Brain in a Jar

While we're watching the current Reaper Bones Kickstarter, here's an item from the previous Kickstarter that I painted up.

Just like it says on the label, a mechanically animated jar wired to the brain therein. Dig that translucent plastic for the jar.

The metal parts of the jar were painted with silver paint, then drybrushed with medium brown and dark red for a rusted look before getting my standard blackwash. The result is a little more steampunk than I anticipated, but I quite like it.

The brain is attached to the lid, and both can be removed for closer biological inspection. This piece is a gift for someone who is, let's say, in the brain business, so I got some pointers for proper anatomical coloration. Any liberties observed should be interpreted as creative license by the artist.

Rear view of the yellowish cerebellum and medulla, as distinct from the somewhat pink cortex. The wet look was achieved with a layer a Future shine.

Sven and the very big brain. It's too big for any gaming I'd do, but it'll make for a fun trinket in some brainiac's office.

Homemade gelatin

The gelatinous cube, a creature genetically adapted to graph paper, remains one of the most iconically ridiculous monsters in the D&D canon. It's simplicity, in addition to how expensive commercial miniature representations of it tend to be, invite all sorts of homebrew miniature solutions. EY's recent post on using plastic ice cubes as 1/72 gelatinous cubes prompted me to finally finish my own homebrew version of the geometric critter. Tada!

The core of this project is this thing:

It's an itty-bitty, 2"x2"x2" display case made for golf balls. I got a six pack of them from Amazon, but I bet you can get them individually at sporting goods stores for under $2.

The chief draw for these is that they slide apart,...

...because the fun of a mini for a clear monster whose main power is engulfing PCs is in actually putting hero minis inside.

I could have used these as is, but they are a little too platonically cubic. I wanted some sort of texture to show that it was made of organic goop of some kind. I considered substances like clear caulk, but instead I finally decided on Gloss Gel Medium, a finishing product for artists made by Liquitex that dries clear and with a textured surface. $6 after the requisite 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby for a fair sized bottle, which I decided was cheap enough if I use it for other modeling projects. I could use it for other oozes, for example, and it seems like it would work for choppy water as well.

Separate the cube as shown above, then sand the surfaces you plan to treat so the Gloss sticks. Wash afterwards to remove plastic dust and allow to dry thoroughly. I painted both sides of the bottom face with several coats of black paint, then added the gel medium to the top face of the black surface (which is to say, the "floor" inside the cube).

I had glued the 2" fender washer to the base before sanding and washing, but I recommend doing so afterwards instead. The washer makes the cube much more stable.

I also added the Gloss to all the clear outside surfaces. Try not to get any medium on the bevelled edges, so the two parts slide apart as easily as possible. You may want to run a knife over these edges as well, so the fit isn't quite so snug.

A layer of Future shine or some other finish on the bottom is a good idea to keep it from scuffing. You could paint Future on the rest of the mini too, but it's not really necessary; the Gloss Medium is shiny and resilient enough on its own.

Large enough to comfortably accommodate one comparison viking!

One downside to this approach: Even after shaving the bevelled edges to make the fit a bit looser, it's still sort of tough to separate the two halves of the cube. I'm thinking of some sort of tab to make separation easier. Still, I think it looks pretty good, and it's pretty easy to make.

Since I still have five of these golf ball display cases, I can make more of these things. Would anyone be interested in getting one as a trade, or possibly some sort of future giveaway?

Bones II minis for 1/72 scale

I'm still selling several Bones II minis. Pics are now available on my sales page. Also, in case you missed it, I updated my post on WarQuest with some new information.

I received my Bones II order a few months ago and was pleased to discover how many work with 1/72 scale. As I discovered with the first Bones Kickstarter, smaller minis look human-sized in 1/72, while large minis seem just a bit larger, in a more fantastic way. Let's take a look.

These small humanoids are about the size of 1/72 humans. On the left are Balazar the gnome summoner, Lini the gnome druid, and Woody the halfling ranger. Their heads look rather large, but they should be fine for 1/72 otherwise. On the right are a kobold champion and sorcerer, with a kobold spearman in between. These new minis are quite a bit larger than the old kobold Bones, despite having the same sculptor, but they should work for 1/72 lizardmen or dragonmen.

