Bugbearable puns

I know these puns bug you, but just bear with me.

Here is a small troupe of bugbears. These are various D&D minis and game pieces, modified in various ways. The one mod not mentioned in the linked post is the second-from-left, which was carrying a bizarre hafted weapon that terminated in a fist which itself was holding a second dagger. Maybe those who know their D&D lore could explain it, but I just don't know. At the last minute I thought it was too goofy and hacked and repinned the blade so it looks a little more normal.

Comparison time. The bugbears are a little smaller than what's shown, since they stick out from the background a bit. My 3.5e Monster Manual says bugbears are supposed to be 7 feet tall. That comes out to more like 30mm. These blokes are more like 8 feet tall or taller, but I think that's fine. If they aren't obviously bigger, they're otherwise just another flavor of orc.

Here's a final shot, including the other two D&D bugbears I've painted so far.

"Oh sorry, wrong room number."

I'm hoping the spate of sluggish posting here has ebbed for now. I've got one other surprise project completed, and I may soon have another to show off. Plus more Heartbreaker RPG stuff, and the results of that poll to contend with. Thanks for reading!

Giganticisms (and Bugbear-icisms)

Time for a new project, yes? Actually this is one I started a while ago but am just getting around to featuring. You may remember these nifty Tim Mee cavemen. They make great 1/72 hill giants, no modification necessary. But I just couldn't leave well enough alone.

The red guys are the cavemen. The gray heads are bits from one of the Warhammer ogre sets, acquired via Hoard o Bits. The green bod is a World of Warcraft board game ogre. The white is a Reaper Bones ettin. The Warhammer heads are great, but they have big gaps in back that I had to fill with glue and putty. They are arguably a little bit too large, but I think they look pretty good. Here's a shot of them primed.

I also have a few more bugbears I'm working on.

These are all D&D boardgame pieces with some mods. The left is a Temple of Elemental Evil bugbear with a Warhammer bit for a shield. The middle is a ToEE hobgoblin with a headswap. The right is a Wrath of Ashardalon orc with arms from the same bugbear that gave the hobgoblin its new bugbear head. This last figure has a close cousin that I already painted; the armswaps are so it doesn't look entirely like a clone.

Here they are primed, along with another old D&D bugbear I just got for pretty cheap.

Painting? Who knows?! It's the holidays, which are of course busy, but maybe not as busy as they could be this year. Stay tuned!

Temple of Elemental Evil board game minis

Many of the minis featured in this post are for sale. Please check out my sales page!

I'm a fan of the D&D Adventure System board games as a source of cheap unpainted plastic minis. They are in heroic 28-32mm scale, much larger than the CFM-approved 1/72 scale, but are often readily adaptable. Temple of Elemental Evil is the first such game released since the new version of D&D was published. Today I'll show most of the minis in the box, even those that aren't particularly good for 1/72, as non-1/72 fantasy fans might be interested in these. Remember that Sven the 1/72 comparison viking is exactly 1-inch/25mm tall from foot to crown.

Heroes. Regular readers may recognize these as unpainted versions of the new DnD starter set minis. The female dwarf makes a decent if stocky 1/72 human, while the halfling looks a bit like a dwarf rogue in 1/72.

Monsters, ranging from the ridiculously huge gnoll to the nearly-human-sized troglodyte and doppelganger figures. The bugbear in the middle is just about right for my idea of a 1/72 scale bugbear. I like the blue salamander and the "flying" firebat on the right as well.

Cultist, who naturally inhabit the titular Temple of Elemental evil. Each sculpt represents a different element: from left to right, water, earth, air and fire. Clearly too big for 1/72.

Elemental monsters, also apt for the ToEE. Left to right, a hideous fire elemental (looks more like a mud elemental!), earth, air, and water. I'm a sucker for translucent plastic minis like these. This water elemental is a little larger than the one from the Legend of Drizz't game (source).

The ettin. A smaller Reaper Bones ettin is on the right for comparison. If the D&D ettin were scaled down to 1/72 size, it would be about the size of the Reaper ettin.

Not pictured is the flying black dragon mini, which like the firebats above has a cool clear plastic "flying" base. It's not super-large, no bigger than the blue ettin shown above.

Four more orcs (of sorts)

Wrapped up a few unfinished minis over Labor Day weekend.

From left to right: An unmodified Caesar Miniatures orc, an orc scout or shaman made with an orc head and weapon and an Imex "Friendly Eastern Indian" (originally discussed here), an orc musician made with an orc head and a Hat "Jungle Adventure" figure (a repaint, since the paint started coming off the original figure, seen here. Somewhat disappointed by how this turned out, since I botched a lot of the details trying to quickly re-prime it), and lastly an orc figure from the D&D Wrath of Ashardalon game, adapted here as a 1/72 scale bugbear.

Here's Sven hanging out with all my orcs.

And here he is trying to fit in with a few of my bugbears.

The other bugbears include another D&D figure (actually manufactured as a bugbear, first shown here), and a few converted Age of Mythology figures. I'm thinking about repainting or replacing the AoM figures; they make merely adequate bugbears, and at any rate I think I can do better paintjobs and conversions now. The D&D orc and bugbear figures, on the other hand, complement each other quite nicely.

This will be a busy month, but I have a few post ideas. Stay tuned!

Party at CFM's!

You have no idea how long I've been sitting on that pun. Anyway, one of my many recent side projects was because I was getting a little tired of painting monsters all the time. So I wanted to see if I could wrangle a typical dungeon party. Behold, the one-inch guild!

From left to right, a Caesar Miniatures elf, dwarf, and adventurer; a repainted D&D halfling, and a Caesar "15th century knight." Yep, those earlier D&D halfling sculpts are quite suitable for 1/72 scale.

Heroes would feel pretty silly if they delved a dungeon and found there were no monsters there. So here they are!

A Caesar orc, D&D bugbear, and Caesar goblin. The goblin got a headswap because I wanted a commander figure, who I figure ought to have both a big axe and shiny helmet. Like the halfing, it seems the earlier bugbear sculpts were much more compatible with my preferred smaller scale. I've got a later D&D orc sculpt I'm painting that is very similar to this bugbear and is about the same size.

Comparison shots with Sven the 1/72 comparison viking.

I still have lots of projects I can slowly finish up as I scrounge for time. Watch this space!

Fight! Fight, fight, fight!