The halfling monk of the party was a bit of a challenge, as I did not find any cool female halfling monk miniatures on the internet. There were some really nice male miniatures, and female monks too. But I did not find any appealing female halfling monk back in 2017. WizKids had just released their new Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures line, and I decided to modify the figure of a female halfling rogue into the miniature for Meria the monk.

Here is the group of adventurers from my D&D 5th Edition Storm King’s Thunder campaign:

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  Balthor (human totem barbarian/beastmaster ranger)
  Darksword Miniatures (DSM 7320) – Male Dual Wield Rogue

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  Otiris Firebird (half-elf phoenix sorcerer)
  Reaper Miniatures (03449) – Halmar, Young Wizard

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  Janikarumshed Hopsward (rock gnome arcana cleric/order of the sages wizard)
  Reaper Miniatures (02667) – Halfing Wizard

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  Meria (lighfoot halfling monk of the open hand)
  WizKids Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures (72627) – Halfling Female Rogue

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  Gwendolyn Stonewarden (hill dwarf stone sorcerer)
  Hasslefree Miniatures (HFD019) – Svala

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  Quarion Silverhand (moon elf divine trickster rogue)
  Reaper Miniatures (77384) – Arathanel, Elf Ranger

The miniature of the Halfing Female Rogue (72627) from Wave 1 of WizKids then new Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures. The pack actually includes two miniatures for a low price: For the minis intended as player characters, they provide two versions – a low level and a higher level version, or a different outfit and weapon. It’s quite a cool idea.

This new line of plastic miniatures was first released back in 2017. As it was from WizKids, they came with an official D&D license (and also Pathfinder). Until now, they actually released really cool miniatures of iconic D&D monsters that look like straight out of the Monster Manual. This makes some “replacements” from Reaper Bones rather obsolete.

The game blog Skinner Games even wrote in their review:

They’re cheap, well cast, pre-primed, and generally look quite nice on the table. They have their issues, like anything, but are definitely a very fantastic step forward in the history of tabletop miniatures. They’ll absolutely give Bones a run for their money, which is ultimately good for us.

_{Skinner Games on March 24, 2017}

I bought a couple of minis from the first wave and I agree: they are good! The figures are a bit smaller compared directly to Reaper Bones, but the material is different too. I guess the success of the Nolzur’s figures made Reaper further improve their Bones formula, so we later got Black Bones, Bones USA etc.

Character Background

Meria comes from a large halfing family clan living on the farms near the village of Red Larch.

When the village was nearly completely razed to the ground during the Dragon Crisis, Meria’s family scattered to the four winds, to build a new life elsewhere.

Together with some siblings, the young halfling woman fled into the forests. She met an old wise hermit in the woods who taught the eager halfling the way of the open hand, an ancient monk tradition.

On one fateful day, a band of pillaging orcs found the small community hiding in the forest. They attacked and burned it to the ground.

Meria barely escaped with her life, and now seeks to find others from her family clan.

Preparation/Priming

As with many of the other player characters, I don’t have pictures of the painting process. Sorry!

Meria uses a quarterstaff and no daggers. So I cut off the dagger; the hand now looks like a closed punching fist which is great! I had a small plastic tube left in my bits bin that I used as the quarterstaff. Done!

I glued the miniature on a 1-inch plastic base with some small rocks and sand. There was no need for priming with the Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures, as I had learned previously by doing a test. In this test I did my usual priming routine (airbrushing black and then white) on a Nolzur’s figure. This resulted in the loss of many fine details of the miniature. So, lesson learned: better do not prime Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures before painting!

Painting

Halflings really are quite small, and so are halfling miniatures! One downside of the first wave of Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures was the lack of sharp edges on the figures. It’s difficult to identify the individual parts of clothing, at least for me.

I followed the color scheme from Meria’s artwork for the miniature. Again, I did not draw the artwork above, I just photoshopped it together! A blueish red and a teal color look good together, I just added some brown bags and leather shoulder pads.

For the skin, I used a darker recipe with Reaper Paint skine tone triads. For the hair, I tried to achieve a muddy blonde. Meria is a no-nonsense monk living in the forest, so I completely refrained from any kind of make-up for her. Finally, I had great fun with the vegetation on the base!

My first Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures player character turned out pretty good, and I am definitely going to buy more of their minis. They now got all kinds of miniatures for specific race/class/sex combinations from D&D for players to choose from.