A Quick Walk-Through of How I Paint

 This post was originally posted on Reddit after a user asked me for it on the r/HeroQuest subreddit, then I thought it would be good to keep it here on the blog too, also as a complementary post to the quick guide to paint HeroQuest.

This is the finished mini: 

I had received it from Pablo at Minis3d as a bonus to one of my orders. This is how it looks like, unpainted, on the website:

The mini I got was this same model, except for the base which was square, original HeroQuest style, and it was one with the model.

I have the new HeroQuest which has round bases, so I took a round 25mm base and checked how it went with the mini... and I hated it because the corners of the square base went outside the circle of the round base, so I simply clipped the corners (with regular pliers from my home toolbox) and ended up with a more than decent looking "broken dungeon floor" base. Yay!

I also glued the broken corner bits around, and also used some to tilt the figure a bit, as I thought it looked better like that.

The following pic shows the mini after I primed it with a full layer of matte black (brushed on, with a "2" brush, because it's too cold and humid right now here to use rattle can primers), then a layer of dry-brushed grey and finally, when I was sure the grey was dry, a gentler layer of dry-brushed white. Both done in seconds with a cheap make-up brush, about 1/2" large.

The paints were Vallejo black, grey, and white surface primers.

This is the starting point of the "slap chop" technique. The dry-brushed grey-scale highlight makes it super easy to discern details, which is a boon to my limited sight.

Once the mini is ready, the most important thing I do is searching for image references of the model to take inspiration for the color scheme. For most miniatures, you can find plenty of images and see how other people painted the same model, which colors they chose, which details they focused on. For me, this step is VERY important, and really helps and speeds the whole painting job. Choosing colors as you go is generally a bad idea. Having a general plan for the main areas is really important.

And of course for this particular model I could not find a single pic :DDD

So I just googled "female elf wizard" just see some color combinations that I might like, and then decided to go for brown hair, blue dress, green tiara and corset, yellow staff, and light brown book, etc (you can see the finished model). So I decided for blue, brown and green, in short.

With a general plan for colors, I started the actual painting.

I use Vallejo Xpress colors, which behave pretty much the same as Citadel Contrasts, or Army Painter Speedpaints (minus the reactivation issues!).

The pic below shows a simple layer of: Fairy Skin, Forest Green, Martian Orange (the jewel), Nuclear Yellow (staff and bottle), and Wasteland Brown (belts and pouch).

If you are not familiar with this kind of paints, in the pic you can see their magic at work: a simple layer creates a nuanced effect, which is further enhanced by the black-grey-white priming below.

You can also see I missed the small rings on the staff between the hand and the... garlic bulb or whatever it is.

I chose to start with those areas because I felt it would have been harder to paint them after the others.

The most common general advice is to paint as if you were "dressing" the mini, so start with the skin, then clothes, then details etc. I'm not really sure why I felt it was easier for me to start with those parts. Perhaps it was because I knew the rest was going to get a darker color?

As you can see above, some of the pink on the sides of the face went on the hair. Since I was going to use a dark brown for the hair, that little pink lines would be easy to cover.

I then painted Wasteland brown on the book cover, and Bag of Bones on the pages. Caribbean Turquoise for the "garlic" thing.

Next I panted the hair with Muddy Ground, and then decided to try the eyes. I guess I was lucky! Eyes are hard if you don't have REALLY steady hands, and are VERY experienced on how much color to load your brush with. I just used a small (000) brush with a hint of Caribbean Turquoise, and dropped a dot in each eye. That's it. Luckily, they came out really nice and straight-looking at the first try.

I chose to go with Forest Green on the second bottle (same color as the tiara and corset). This is important to me: trying to reuse the same color on different areas, so as to end up with a chromatic harmony. Too many different colors often produce a chaotic effect.

By this time, I was a bit tired so I didn't bother to check what were the exact hues of the blue colors I have, and chose my the name alone, so I went with Mystic Blue, which felt appropriate for the lady wizard.

Side note: This type of paints (Xpress, Speedpaints) often appear different inside the bottle from what they really end up looking when you use them on a mini. So I often use this image to check the exact nuance I want to use. (Not that I have all of them...)

My other option for blue was Omega Blue, which now I see was darker. Oh well.

The pic below shows I also painted the rings on the staff with the Mystic Blue. Due to their semi-transparent properties, the blue layer didn't completely cover the yellow, and so blue+yellow turned green.

...and this is about when thing could have stopped, frankly. It was looking good enough for me, but I still had some time, and didn't feel like starting a new mini. So I went ahead and applied Fluid Pink on the lips; two "c" lines of Plasma Red on the gem; and a gentle wash with Army Painter Strong Tone quickshade on the face and hands...

