I took part in the Reaper Miniatures “Bones” kickstarter for unpainted resin minis last August and they’ve been working away to produce them. I came home this week to find this jumbo box sitting on my doorstep!
I popped it open and it was chock full.
I opened it up and took out the components…
Besides the “Vampire” level of funding, I bought a “starter paint kit,” two minis cases, a red dragon and six “deep dwellers.”
The paint starter kit is ridiculous huge! So much paint! And I’ll need it…
Here’s my extra minis – the red dragon, deep dwellers, and then some skeleton with a shovel was in with the paints.
There’s the dragon sculpt, right off the Pathfinder book. Pardon the graininess of my iPhone camera, but you get the gist. The wings and arm and head were separate components that snapped right on. Now, to the main event!
In the big white Vampire box – 6 keys of smack! I mean minis!
Here’s one bag.
And in it – a billion little bags!
Some of the smalls are on sticks – some I could twist off but most will need an x-acto knife.
It took a long time to open all the little baggies. They’re not perforated or anything, scissors are required. I was careless once, and sheared off a spear-tip while cutting baggie after baggie. Here’s the figures from the first bag.
This one had a bunch of space marines in it!
She wants me.
First impressions – they are rubbery – very rubbery. This is good in that there were no broken minis (except the one I cut while de-bagging) but several of the minis (mainly smalls and skeletons) have trouble standing up. The scuplts are beautiful.
Bag two, now with ectoplasm!
By the time I was done – an army of minis!
One bag of trash…
And one big box of minis!
Final count:
- 246 minis (no pieces missing)
- 0 broken (except for my scissors accident)
- 5 that won’t stand up no matter what despite loads of bending (and many more that have quite a lean to them)
I’m quite pleased! For a decently low investment, a mess of minis, and all the scuplts are great. The Pathfinder iconics and goblins are my favorites!
I’ll have to see how the rubbery texture does with painting, it seems a little questionable. If Reaper’s reading this, I’d go a touch stiffer with the material in subsequent batches. You mainly want to surf the fine line between breakage and wobbliness. I remember Paizo’s first prepaints were too soft, and then the latest ones are really stiff to the point of some breakage. These are way softer than the Paizo/Wizkids ones even at start (or the D&D Minis), and could use a couple levels of stiffening.
If they could add perforations to the baggies it would be nice too, though probably in the future people won’t have to be opening them in such volume.
Anyway – thanks Reaper, and I hope this Kickstarter did well for y’all!
Geek Related 
Congrats! I get my box (hopefully) on Tuesday!
I got my box on Wednesday! I agree that they are great. I did a bit of research and I’ve read that if you heat the miniatures (such as holding them in the steam coming from a pot of boiling water), you can bend them, remove them from the heat, and the bend will “stick” better than doing it without the steam.
Also, I’ve read that due to the chemical residue leftover from removing the miniatures from their molds, it is a good idea to lightly wash your miniatures with soap and water before painting, otherwise the paint may not stick very well.
The bends are quite easy to fix/reset. Dip the bent figures into boiling water. After they have warmed up to the core, they will actually mostly reset themselves to how they were in the mold. Set the shape by dipping into cold water. Done!
Also, wash them before you paint them. The mold-release agent may make the paint not stick as well.
Awesome unboxing! A few quick notes:
-Those plastic bags may be recyclable in your area.
-Bent minis can be fixed by dunking them in boiling water for 1 to 3 minutes, then dropping them immediately afterward into a bowl of ice water for 2 to 5 minutes. Some will just straighten themselves this way, others you can pull out of the hot water, bend ’em yourself, then hold them in place as you put them into the ice water.
-The rubbery texture works fine for painting. Just make sure you wash them well before painting, and don’t water down your first coat of paint. You may see a little cracking at a few points if you severely bend, say, a sword or arm, but overall they are extremely durable.
-Future sales will be in the traditional blister packs, not baggies, I believe.
-The skeleton with a shovel is “Mr. Bones”, the mascot of the kickstarter campaign.
How to fix bent Bones …
http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/48803-bend-your-bones/
About the cut bone, I know you cut it, but if ya can’t end up fixing it up so it’s not too noticeable, chances are you could talk to Reaper about replacing it after they get everything taken care of with shipping. Explain that in your enthusiasm you cut a bit more than intended and see if they’d be extra cool about it. They most likely would be, Reaper rocks.
Oh, it actually looks OK, like she’s holding a staff instead of a spear, so no big worry.
Can’t wait for mine to arrive. Some sort of problem with trucks means Europe is waiting longer still, but one day it will be here. Looks fantastic ! And apparently some boiling water then ice water will sort out the twisted minis 🙂
Wonder how long it’ll take you to paint them all!
Thanks all, I’ll try the boiling water trick!
Congratulations on the minis.
Are the “won’t stand on its own” minis bent or poorly designed? If it is bent, try this: – Boil a large pot of water, deep enough to submerge your mini in. – Use tongs to dunk your mini. Keep hold of the mini with the tongs. – Try 5 seconds, then increments of 5 thereafter.
After the dunking use your fingers (with a cup towel) to bend the mini into shape. The key is finding a dunk time that will allow you to correct the mini without destroying it.
On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 12:24 PM, Geek Related
Using the boiling water and ice water trick works fantastically. In most cases they bounce right back to their normal shape after 5-10 seconds and only need to be dunked and let to dry. I did most of my set in aboot 45 minutes.