reaper minis
Scott Kurtz (PvPOnline) recently took a tour of the Reaper Miniatures HQ in Denton. He writes:
Reaper does everything on site, from sculpting the minis, to casting them in pewter, to sorting, packaging, and shipping out internet orders. They make their own paints on-site (after working with Sherman Williams to make the best paint for pewter), as well as brushes and accessories. It’s an amazing operation that’s surprisingly run by fewer people than I thought. They run a tight ship.
In the front of the warehouse is the Asylum shop, a new operation they opened up. Every single mini and accessory that Reaper makes is on the shelves. We were able to not only pick out minis that matched our characters, but accessories like weapon, instrument and even a hat pack. A little snip, some zap-a-gap and you got a new weapon in your dwarf thief’s hand.
Some of the Reaper folks even customized some of their models for his family’s D&D characters, which were later painted back home.
I will say now, after painting my 4th mini (my dwarf thief Fargrim Sootfoot), that I’ve learned a couple things since my first go at this:
1) The proper tools are ESSENTIAL. Get an assortment of brushes, ceramic palettes, clippers, exacto knives, zap-a-gap glue, sculpty, various base flocking stuff… it’s not as expensive as I thought it would be.
2) Invest in the Reaper paints. I love them. They made a huge difference.
3) Follow the steps and don’t skip ahead. Remove flashing, attach extra parts, prime it, then paint it. Dark first then highlight. Add wash, then when you’re done, flock.
4) Be patient and TAKE…YOUR…TIME. You can rush it and be disappointed or you can slow down and say “I put 30 hours into this.” Fargrim took about 9 hours. It was like time travel. I started to paint, then suddenly it was 9 hours later and my back and shoulders really hurt.
My first encounter with Reaper minis was about 15 years ago, halfway through the gauntlet that was High School. We had a flash-in-the-pan AD&D group that had met once or twice in the school’s library. One of the older kids, Matt, had a collection of Forgotten Realms books that, he boasted, had been acquired by “walking into the store with a big coat, and walking out with a bigger coat.”
One day, after class, I went to the local comic/gaming shop with my brother and some friends in Pierrefonds. I remember one of the walls of the store being covered in dozens of these small plastic packs with a green cardboard backing and the word “Reaper” printed across the bottom.
Each pack held one of a variety of fantastical, silver-colored lead miniatures. There were human fighters, minotaur savages, beholders and harpies. They even had a rust monster and a dragon! But these came in pieces that you had to assemble yourself before painting.
I don’t remember how long we stood there, investigating them all and drawing suspicious looks from the owner, but eventually I settled on a skeletal, undead ninja and took it home for painting. The end result was a complete disaster, but in the end I was happy to have a bleached-white skeleton with pitch-black garb and a gray katana on the table to represent my elven ranger.
What? I was 16 and ninjas were AWESOME!
Anyways, check out Scott’s post for more details about his visit and pictures of the painted minis.
2 Responses to “reaper minis”
Leave a Reply
All other content is property of its respective owner
What? No pic of your zombie-skeleton-ninja?!?! I am sure you still have it stashed somewhere!
I might still have it stashed in a box somewhere. I’ll upload a picture if I can find it.