 

Then a gentle drybrush of white on the edges of the yellow potion and the upper part of the garlic thing; some dark tone quickshade on the book cover; metallic gold paint drybrushed on the belt and the book corners; and two tiny white dots on the c-shaped lines on the gem.

Some white on the green potion too; and then attempted some really bad free hand on the book pages. 

And that's it. Base still needs to be done but the lady is fine for me. You can always try and make things better, but I feel like this is more than enough for me. I paint minis for playing, not for display.

Final note: The slapchop technique greatly highlights details and in general is a boon; with this particular model, it has also highlighted some of the miniature's flaws. You can see a horizontal line on the gown and the sleeves, both on the front and the back of the model.

Quest Four, The Mysterious Letter

 New solo HeroQuest game with the Infinite Dungeon deck, continuing the "Goblinization" campaign to stop Skagor the Warlord.

[Links to quest 1, quest 2, and quest 3]

I played this game two weeks ago, but I've only had the chance to post it now.

ABOUT THE CARDS IN THE PICS: For this game I've used the Italian version of the decks, but they are available in English too, of course.

So after the druid guest, the elf is back in the team.

I prepare the dungeon deck and this time I roll a 1, which means the dungeon deck is the smallest it can be, so hopefully this will be easy!

I choose to use the Loke Dungeon Books of Battlemats, a great twin set that offers a lot of combinations.

The main quest is The Mysterious Letter, which is particularly exciting because, until you find the fourth clue, you don't know if the letter, and the quest, will lead the heroes to a trap, an ambush, the dungeon collapsing on their heads, a big pile of treasure, an artifact, or a blessing for the next quest.

The side quest is the cruel champion of chaos: rumors say a mighty dread warrior hides in the dungeon, and if the heroes kill it they'll receive a rich reward. 

So with the dungeon deck ready and the battlemat books on the table, I complete the set-up by putting the cards in the room and selecting the starting room. As I said, the the dungeon deck is only 15 cards, so this is a small dungeon with only seven rooms (including the starting room).

For this game, I also use the Furniture deck and the Dungeon Events deck.

The heroes head to the room in the northern corner. The dwarf finds a pendulum trap, which he aptly disarms, and the first clue.

Moving to the corridor, I place 2 doors, which are unguarded because no monsters have shown up yet.

Exploration continues to the room to the west with three cards. And one is a fire rune trap, which of course the dwarf fails to disarm (as he can't use his regular trap skill against these traps), so both heroes take 1 damage. And there's also an abomination waiting for them!

The elf reacts quickly, jumps into the room and dispatches the monster with a triple skull from her newly-bought long sword.

The dwarf proceeds to examine the weapon rack (card from the Furniture deck) and finds a useable shield! Too bad both heroes have already bought shields. Oh well, it's still treasure.

The heroes return to the corridor to explore the souther room in the twisting corridor, where a death log trap awaits, not to mention a dread warrior and a gargoyle!

Oh hey, that's the dread champion from the side quest card. Good! He's stronger than normal, but I'll get a reward for killing him! 

The dwarf disarms the trap before it activates, but his turn is over. The elf decides to use his friend as a human shield and casts rock skin on him. A few turns later, the monsters are gone, but the dwarf got 3 damage...

As the heroes move through the corridors with no monsters around, the roll for events finally kicks in and I draw a card from the Dungeon Events deck: the dwarf finds an abandoned meal and immediately guzzles it. The die is gentle with him and the food proves delicious, restoring 2 lost BPs.

Thanks to the first clue they found, the heroes already know that the north-west room with two cards has a zombie in it, so I decide to check what else is inside. And I'm lucky, it's another clue.

The zombie is quickly defeated, and the clue allows me to reveal to cards from another room...

So now I know that my best bet is to check the room with the three face-down cards, as I still haven't found the third and fourth clue.

And that's where both clues are, guarded by a simple goblin, no match for my duo of heroes!

As the goblin fails to stop the heroes, there's nothing left but to examine the clues and finally find out why the heroes where urged to explore the dungeon.

I roll a die and the result is that the spirit of an ancient legendary hero appears, blessing the dwarf and the elf. 

Ok, let's remix things up a bit to suit the campaign theme: the spirit that blesses the heroes is not the one of an ancient legendary hero. It is the spirit of a valiant knight that had been transformed into a goblin by Skagor's experiments, that the heroes have just "freed" (i.e. the goblin I've just killed in this very room!).

