There are complex miniatures that are difficult to paint and there’s the opposite of that. The Reaper Bones Stone Golem (77171) absolutely falls into the latter category. With almost exclusively using drybrushing, this mini only took an hour.

Don’t get me wrong, there are very nice paint jobs of the Golem in the Reaper Forums that surely took longer than an hour. These were my favorites:

They were painted by Maglok, Citrine, Dead Bard Miniatures, and Maldrakh. Click on the pictures to get to the respective thread in the Show Off Board.

For my version, I just wanted a plain stone statue look without many different colors. My Golem just would have green glowing eyes.

Basing and Priming

I glued the figure on a 40mm base, because it looked too small for a “large” base of 2 inches/50mm. 40mm is not ideal for grid/miniature play in D&D, but it was the best option for the miniature. I’ve put some sand on the base and primed the figure in black and white.

Painting

As I said, the whole painting took about an hour. I started with a drybrush of Vallejo Model Colors Dark Sky Grey and then applied a black wash. I then progressed to drybrushing with VMC Medium Grey and finally Light Grey. I could have used more steps, but it looked good enough. I painted the eyes with VMC Lime Green to give them a nice contrast to the grey.

I also drybrushed the base with VMC Chocolate Brown and Light Grey. I admit that the figure may look a bit dull as a whole. But that’s what I wanted my players to see in their mind when fighting it: it’s just a dull statue, that suddently started moving and fighting.