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My wedding cake topper: Reaper Miniatures pirate and ninja

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:33 pm
by Lahatiel
I haven't been active around here for a quite a while, because I was lucky enough to marry the love of my wife on October 11th, and we left a day later for our honeymoon. However, while I might not have been involved here, I wasn't neglecting miniatures. Quite the opposite -- given that, in that greatest of Internet debates, my wife is a pirate and I am a ninja, I used the Sela Windsprite, Elf Pirate and Edo, Male Ninja figures from Reaper Miniatures to create our wedding cake topper!

There's a bit more backstory on my CoolMiniorNot submisssion page at: http://www.coolminiornot.com/204541 so feel free to go there and check it out (and vote, if you like ;) ). I'm posting the exact same picture here, though, so you don't have to go there if you don't want. Also, I've included at the bottom of the picture the original, unconverted figures out of the package, for those who aren't familiar with them. I'd posted a work-in-progress at CMoN, too, so you can check out http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/vie ... ?tid=29134 if you want to see how I got from the start to the finished piece.

Image

Obviously it's not a Golden Demon-level paintjob or anything like that, but I was very happy with the final result, and these are far and away the best figures I've painted to date. Happily, they turned out to be quite a hit at our wedding, so I hope you like them, too. Questions, comments, and criticisms are always welcome!

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:50 pm
by Norse
:o awesome! really like it mate, and congrats by the way! 8)

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:03 pm
by Hangus
Congrats .....I take it you are bald and your wife has a pet monkey?

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:13 pm
by Norse
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:18 pm
by Lahatiel
Thanks, guys!
Hangus wrote:Congrats .....I take it you are bald and your wife has a pet monkey?
Actually... yes! :wink:

Here's some of the backstory text I'd put on the CMoN page; I've highlighted the bits relevant to your question:
As one can probably guess, the colors of our wedding were black and burgundy; Shelly has brown hair with red highlights, while I shave my head. I included the original, unmodified figures at the bottom for those who aren't familiar with them. I had to remove all the weapons, reposition the arms, and I swapped in a new head for Edo to have a bald one, since I needed to turn it anyway. I even ended up swapping two entirely new hands onto Sela, as it was just easier than cleaning hers up after the weapon removal.

The pirate hat was sculpted onto the monkey using ProCreate putty to hide a hard-to-remove mold line in his fur. This worked well because early in our relationship, I'd bought for a Shelly a pirate-dressed monkey stuffed animal she'd been wanting. While the stuffed animal had traditional brown fur, though, I didn't want him to get lost in her hair color, so I painted him as a Vervet monkey with white fur and black flesh instead.

Finally, the boxes on which the figures stand were made as the dance boxes from the dance floor at the industrial/goth nightclub where we met. I know they don't look particularly nice, at least as compared to the figures, but I was fine with that -- the boxes in real life are fairly beat up. I'd taken a mobile phone camera pic of them one night when we got there early, so that I'd have a reference to be able to accurately match the proper fleur de lis design onto them.
:D

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:33 pm
by Norse
all you need to mention is where to buy pro-create... :wink:

Re: My wedding cake topper: Reaper Miniatures pirate and nin

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:02 pm
by Darkson
Lahatiel wrote: because I was lucky enough to marry the love of my wife
:o You married your wife's lover? :o


Congrats! :wink:

Re: My wedding cake topper: Reaper Miniatures pirate and nin

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:26 pm
by Lahatiel
Darkson wrote:
Lahatiel wrote: because I was lucky enough to marry the love of my wife
:o You married your wife's lover? :o


Congrats! :wink:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ha, that's awesome! What makes it even funnier is that my job is as a senior editor on the copy desk at a newswire service. My excuse to my friends is that once I started getting paid to scrutinize spelling/grammar/punctuation/etc. for 40 hours each week, I stopped paying so much attention in my off-hours! ;)

Hell, I'm not even going to bother correcting it, just for the laugh. :D

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:21 pm
by landrover
Congratulations. Cool minis too. :D

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:36 pm
by orkydave
These are awesome, I had Han solo and Leia on my wedding cake, but this is so much more personal.

Congratulations