Painted Minis Arrive, Part 1: Gaters

If you have been following this blog for a bit, you may already know that about three months ago I did something I have never done before in my gaming career: I sent minis off to be painted for me. Now, I usually paint my own, and am fairly confident that I can produce a good figure. And I have bought pre-painted before, and been both very pleased and very disappointed. But I've never sent bare lead off to be painted for me. So this is a new one.

I chose to send the figures to White Ape Painting Studio, owned by Cathy Hamaker out of Indiana. Why not one of the big Asian studios? Two reasons: 1) Postage. Way too high for the 40-ish figures I was sending to be painted. 2) The economy. I am trying to promote 'buying American' when possible. The prices were pretty competitive with the Asian guys, especially when you took postage into consideration, and, well, I felt a bit better not having to deal with customs and all of that.

So, on to the reviews. Overall, I am pretty happy with Cathy's work. This first batch I am showing you are what I call Gaters in my VSF universe, but most of you would recognize them as Games Workshop Saurus (the old plastic ones from the boxed set that have been sitting about forever). I sent the mounted figure below as an example of the color scheme I wanted.

And this is what she returned to me today:

Really, not a bad match. You may be looking at the bases and saying to yourself "Uh... what's up with the bases?" That's my fault - I asked that she not do any base work so that I could get everything matching up. Once I do that, and hit it all with a shot of matte varnish, I think this unit of Gaters is pretty much done, although I do need a hero for it. Anyone with a nice metal Saurus hero type - a Temple Guard would work too! - give me a shout.

I'll be posting more - there are three more batches to go. So look for a new posting every day for the next few days.