the number is bound to go up (and it did). Our first four filled four different styles, a metal mini, a 3d printed mini, an official mini, and a self-painted mini. Others that come up will be in whatever manner they are, and I'll showcase them there, mainly because I don't particularly plan to have too many. As seen below I suspect that the brunt of my bulk-needed minis will be of the hand-drawn paper style, which will create participation from my players too! So without further ado, let's showcase my miniatures!

 Three kobolds in a trenchcoat and 200 cranium rats in a trenchcoat, standing on a battlemap of a blacksmith's forge, talking to a strong man of the pewter mini variety.

First up, we have Mako Kuraido, from way back in 2015, previously Kaiu Kuraido until our group created the Shark clan. Also, Kuraido became famous and powerful enough that other people took on HIS name as a family name, such as Kuraido Minato for example. Our DM J1 got us minis for our long-running characters (including the card at the above link, and the L5R dice, see dark blue crab clan d10's). An actual L5R pewter mini, this little fella has been kicking around inside of my backpack or dungeons and dragons bag since around 2016. Kuraido was a Crab engineer, a courtier as opposed to a bushi, and a powerful man, exemplified by the mini. Interestingly, the bar holding the mini to the base has text about the figure on it!

It also fulfills my "metal mini" style lol. Also official, but this one does tag the metal aspect.

A shiny silver mini on a square black base of a long haired man with a rugged jaw standing tall with crossed arms.The back of the mini, showing his kimono and strong muscled back, and a pouch at this side.

Our second mini was a free mini, our second style lol. It came with my Spindown/spinup dice (see translucent with light blue numbers dice) that I got from Etsy in 2023, and they threw in a random free mini with the purchase, a completely unexpected surprise! From what the people in my discord think, this is an Adaro, a fierce hunter of the tropical seas. This one will likely remain unpainted, as it's a generic enemy (with the thoughts that if/when I get a pile of generic creature minis, the "bad guys" would be unpainted due to my lack of painting experience and time... the 3 kobolds in a trenchcoat below took all day lol). A cool looking creature, and it came unexpectedly and for free! :D

 A grey 3d printed mini being held, showing an angry, large toothed aquatic humanoid creature with a large belly, holding a large spear like weapon with a hook at the top.The back of the mini, showing the tail, the large fin coming off of its back, and the fin at the end of the tail.

Our third mini, obtained in 2024, one that I wanted to seek out and obtain from the moment that I heard that it would be a thing, showcased on D&D news articles and YouTube previews. Cranium Rats in Disguise, aka 200 Cranium Rats in a Trenchcoat. I'd been a fan of the 3 kobolds in a trenchcoat meme ever since that became a thing, and, me being a swarm type person, I had to get it. This was only available as a random find when buying a mystery D&D figure from the Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse set, and so in time, I bought this one on EBay, and love it so very much :D :D :D :D

Also what qualifies as my "official D&D mini" style, to go with my official D&D d20 dice.

 The front of the mini, showing a ragged trenchcoat with a dozen tiny rat faces and eyes peering out through the hood, various tails and faces poking out through various other openings in the trenchcoat, and the gloves being kept from falling by tiny rat paws grasping them.The back of the mini, showing a generally ragged and somewhat torn trenchcoat, and the back of the hat.
A closeup of the base of the mini, showing ranium rats in disguise, number 31 of 42, copywrite 2023 Wizards, and made in China.A photo of a battlemap with Mako Kuraido, our pewter mini, and Cranium Rats in Disguise facing off against a large Demodog creature, Lotus, from our Simin and Lotus page, standing in for the vreature for this photoshoot.

And fourth, we have 3 Kobolds in a Trenchcoat, which I sought out very soon after ordering Cranium Rats in Disguise. I later realized that there was an offical mini for this as well, but I had already ordered this 3d printed one on Etsy, and to be honest I kinda like this 3d print one more to the original anyway. And so, being as this was, well... I like it more than the Adaro lol (also this is definitely being available as a friendable NPC, also our rat friend above), I needed to paint it. My very first mini painting, I have no experience, and an assortment of both acrylic and enamel model paints, and bulk pound-value paints, of which this mini is made up from all three lol. And thus we have... 3 Kobolds in a Trenchcoat, aka Greg lol.

This mini is glorious as well, and I am SO happy with how the painting of it came out! For basically winging it, not really knowing the intricacies of mixing paint, and having no real working area, the red came out great, the trenchcoat colour, though not what I originally intended, works very well as the actual brown that I managed to create later for the belts is differentiated from the coat, the eyes, wow! Eyes are notoriously difficult (google link) to paint, and I managed to get these fellas all looking in the correct directions, with tiny little pupils, whites, claws, just wow, even the buttons on the belts! I am very proud of how this came out, I've gotta say. People online have suggested giving it an oil wash to add shading, but I am very leery of doing that because this is my first painting which came out incredible, and I wouldn't have any idea what I'm doing with a wash. So we'll call that part a wash lol. Nope, I am very happy leaving it like this, and perhaps down the road once I've painted a half dozen things (or am at some point painting like... a dozen skeletons or something I can begin experimenting with that).

