New Wizard and a Bubbling Hell-pit!

Today I finished that Wizard figure that was a hold-over from the other three guys I recently finished, as well as a bubbling pit terrain piece.  Here are the two new pieces are with some of my more recent PC miniatures in a mini-diorama.  Entering the small room, the party discovers a bubbling pit that may well reach to the edge of hell in the center of the room.  Bravely, the Wizard uses his crystal ball to divine the source of the bubbling ooze!

The bubbling pit was made with a precut thin round plywood circle, about 2 inches across.  In the center I glued several different sizes of split beads to make the "bubbles."  I also glued a row of split beads of various sizes around the edge to give it a simple borded.  I then took the hot glue gun and made some ripples in the ooze that I could easily highlight with paint later.  For paint, the rocks are the standard earth tones I use, but the ooze was done by first painting it all a dark brown and then dry brushing the raised sections (the bubbles and the lines made by the hot glue gun) with white.  Then I painted the whole ooze the redish neon paint color and after it dried I painted the raised portions the yellow neon color.  Then I covered all the ooze with a clear gloss craft paint.


Here are some shots of the scene from different angles.

The Cleric attempts to ward off evil while the Wizard divines with his crystal ball, and the Thief and the Fighter look on cautiously.


Here is a close up of the Wizard.  I think he came out pretty good.  I like the peaked-in-the-front hood I gave him, the oversized staff looks cool, and his holding the crystal ball looks pretty cool as well.  He is equipped with a wand and a scroll in his belt, so he is ready for adventure!  It is harder to see in the picture but his hair is tapered forward underneath his hood, giving him good movement.  I forgot to paint his fingers (I'll do that right now) but that is a minor detail for the painting.  Pretty happy with how he turned out.

Lurker in the Lake!

I made the tentacles a while ago for a LotR minis game, but I just don't like the look on the table top of having the tentacles sticking out of the water with no head or gaping maw to strike terror in the hearts of the Fellowship players.  So I did a head of the foul beast to go along with the tentacles.

He was pretty easy to do.  The front part of the head is a large lady bug shape, the mouth is a split barrel bead.  This was glued onto a pretty large (no idea the size) round precut thin wooden base.  The back part of the head is just a goose (I think) split egg.  It is glued to a smaller round precut thin wood base.  Then I used split beads to make the eyes and took the hot glue gun and gave it some interesting folds and textures, as well as ripples in the water as it breaks the surface of the water to eat Frodo.    Here is a closer up shot.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  Looks much better than just having the tentacles there.  Here is a shot with Frodo and Aragorn to give you an idea of the scale.

Now, I need to put on the game!





More Fighter Types!

I had 4 figures on my painting table this week, three fighter types and a magic-user, but I only got the fighter types finished.  The magic-user figure looks cool so far, but he has a lot of different parts, so it will take me longer to paint him.


Here are the new fighter types.

From left to right, we have a utility fighter in back and breast plate armor, a first attempt on my part to do that.  Middle is a paladin type with a magical two-handed sword.  And on the right is a ranger-type that might look familiar both pose wise and color selections.  More on that later.


The most significant difference for these figures compared to the ones I have been doing is that I added bangs and facial hair to the utility fighter and the ranger.  Ranger's hair is black so it's a little harder to see, but this is new and I'm pretty pleased with how the facial hair in particular turned out.  It makes painting a bit trickier, but not too bad.


Here they are from the ranger's side.

It is actually a better shot of the paladin, but you can see the ranger's hood good in this picture.  For the ranger, I first put the saw-toothed top part of the hood that covers the shoulders on first.  It is made of paper.  Can't see that part too good in this picture but it is visible in the first one.  Then I put the hood on.  Nothing too new with the paladin figure other than the two-handed sword arm pose.  Was a little tricky, but not too bad.  I think the couple of barbarians I did before helped me to do the arms right, but it is honestly easier to do with the barbarian because of the split eggs.  It's all done with tile spacers with the paladin and trimming them exactly right is a bit of a chore.

Not much visible in this shot that is new except it is a good picture of the paladin's shield he is carrying on his back.  You can also see the peaked part of the ranger's hood which I also think turned out well.

So this is the best shot of the utility fighter.  You can see the texture that is created by the bangs and facial hair and again, although painting is a bit trickier, I think the effect is worth it.  Gives more depth to the figure.  This was my first attempt at doing a back and breast plate torso armor.  I'm happy with the shoulder pieces, they are just thin strips of paper, and I also like the bottom of the armor, another thin strip of paper that is flared out at the bottom after it is glued on.  The middle part I tried to create a seem or middle bridge part but it didn't go so well.  It's okay, but I think I need to try again.