These are also close to human-sized in 1/72 scale. Two mushroom men (or "myconids" in D&D), a lesser demon, a kelpie, a demilich, and two "hordlings."

Animals: a wolf, bear, wildcat, wolverine, and hawk. These are all bigger than actual 1/72 versions of the same critters, but they are good for "dire" or monstrous beasts. Besides, that hawk is about as small as it can be and still be useful at the table.

Medium-sized beasts: a basilisk, barrow rat, chthon, mind eater, prairie tick queen, and spider from the first Kickstarter.

These monsters are close in size to Reaper humans, but I think they are nice as larger monsters in 1/72. A "Ti'ilk" fishman, lesser demon, two Egyptian avatars, Thoth and Sekhmet; and a crystal golem. The "lesser demons" are all about the same size, though the vulture demon is a lot bigger. Dig the blue plastic on that golem!

Some huge monsters: a chimera, water elemental, and "burrowing horror" (or "bullette" in D&D). Again, I love the clear blue plastic. The water elemental is about the same size as the clear red fire elemental Reaper made for their first Kickstarter.

Finally, some giants: a "swamp things" troll, stone giant, mountain troll, and ice troll. These are all much bigger than the ubiquitous cave trolls I painted last year. I still like how these big guys look compared to Sven.

Bags o minis! Twilight Creations, etc.

I recently mentioned Twilight Creations in a news post. I've since gotten ahold of a bunch of minis from their board games. Their minis are a bit smaller than most board game minis and are a good fit for 1/72 scale.

Let's start with their Zombies!!! minis, which are their most well-known figures. Shown are the male and female zombies from the original series, available in the core game or various expansions, and also available in cheap "Bag o" sets of 100.

These are made of a very rubbery plastic that bends easily—the other figures on this page are made of firmer, less flexible stuff. I don't particularly like the first sculpt, with that weird overlarge arm, but I used the heads from these for my 1/72 zombie project. The female sculpt is a lot better, especially if you trim off the severed head it's holding. It could easily be used for witches, hags, ghosts, and other monsters. Also sometimes available though seemingly out of production are bags of zombie dogs (useful!) and zombie clowns (idiosyncratic! though possibly adaptable to more general purposes). I've also mentioned the figures from the Zombie Zoo expansion and from the 3rd edition of the core game, which I'll also show here.

Photo cred Twilight Creations

So long as I'm mentioning content from previous posts, here are the minis from Dante's Inferno, available in sets without the game from Twilight Creations' store. Lots of neat 1/72-ish monsters.

I also just got Twilight Creations' new Cthulhu!!! game, especially for the minis. Here they are.

The two on the left are player minis, of which there are three each. They're just a hair bigger than Sven, who is standing on a larger base, but could be useful for pulp gaming. The stars of this game are the next two figures, the "byakhee" monster and the cultist figure, of which the game includes 25 of the former and 75 of the latter. The monster is a little odd but surely useful for something. But the cultist is great! There is no "Bag o Cultists" that I know about, which is too bad, because lots of gamers could use a bunch of generalized dudes in robes. They are again a little tall, but could easily be made shorter since they are in robes. The one odd detail is the face; I can't tell if the figure is open-mouthed or just has a large nose. But the robes are perfect, and the pose is pretty evocative.

Lastly, something a little different, figures from a "Bag o" set not made by Twilight Creations. These are from a "Bag o Chthulhus" made by Fantasy Flight, intended as counters for their out-of-print (I think) Call of Cthulhu card game.

There 6 of the large figure and 36 of the smaller ones in the set. These are made from a very hard plastic with a lot better detail than many of the Twilight Creations figures. Any of these could be used as statues, gribbly monsters, or in the case of the large sculpt, He Who Sleeps himself.

Edit 10/21/2014: I mentioned the Bump in the Night minis, which I'll show below: see this post for more. Also, see my seller page for information on buying some of the minis on this page.

Big Minis; plus using Future Floor Finish

Have you been watching the Reaper Bones 2 Kickstarter? It's already a great deal, and the more people pledge, the better a deal it becomes. The Kickstart is in its last few days, so don't miss out!

