Bones: Griffins and Bugs

I got some spiders and beetles as part of the Bones kickstarter. I have some pre-painted D&D spiders, but more is always better, and the beetles are great. These were pretty easy to paint: thin walnut brown stain as a base, and a drybrush of either dark red (for the beetles) or dark grey (for the spiders). I then went back with a very light blue paint and painted the negative space in side the beetle's legs to give them a little more definition. A little clean-up and they were done!
They're a little hard to see in these pictures, because the focus is the griffins, but you can see them at the bottom.
I always wanted some miniatures griffins for my gaming table. I can't imagine why; I can't think of an actual encounter that involved any that I've ever played in. I think a friend of mine had a lead griffin in high school, which must have been enormously expensive and heavy for something I don't he ever primed, much less painted. When Bones was kickstarted, orders came with a single griffon and additional griffins were $7 as an extra. I decided to get three of them, because if I ever play a tabletop fantasy game again and use griffins, I'll probably want multiple ones in a the scene.
	I think these are largest miniatures I've ever painted, as large as my largest dragons. They were also hard to basecoat, since the paint didn't want to flow in the crooks of the feathers on the wings and the ridged feathers on the back and chest were hard on my brushes.
The paint schemes were simple: dark ivory wings (or at least trailing feathers) and brown bodies. I used chestnut for two of them, and walnut for the third, to make them distinct on the table. Then I drybrushed with a brighter white and a lighter brown to bring out the details. Two tones of yellow for the beak and talons, light tan and yellow drybrush for the arms, and I was done.
This griffin was based on the golden eagle. He had the same brown base as the other brown griffin, but then I hightlighted the chest and head feathers with the same yellow I used on the talons and beak. I really like how this one came out.
I painted the socks on the back feet in several stages: ivory basecoat, a sharp line with the brown basecoat, and then drybrushed white highlight from the bottom and drybrushed brown highlight from the upper leg heading down. It looks best on this dark brown griffin, since it blended very well and gave a very natural effect.
	The eyes are a simple light tan and a line of black with a technical pen. Simple, but surprisingly good.
I'm glad I did these, and even happier that I'm finished with them!