Not sure if you remember or not but I have done the ranger figure previously without paper.  To show my development and the growth of how I do these figures, I'm putting the two figures together in the same shot.  Moving to the paper for cloaks and hair has really amped up the level of my figures I think.  But you be the judge.







Half-orc, Dwarf, and Human Cleric!

Got three new PC figures done, the dwarf before NTRPG Con (since he was used in the game obviously), and then two more after I got back.  In all fairness, I had already constructed the other two and primed the figures before I left, so I came back and painted these two new figures in about 2 hours. Not surprisingly, the more of these figures I do, the faster the construction and especially the painting goes!  Turns out I could go into work later this morning than usual, so I decided to go ahead and do a blog post this morning.


Here are the new trio.

Half-orc fighter type on the left, Dwarf fighter type in the middle with a big-ass hammer, and my newest take on a male Human Cleric.  What is new with them?  Nothing really new with the Half-orc but he is my first "orc-type" PC figure I have done.  Essentially he is a male upside down milk bottle body with a split bead head and split bead helmet with the "goblin" ears glued on sticking out under the helmet.  I also used the larger size tile spacer for his feet (not sure why I have it in my head that orcs and half-orcs have big feet, but there you go).  On the Dwarf, the hammer is a new construction.  Toothpick handle with a small bead at the base of the hammer part of the weapon.  The hammer part itself is two oblong beads glued onto a small round bead.  Then I just ran that through the toothpick for strength.  On the top is a split very small bead to cover the top hole of the small bead that makes up the head of the hammer.  I think it looks pretty cool.  For the human Cleric, not too much new except for the mace.  Instead of a round bead for the head of the weapon which is what I have done to date, I used one of the oblong beads as the main part of the head and then a split very small bead as the top part.  I love the oversized look to it (just like for the hammer) and I think it looks great on these more cartoony style figures.

Here is a shot from the back (pretty boring since it's just cloaks and hair):

And here is a shot from the left to right side of the line.  Good shot of the Half-orc here, I think his scale mail armor turned out really well.  I'm happy I went with the lighter shade of gray rather than the medium shade which would not have stood out so prominently and I wanted his scale mail armor to be a focal point. Better view of the Dwarf's hammer as well, you can see the construction a little better in this picture.

And finally a shot from the right to the left side of the line.

I really like how the male Human Cleric turned out.  Nice pose, great mace, and I like his full mail suit head to toe but having the green coat over the mail breaks it up nicely.  You can easily see how doing all those Norman figures has made my painting of this type of fantasy character figure better.  The helmet looks great I think!







North Texas RPG Con Game!

Back from the North Texas RPG Con and had as much fun this year as last!  I think attendance may have been a little lighter than last year, but the games were stellar.  I played in 5 games, it's the most games I've ever played in at a Con.


I helped out Thom with his game although I didn't play in it.  I essentially handed him the figures he needed after describing the situation to the players.  They all used the wooden warriors I bought and Thom used the monsters.  This was an RPG convention, not a minis game convention, but the people that played the game seemed to really like the figures.  I did not however get one person who stopped by to take a look at them, which never happens at a minis convention when I have used these guys.  Even if they end up not liking them, people stop by the table and ask about the figures and take a look at them.  Didn't happen at this Con but again, I think that's because it isn't a minis convention.  Also, and this is great for the people running the games, each table has its own dry erase gridded map which makes drawing the dungeon super easy.  Unfortunately, it means that there is not terrain.  The figures are just on the dry erase mat.  But I totally understand why they do it that way, it makes it super easy on the game masters.


Anyway, here are some pics of the game with my figures.

The party went into this room and finished off a bunch of undead gray goblins.  The players chose the male dwarf figure (I don't think I've posted pictures of him yet now that I think about it!), the female elf with a bow, the male young wizard, the female young wizard reading the scroll, and the male elf with a bow.

Another room where the party was fighting the goblin gargoyles.

Probably the best picture I took, the party fighting the dreaded alter mimic!  That figure, more than any of the others, was the biggest hit I think.  Ironically, it's by far the easiest one to make and paint!

And the last room in the dungeon, the party fighting the Lovecraftian horror.  Unlike the alter mimic, this figure was a bear to construct and paint, although people seemed to like this one too.

It was great getting some exposure for my figures at the Con.  As I said, I hoped to get more walk-up traffic about them, but I didn't really get much.  However, Thom has been incredibly supportive and he made an explicit effort to get people to take a look at them and heaped plenty of praise on the figures.  So I'm feeling good about it.

Maybe tomorrow or Friday I'll try to post some pics of some new figures I've been working on, another human cleric, a half-orc fighter type, and that male dwarf that I used in this game but haven't posted pictures of yet.