They both will roll +1 attack die for all the duration of the next quest. Very good, Skagor's plans will soon be foiled!

With both the main quest and side quest completed, I decide to ignore the only unexplored room and head to the starting room. As the heroes move, no further events are triggered, so the game is finished.

Conclusion (?)

This game was quick and quite easy, with just a few rooms, and really only one room with dangerous monsters.

There were quite a few traps, but the dwarf managed to disarm all the mechanical ones... and that's why he's in the 2-hero team, of course.

The dwarf got heavily wounded but the abandoned meal healed him enough to keep the game going without the need to use the elf's healing spell.

 Things could have gone very differently if the final roll to solve the mystery of the mysterious letter had resulted in the dungeon collapse or in an ambush, of course.

But I was lucky, and for the next quest the heroes have the spirit's blessing and will roll one additional combat dice with every attack!

If you've read this far, I think I can assume you've enjoyed the report as much as I have enjoyed the game.

Again and again and again, I forgot to take a pic of the whole board at the end... 

So quest #4 of the campaign is done, 4 more quests to go to stop Skagor's goblinization ritual.

I hope to play quest #5 in a week or so!

Quest Three, with a "Druid" Guest

New weekend, new HeroQuest game!

[Links to quest 1 and quest 2]

For the second time, my son Federico joins the game, and he says he doesn't want to play the elf from the other game: he wants to use the cool alterante "druid" mini & accompanying "pet" I got a couple weeks ago, so goodbye elf, welcome "Fenril the druid"....

Except I don't like the official druid at all: I don't like the mini, and I don't like the hero's skill. So you know what? It's a great chance to test a couple skills I had been working on for a while.

The Heroes

So our guest druid has a fairly standard 2 AD and 2 DD, but only 4 BP and 3 MP. To compensate that, he is accompanied by a monstrous animal companion (M 10, 3 AD with diagonal attack, 2 DD, 5 BP, 1 MP) and has a skill that allows him, once per game, at any time, to heal all heroes and allies of 1 BP and 1 MP.

Before we head into a new adventure, the dwarf spends some of his hard-earned loot and gets a shield, so he now has helmet and shield, and a broadsword he found on his first quest.

The Quest

With the heroes ready, we draw a quest card to see how we can stop Skagor's nefarious plan to transform the population of the Axian kingdom into goblins.

For this game, we use a new, winter-themed neoprene mat, that seems to fit the duird's yeti-like companion.

Federico draws the Quest and Side Quest cards. Somewhere inside this ruined, snow-covered fort, Skagor's servitors guard an unholy idol that empowers all the monsters at his command. We must find it and destroy it. The side quest: inside the ruins, there seems to be a forgotten tomb containing a lost treasure. We'll see if it's really there...

ABOUT THE CARDS IN THE PICS: For this game I've used the Italian version of the decks, but they are available in English too, of course.

Federico proceeds to roll the die for the dungeon deck and we get 11 cards, + 5 more, + the 4 usual clue cards. He rolled 5, so we get 20 cards total, meaning this will be a longer quest than the first two.

We proceed to identify, on the new battlemat, which areas might be equivalent to the lager room and the two smaller rooms from the standard board, and roll the dice to see if they have cards. We choose the two large outdoor areas to be equivalent to the central room, because they are cool.

And this is the board after placing all the cards (and the starting room in the bottom left corner).

Federico also agrees that for this game we use both the Furniture and Dungeon Events decks, so we place them at hand and we are ready to go!

On the very first turn, the dwarf (played by me) enters the first room on the left, which had only received one card because it was the last one left from the dungeon deck, and all he finds is a cozy fireplace, perfect for the frozen climate of the area...

I decide to investigate it with the Furniture card, and the result is that evil-possessed flames burn the dwarf for 2 BP. A great start...

The druid moves on along the corridor but decides to wait for the dwarf before opening the closed door.

We've both played our turn and there are no monsters on the board, which means we must check for a Dungeon Event. I roll a die and it's a 5, so we draw an event!

A goblin thief scampers around, with his bag full of stolen loot. We both roll to kick him and make him drop something but, as you can see, we fail and the little pest is gone.

The dwarf opens the new door and finds a summoning rune trap! Disarming runic traps is different from the standard HeroQuest "mechanical" traps, as it requires the hero to roll less than his current MP (and the dwarf skill doesn't help with this). I'm lucky and I roll a 1, deactivating the rune before it casts its summoning spell, but that ends my turn, and the room hosts an orc and a GARGOYLE.

So I'm stuck in front of the door and druid and the beast cannot pass through as the orc hits me...

