Miniature Showcase

Spooky Benches

I painted these as part of a spooky bonfire set of miniature pieces. These are the benches that go around it. There are three full slab benches with skulls on one end. The other two are two small slab piles with a longer slab over the top. Originally, they came in gray resin and I primed them with a white primer to start.

I applied about four separate coats of the white primer to reach the opacity I wanted. It was a bit hard to keep the details while covering the whole structure. After priming the benches I began with a black base coat. I painted everything black except the skulls. If it is a bit liquidy you can always add black until it reaches the pigmentation you want. I love the cracks that you can still see through the black paint. The bottoms were also painted in the same manner as the body of the structures to match and to add continuity to the pieces.

The next step in the stone painting process is dry brushing grey over the entire structure to create the shadows that the unevenness of stone creates. I applied it by brushing against the grain of the miniature. This keeps the black showing through the grey but allows a liberal application of paint to cover a large portion of the miniature and leaving only a little black. Already, the benches are looking like realistic rock formations. You might have to go back paint in some of the areas that might not have gotten enough paint on them on the first pass.

Finally, the last step is to dry brush some white paint over the “rock” to add some final detailing. This adds a brighter color to the slabs and gives a greater range of contrast between the three different colors that make up the rock slabs. If you add too much of the white paint, you can always go back with some gray paint and dry brush some of that on to even out the tones. If you want to add variety you can always add a bit of red or brown to add a different color tone to the rock.

The final step was to paint the skulls on the slab benches. First I used a bone color paint to add the base coat to the skulls. I added about two layers of the bone color to the skulls to get the desired opacity. Next, I added some Dark Tone wash to the skulls to age them and add shadows to the bone. This darkened the eyes, nose and cheek bones. The end result was awesome. I loved the skulls sitting on some of the benches. Adding a dark tone wash to a miniature can really change the way they look.

Now I just have to paint the bonfire and the stone ring around it. to complete the set. I like how the rock paint looks on these and the skulls add a nice touch. I can’t wait to have a group of hags gathered around these set pieces to see the effect they create!

Have any questions or comments? Message below or find me on Twitter @DnDWifeStories and on Instagram @dndwife. I would love to hear from you!