Absolutely incredible, I love how this came out. Also filling my hand-painted mini style. It got a coat of gloss followed by matte varnish (recommended on minis forum, for strength), which did matte down the initial shininess, and well protected the paint :D . Which is good, because it took like 10 hours to finish XD

 The initial grey 3d print figurine that we received, base not shown but it was included separately. It has incredible detail for its size, which is shown in more detail once painted.The painted mini, showing a greenish brown trenchcoat with furred edges, and three darkish red kobold faces peering out from the hood and two other places down the trenchcoat, with their claws protruding to clench the trenchcoat closed here and there. The teeth, claws, and eyes are all painted, and the eyes were done surprisingly well, all looking in the right directions.
The mini turned to the side a bit, so that the kobold in the hood is looking at the camera, and you can see the eyes of the other kobolds looking forwards, or turned to the side for the middle kobold that is looking to the right.A photo of the back of the mini, with a generically smooth, greenish brown trenchcoat, a brown belt with silver buckles, and a red tail protruding from underneath the trenchcoat.

The paper minis! I've been using these in my song-a-day (YouTube link) since forever, some more were made (also YT link), and then I started just cutting rectangles of paper to make some brigands for the rust bag of tricks mini-story. I assume to keep using one or more of these types of creatures as I go, along with generic 3d printed enemies, but I came up with a pretty cool idea... should my players have a random encounter that we need enemies for, they can help me draw simple brigands and tigers and ghouls and stuff and get in on the creative process! Then we would get multiple styles of simple drawings on the battle map, they're more engaged, it's win-win! So I don't expect the hand-drawn minis to go away at any point, so this is pretty cool.

 A closed clear plastic craft tray with multiple slots, containing black paper mini bases, several crudely drawn heroes and a brigand with a club, erasers, pencil sharpener, and black and red striped pencils.The opened minis case with the brigand with a club now standing up inside the lid with one of the bases.

Another mini! This one came for free with the paint set, and I thought it would work very well for Khul, my barbarian fighter. And so we painted it up a little bit different from on the box, making it more of a kill-evil style, replacing the blue scarf with black, and making the emblem around the chest white. A white heart on a black and red body. Khul kill evil. Also the first mini where I tested the paint wash to darken the grooves and corners and make it a bit grittier. It worked out quite well :D

The front side of the mini, an armored figure holding a large sword over its shoulder, wearing a red tunic with black waist scarf over their armour. The full plate helmet has a black plume coming from the top of it, the heart at the center of the armour on the front is white.The back of the mini, where they are wearing a shield on their back checkered with red and black, the shoulder plate and guard of the sword is painted a golden colour, and have a dagger at their side as well.

That's so Raven! And we finally have us a Raven Facebiter mini (still in 2024, when the bulk of my minis appeared)! As a small human, with the feel of a hunched over old lady with a staff, we started with a halfling, because that's the only small-sized adult humanish mini that there is. We did a fair number of modifications to the mini (which was also metal, highly unexpected, thank you Midlam Miniatures!), such as lopping the top off the spear, carving it up to look like my creature with three faces and two brains staff, got rid of a facial scar, smoothed some chainmaille down into skin and tunic, gave her her pet toad named frog on her foot, added my Tinkerbell Abby (she wanted to be a fairy type creature in D&D too) to the shoulder from what used to be the hilt of a sword on her back, removed said sword, turned the book at her side into my harrow bag, and slapped on a coat of primer and paint.

I debated a little bit whether to make Abby's head a little bit more defined, but I was somewhat limited by my tools, and also not wanting to make too thin of a piece of metal on the structure. The wings are made out of a piece of clicky-pen spring wire bent into that shape and run through a tiny hole drilled in the once-sword-hilt (and crazy-glued to keep from rotating), so that's pretty good. Overall, if I find a more fitting mini in general, I'll transfer Abby and the frog and swarm to the new one, but this will do for the time being. I'd prefer more of a kindly old hunched-over lady (that's also a small size human), but this will do for now. It came out pretty good, all things considered, carving the metal, adjusting things, adding things, my painting abilities, all that. I'm pretty happy with it, and it'll reside in my harrow bag in it's OWN red bag, to keep it from scratching the cards within ^_^ . I've also got some progress pics of the modification and painting process. This one was a lot of fun to make and paint, I'm happy with how we came out ❤️❤️

The finished mini of Abby and Raven, and our pet toad named Frog on Raven's foot, and our fly swarm behind her back, clutching the staff named The Creature with Three Faces and Two Brains. She's wearing a brown cloak over a pink shirt, while the Abby fairy is wearing a green dress with blue wings and blonde hair. The base is painted with lines to look like wooden boards, a wash is applied to the staff, cloak, and base to give definition to the lines, and it's sitting on a light brown paperboard surface to represent the shop floor lol.The mini showing her right side, with the red harrow bag on her side, metal knee guards, and a somewhat side view of the speckled tape sandwich that makes up our swarm, attached to Raven's back at the belt.
The back of the mini, showing the fly swarm with the metal ring attached at the belt to give support to the swarm, the back of the cloak, nd the back of the Abby fairy sitting on Raven's shoulder.The left side of the mini, showing several more pouches at her side, metal elbow pads as well as the knee pad, and a side view of Frog on my foot.


And who knows what will come next. Will it be another main character like Kabu-Galag, will it be a creature in my campaign, we will find out one day soon!

 An image of battlemap, a dirt cart track through a forest, with a large question mark in the center.



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