...then we realize the yeti companion can attack diagonally, so we deal with the orc quickly... and then with the gargoyle too.

We proceed to explore the small room to the north, where we find a table the first clue - I forgot to take a pic with that.

Federico examines the clue and reveals the 2 cards on the large outdoor: an abomination and another clue. We need to find four clues to complete the quest, so we head there. There are no face-down cards left, so I boldly enter the area and try to smash the tuna-boy.... to no avail.

After three or four rounds of combat, the three of us finally defeat it... and that's when the die commands that we draw a new event. We get the goblin assassins card!

So 4 goblins appear at the starting room, and they are equipped with throwing daggers. Funny little guys. Must be Skagor's vanguard team...

So they play immediately and of course goblins are fast, so they get close enough to us to throw their daggers, and they manage to wound our yeti pet. On our turn, we only manage to kill one.

So it's their turn again. As per the Infinite Dungeon rulesheet, monsters with ranged attacks, who have a clear line of sight to a target, attack it immediately, and then move as far away as possible, and this is what the goblins do. With their nasty 10 squares movement. So they get to hide quite far away, ready to ambush us again, the little pests.

On our turn, we agree that we don't want to go after them, so Federico examines the clue in the middle of the area, and decides to turn face-up the lonely card in the top right corner: it's the third clue!

I position to "welcome" the goblins because they'll come back at us, and then Federico asks me how can we get into the top right corner room with the clue, since there is no door to it. This is covered by the rulesheet: if there is no way to access a room, it means you can search a secret passage, and it will be there.

So as i fight the goblins and kill another one, you can see the druid approaching the secret passage and collecting the third clue. The next one will be the Idol we must destroy.

The second small room on the left only contains a table, and none of us decides to further inspect it, so we head back to the previously explored section... and we get another event card: Dungeon Panic. The druid loses 1 MP, nothing to worry about (so far, at least).

So the dwarf opens the door closed door in the table room, and we decide that the bridge and the 1 square hallway after it is equivalent to a corridor, so we place 2 doors, and must roll for a chance to have patrols at the doors. The dice determine that the nearest door has some monster guarding it, so we draw one monster card from the discard pile, and OF COURSE it's the gargoyle!

So My dwarf has already lost some 4 or 5 BP, and there's the worst monster we could have found.... So we bravely decide to send the yeti/animal companion to soften it a bit first.

It doesn't work exactly as planned, with the yeti inflicting zero damage and loosing 2 BP.

We believe in him and leave him there for another round while we reposition, and he manages to score 2 hits in this epic bridge battle! Good boy!

The yeti then retreats, and the heroes finish the monster... After using the druid's healing skill.

We hurry to the next room, but the Idol is not there. Three skeletons guard a chest, we take them out quickly, and inspect the chest...

So I roll on the furniture card and inside the chest I find 150 coins. Not bad!

Moving on to the room on the left, we finally find the evil idol we must destroy. The quest card says it is guarded by 1 orc per hero, and they have +1 AD and +1 DD until we destroy the Idol. It has 2 BP and doesn't roll to defend.

The room also has a zombie and a chest. Nice!

Federico and I decide to dispatch the monsters first, and our plan works out smoothly. After that, we destroy the idol in a few rolls. It was important to roll because, with no monsters on the board, we have to check for Dungeon Events).

We also find 150 more coins in the chest. Yay!

The quest is complete, the heroes are in bad shape and have used their only healing skill, so it's time to retreat quickly, before a dungeon event kills us!

As the druid is one square from the exit, we must draw another event! Fortunately, it's the mystery potion.

The dwarf finds it and drinks it: it's just a quickening potion that increases his movement for the reminder of the quest... which just means he gets out in one turn instead of two. Phew!

So we reach the stairs and the quest is done. The dwarf had 3 BP left; the druid was unscathed, but his animal companion only had 1 BP left, and the druid's healing skill was used up.

We roll for the reward, and get 80 coins each. Thank mr king!

Conclusion (?)

Ok this game was super fun, with the second gargoyle almost killing us, and the tactical problem of the hit and run goblin assassins.

The heroes got heavily wounded and used their only healing skill, so the game kept us on our toes till the end.

We also found 300 coins, plus the reward, so one of the heroes is very close to being able to train their first Heroic Skill.

If you've read this far, I think I can assume you've enjoyed the report as much as Federico and I have enjoyed the game.

Again and again and again, I forgot to take a pic of the whole board at the end... 

Quest #3 is gone, 5 more quests to go to stop Skagor's goblinization ritual.

I hope to play quest #4 next Saturday!