Miniature Showcase

Crystals Base

This was an amazing miniature that I was given a while ago by Dragon’s Forge @ForgeMiniatures on twitter. I was given the option to chose one miniature to showcase with my painting. They didn’t pay me to write this, it is my own opinion. I wasn’t able to get to it for the longest time but I finally got the change to begin working on it. This is the base that belongs to this mini.

I absolutely love the details on this miniature. It is extremely difficult to get many tiny details in a miniature but this has so many different textures. I began with the grey resin base and used a coat of white primer to get it ready for painting. The primer also helped fill in some of the tiny imperfections in the resin. The miniscule holes you can see in the second crystal from the left were all filled in with the primer and were no longer an issue. It also helped smooth the printing “waves” that are left in some resin 3D prints.

After the primer dried, I applied a couple of layers of black paint. I was going to use glow paints for this base so I wanted to give the crystals a dark, opaque background to go on. I applied two coats of the black paint to catch any areas that the paint might not have reached. It is also the base coat for the stone of the base. The darker the base of rock, the more contrast there can be. I even painted the bottom of the case that isn’t really seen, to keep the continuity of the miniature.

To paint the stone, I went over the black with a dry brush of dark grey. It created the first layer of depth in the rock. For the final layer, I used white to dry brush over the stone portions. I even dry brushed the bottom to keep the continuity of the stone. This gave the stone portions of the base some nice contrast with dark places and light places everywhere. I also began painting the crystals with base colors. These were non- glow paints that matched the glow colors.

I used a variety of colors for the crystals. I used blue for sapphire, yellow for topaz, purple for amethyst, red for ruby, and green for emerald. Then I applied at least three layers of the glow paints to achieve the opacity and glow that I wanted for the base. I wanted the crystals to represent the precious gemstones that dwarves are famous for mining and turning into gorgeous works of art and function. I love the glow of the crystals against the stone base and I think it’s turning into a great miniature for future sessions.

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