88830 Dire Boar

As promised, here’s the Dire Boar.

This was a pretty quick paint job, all considered. The lower jaw is a separate piece and is a pain to attach properly. I wound up drilling it in the back and attaching it with a rod that ran back into the boar’s mouth. It still came out a little cock-eyed.

I base coated with Reaper Harvest Brown mixed with black. This came out much darker than I’d have liked. So I did several coats of highlights, trying to bring out the texture of the piece. I’m pretty satisfied with how this turned out.

I struggled a bit getting the tusks and horns right. A pass with a light yellow ink wash left them looking like bananas. In the end, I went with Reaper bleached linen and buckskin pale in a 2:1 ratio and then finished with a sepia wash at the base of each tusk.

The snout and eyes are Reaper rosy skin mixed with blood red, in a 3:1 ratio. After that I washed with red ink and then then filled in the texture details with more blood red paint. To make it seem moist, I went over it with a third layer of gloss lacquer applied by brush following my usual two spray coats.

This came in the mail this week as well and is already getting use:

It’s a beautiful wooden holder made by Stephan Rath and sold in a Kickstarter that I backed last year. They go on sale to the general public next month. You can pick them up here.

Ironically, when I pledged, I wasn’t much of a painter, having only painted up Reaper Mouslings for my kids. Now it’s going to get plenty of use. I just nabbed two lots of Chainmail figures off eBay, leaving me with only 3 more figures to complete my collection. I also just bought a big batch of reaper minis for a D&D 5e game I’m going to run for some friends. So there is a bunch of painting in my immediate future, I think.