I painted two Chtonians from the Mansions of Madness boardgame. I put them on a regular round base so I can use them in other games as well.

I thought they would be pretty straightforward models to paint but it was way less easy that I anticipated. First, the worm body is full of recesses so I had to be careful for the wash to not pool in weird places. Painting the inside of the tentacles also proved harder than anticipated.

I also realize, seeing the pictures, that I really should have removed the mold lines here.

I don't know if you're familiar with this toy. It's a Vulli Tree, and has been pretty popular with kids in France for at least three generations.

I never had one myself, but I recently found two of them in a second hand shop for 2€ each. I bought one for my daughter and took one for me.

Being second hand they were missing some stickers and plastic parts. But by buying two I was able to make an almost-complete one for my daughter and keep the bare one for me.

This is how it looks once opened. As a terrain piece, I didn't want it to open at all. I had in mind an old wise tree like you can see in GoT, so I had a plan to paint it white with autumnal leaved.

I had never done this kind of thing before (painting trees, especially not white-barked and in autumnal leaves so I kinda expected it to not look as great as I envisioned but.. as I always say when DMing: "there's only one way to find out").

First step was opening it and removing all the pieces from the inner mechanism. It would make the whole structure lighter and less noisy.

Here it is, with all the "useless" parts removed.

As you can see, the upper part is pretty empty. My plan was to fix the top part with some glue, but also fill in the gap between the canopy and the first floor with some expansive moss (not sure of the exact term).

I filled the top ridges with glue from my glue gun. Gluing the central square was actually an error, as I would need it to be mobile for the next step.

This is the expansive moss I was talking about.

I put some on the rim of the first floor and then attached the canopy on top. I should have tester the product on some cardboard first because it didn't expand as I expected.

I made fake coins out of used Nespresso Capsules.

I had so many of those capsules to throw away every month I figured I should be able to do something with them.

So I started opening them, throwing away the coffee still inside, cleaning them, drying them, flattening them and gluing them two by two.

My 2yo loves playing with those.

Here they are, cleaned and drying

Those mult-eyed beauties are two Shoggoths, from the Mansion of Madness game. I put them on simpler bases (made out of used Häagen-Dasz ice cream pots), so I can use them in other games.

Those were pretty simple to paint and very enjoyable as well. I decided to pick a very weird color scheme of green, pink and yellow. They are creatures of the great beyond after all, they could be any color. I mirrored the color on the two miniatures.

They are mostly painted with dry brushing. The body received two coats, a first very rough of a darker tone, and lighter brushing with a lighter tone later. The tentacles received the same treatment: dark rough first, and lighter one on the tips later. Eyes are painted yellow with a wash matching the body color (in retrospect, the green wash works better than the red one here).

Here they are, two beauties in an aerial view on my desktop. This is right before the wash.

Giant bugs from cheap plastic toys. And a crocodile thrown in the mix as well. I think it's a Kinder toy.

I think I should have made the crocodile lighter. I'm happy with the bugs, mostly, but if I had to redo them I would use a darker version of the main color of their shell to paint the articulation instead of the bone color I used. Also, I would find another color for their claws and teeth as well, it does not work so well here.

Otherwise I like the way the shells seem to have a slight sheen.

Here they are right before priming. I glued them to poker money markers using a glue gun. This allowed me to warp some of their limbs in place. I also applied some textured paste on the base at this stage so it would get primed as well.

This is Kyra, our Human Cleric of Sarenrae, with finally a miniature that accurately represents her with her magical glass scimitar and unmovable shield.

I stayed in my comfort zone here, but took care to keep only a limited amount of colors. Blue, gold and silver. With a touch of brass for the equipment.

I don't know how to paint glass, but I think the torch turned out ok.

I tried to make some terrain pieces out of playmobil parts. Mostly just apply modeling paste on top to give them some texture and repainting them. I plan to use them in my mega dungeon game, where my players are exploring a swamp full of forgotten barrows.

Here is the toy when I bought it. I knew I could paint the rocks in a convincing fashion using some modeling paste to give some texture, because I had done it before.

What to do with the dune and the water, though, I wasn't sure.

Here is the other piece of terrain. Could work as a small barrow as well. The holes are meant to be used to fit trees, and I intend to convert some playmobil trees as well. What I'm concerned about with this hill is in terms of gameplay; if there is enough room to make miniatures fit on it...

And a patch of sand... I thought I could maybe paint that as a small pond. I have no experience with painting water, so it could be a way to try.

Here they are, textured, waiting for the paste to dry.

This is the current state of the pond. Does not look better in reality than what you can see on the picture. I plan on testing a water effect on it, and adding some grass around it.

I realized I start to have too many miniatures. As I've been painting regularly for the past year, I can see the progress I made from earlier.

Many of them were very quick attempts at building a large collection quickly using barely two colors and a dip in wood varnish. When I compare those minis to what I do today, the difference is huge. And I don't want to put badly painted minis on the board when I have better looking ones, so I started to put the very bad ones into boxes and store them.

I bought some cheap toy house to see if I could make them look better with a cheap paint job.

Above are the three houses when I bought them. They were about 1€ each (the small one was for free).

Overview

I knew they would not be the right scale for my miniatures, but I wanted to see if I could make them look good with a quick paint job using cheap paints. I'd rather practice on cheap toys like this first.

Closer look on the Hello Kitty one. Lots of details on the porch, but unfortunately not a the right scale.

And the other one. Way less details here.

Closing windows

First thing to do is to close all the windows. I had a bunch of plastic poker money counter lying around so I glued them across all windows.

For smaller windows I used some plastic.

I also added two bottle caps on the tower on the right to hide the plastic bit jutting from it, and hoping to turn it into a chimney.

I should have spend more time adjusting it so it sits in the center, though. I should also have removed the handle but I didn't have the right tool to cut that, and it was just for practice anyway.

Same job went for the Hello Kitty one, blocking the windows.

This was actually harder as the space is much tighter here. Also, gluing thick plastic like I did wasn't a good idea, I should have used thin plastic everywhere, it would have been easier to glue. Lesson learned.

Priming

With all windows blocked, ready for priming on a beautiful sunny day.

For the small one, I simply added a Sigmar sign on top, and some chopsticks on the side.

For this one, I also added some wooden coffee stirrer on the door to make it look like a wooden door.

Painting

I don't have pictures of the painting process, but here is what I did.

After priming black, I dry brushed a brown on the wooden walls with a very large make up brush. Because the brush was so large, I couldn't get into the angled recesses which gave the houses a dark look.

I did something similar with the roofs, metal unis and stone walls. Then, I picked a smaller brush and dry brushed green on any greenery.

And that's it.

This is the original toy I bought. There is some mecanism inside that make it change height when you press it.

First step was to open it and deactivate the mechanism, then glue all the parts together so it would stay in the most elevated position.

Were I to repaint it again, I think I would try something more daring and attemps some lava effect in the cracks of the wall and a fire effect in the eyes of the metallic face. In its current state it looks too much like a stone structure while I could have it be a more prominent piece.