I'm trying something new by painting a bunch of larger monsters, rather than the hordes of smaller minis I usually do. This is also my chance to try out Future Floor Finish as a sealant and wash medium. I had used Minwax Polyshades (aka "The Dip") for this purpose, but after a few successful uses of the stuff, I started running into too many problems. I could handle the messiness, the unreliability, and the noxious fumes, but when I found out it was actually eating some of my figures, that was enough. I was looking for another cheap and easy alternative and discovered Future, a commercial floorcare product that's basically a clear acrylic that hobbyists of all kinds have been using for years (This page tells you almost as much as you'd ever want to know about using Future for modeling purposes).

Let's start with this Purple Worm from Reaper Miniatures.

This is one of those figures that looks a lot better next to my smaller figures: it's not anywhere near menacing enough next to larger Reaper hero minis. This was a pretty simple painjob for my first large mini, just lots of purple with some light-purple drybrushing. I washed it with undiluted Future mixed with a little black paint. I didn't do anything to kill the gloss because I wanted the worm to look suitably slimy.

Next is this ogre, an Arcane Legions "Great One."

He looks a little more slovenly and less noble than the original paintjob, which I think is great. This time I made a mix of "magic wash," based off of this recipe. The one variation I used was to start with a jar of Tamiya Flat Base and mix it 1:10 with Future (as described in the "Complete Future" page I link to in the first paragraph). The Flat Base kills the shine, so you can wash and seal and not have to worry about matte spraying. I then diluted that mixture 4:1 with water, as the original recipe indicates. Note that this gets you about a liter of magic wash, so you should be more prepared than I was to store the mixture.

This squeezy mustard bottle and old salsa jar was almost enough to store all the wash I made. The bottle of Future (now marketed by Pledge) is on the left.

The squeezy bottle is good for dispensing the wash. You can see that the flat base settles at the bottom of the mix, but you can shake the bottle to mix it up before using. It makes bubbles, but contrary to the page I got the recipe from, I didn't find that to be a problem. After dispensing the wash, I used a brush to mix in enough black paint so the it just turned opaque, then brushed the mixture on the mini. I probably made it a little too dark, and I need to work on a more even washing technique, but overall I'm quite pleased with the results. The shading is right where it needs to be, plus I got a nice matte finish without an extra step.

I initially thought The Dip was a good quick finish to my minis because it seemed more or less all-in-one; everything was premixed, so I thought it should be easy to work with. That simply turned out not to be the case. With the Magic Wash, it took a little extra time to make the initial mixture, but the application and cleanup is so much easier. So far I like what I'm seeing!

Cheap Fantasy (metal) Minis!

I haven't made a secret about my preference for plastic minis over metal. Not only are they cheaper, but they are lighter, easier to perform conversions on, and you never have to worry if your minis are going to poison you. And since modern plastic-injection techniques offer miniatures that are almost indistinguishable from metal in terms of casting, I simply don't see the advantage of going metal when plastic is available.

Of course plastic isn't always available, as the one advantage metal has over plastic is that it's cheaper to make metal molds than plastic injection molds, meaning there are more metal manufacturers out there than plastic, and a greater variety of figures. So I've been keeping an eye out for metal minis worthy of the name Cheap Fantasy Minis.

Readers, meet Syr Hobbs Wargames. It's a niche little hobby shop out of the Kansas City area that seems to specialize in imported metal miniatures. What attracted me to them is that they have a lot of already cheap mini lines on clearance, making them competitive in price with the cheap plastic minis I know and love. Here's some of what I ordered:

The boar is a 15mm figure from East Riding Miniatures. Though it's supposedly in a smaller scale, it looks pretty good next to Sven the 1/72 scale comparison viking. Syr Hobbs sold a bag of 6 for $2—one of which was unfortunately miscast or damaged, but it was still a good deal for 5. The fellow to the right is a 20mm "octopoid priest" from Elhiem Figures—the bit to his left is a tentacle arm which I may use, or I may use a replacement arm. Either way, he'll make a fine Mind Flayer. The two blobby things to his right are "night horrors," also from Elhiem.

I also bought some Elhiem tentacles and some 15mm scale heads from C-P Models for future conversion projects. Turns out most of the C-P heads will work just fine for 1/72 conversions. I'll review the heads in greater detail in a future post.

World of Warcraft board game minis

Update: The Miniature Market sale is over, but I have a few of these minis for sale on eBay.

Miniature Market is offering its annual Spring Cleaning sale through May 17th 2013, with an additional 20% off all clearance items. I noticed that one such item was the Burning Crusade expansion for the World of Warcraft board game from Fantasy Flight, which is a trove of dozens of great plastic fantasy minis. Unfortunately, they seem to have since sold out, but you can find the expansion elsewhere (Amazon affiliates, for example) for under $30, which is still a fantastic deal.

Anyway, the sale made me think of the WoW board game minis I already have. The figures are 28mm, but a lot of them work surprisingly well in 1/72 scale. There was a time where you could get a lot of figures for the original game on eBay, but that seems to be less commonplace now. Still, the Burning Crusade expansion has one of each of the minis from the original game in purple plastic, so they can still be had.

The first set of photos are figures from the original World of Warcraft game, but again, they can also be had in the expansion. First, a couple of gnolls, a ghoul, and a murloc. I wish I had got more murlocs when they were available, as they make great human-sized fish-monsters in 1/72. The gnolls are arguably a bit oversized (MageKnight gnolls are a better fit, apparently), but gnolls are supposed to be a bit on the tall side. I plan on doing weapon swaps with some Warhammer skaven bits, like I did with the blue gnoll.

An ogre, a large demon Wrath Guard, and a Wildkin. The latter will make a perfect owlbear once I trim the antlers.

An Infernal, which will make a fine earth elemental, and a Drake, which is WoW-speak for dragon, I suppose. I like the poses on these: the Infernal gives the sense of how a giant rock monster would stomp toward you, and the Drake looks like it's regarding a smaller foe in irritation.

Or perhaps like it has just spilled mustard on its favorite shirt. "Dang, I just had this dry-cleaned!"

This next set of photos are of minis that are only in the Burning Crusade set. Here's a Yeti and a Fungal Giant, which is suitable for many sorts of giant monstrous creatures, fungal or otherwise.

Last, a Ravager, a giant undead Abomination, and an Ooze. The Ravager makes a nice generically Lovecraftian or demonic monster. I may want to modify the ooze so it doesn't have a face or arrows coming out of it, but as most ooze minis are pretty expensive, considering they're just amorphous lumps, I was glad to find it.

These are just some of my favorite minis from the World of Warcraft Burning Crusade expansion. It literally has several pounds of plastic minis, and if you can find it at the right price, it's well worth obtaining, even if you never play the game.

Using D&D Minis in 1/72 scale

Like my recent post on Reaper Bones minis, this post is about adapting common gaming minis in a larger scale to 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog. As with the Bones, D&D minis are a little bit more expensive than what you'd pay for true 1/72 scale plastic minis, but they are useful for adding character and monster types that are otherwise unavailable in the smaller scale. Even so, most of these figures cost me less than a buck a piece (I've marked the figures that cost more than a dollar with a $ symbol).

The tricks here are the same as with other large minis: use smaller humanoids as human-sized minis in the smaller scale, and use large monsters in the same way you'd use them in a larger scale. The painted minis are collectible minis from the D&D Miniatures game, while most of the unpainted ones are from the various D&D board games that Wizards of the Coast recently produced.

Here are Klak the kobold sorcerer, playing the part of a 1/72 lizardman; an Air Mephit$, a Female Halfling Cleric$, a Halfling Sneak, Tomble Burrowell$ from the Descent boardgame by Fantasy Flight games,  and a Mephling Pyromancer. This last was a bit of a disappointment: I bought four, hoping for a squad of 1/72 devil legionnaires, but they're a bit too small and slight for that purpose. I may adapt them as halflings, or see if I can do a head swap to give a devilish head to a larger miniature. The cleric and the Descent figure are also a bit small, but believably human in the smaller scale.

A Grell, a Giant Snake, a Cave Bear, a Gibbering Mouther, and a Grick. The Grell looks a bit oversized, but the rest of these monsters look great next to Sven the comparison viking.

Finally, some swarms: a spider swarm and a rat swarm, with a Reaper Bones scarab swarm to Sven's left.

Update: a few more D&D miniatures: a female Halfling Paladin$, a Halfling Enchanter$, and a Halfling Wizard$. This last one surprised me in that it looks like a halfling even in 1/72 scale. Between it and the Mephling Pyromancer discussed above, I'm wondering if there are other D&D minis that would make suitable 1/72 scale halflings.