Bones III for 1/72 scale

Since starting Cheap Fantasy Minis a few years ago, I've gone through 3 Kickstarters expanding Reaper Miniatures excellent Bones line of cheap plastic minis. While they are standard-sized gaming minis, I've found that many of them are readily adaptable to 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog. For this most recent Kickstarter, I skipped the core set and went for the Stoneskull and the Graveyard expansion, plus a few extra add-ons. The expansions had a lot more small minis and terrain pieces, which I find are best for adapting to 1/72.

My sets arrived last week, so I've taken some comparison shots of the more interesting minis.

The Stoneskull expansion includes six new kobold sculpts, four of which are shown here. I was worried that they might be too large, like the kobold leaders from the second Bones Kickstarter, but they look great. If anything they are a tick smaller and more delicately featured than the original Bones kobolds, making them even better suited for 1/72 gaming. Shown for comparison are one of the original Bones kobolds, plus an unpainted kobold from the Wrath of Ashardalon game.

Other small critters from the Stoneskull set include the gremlins on the left and the "veggie-pygmies" on the right. A Caesar Miniatures goblin is shown for comparison. I'm not sure what a veggie-pygmy is, or what use I'd have for them, but they're just a little under human-sized even in 1/72 scale.

"Stitch golems" on the left; "grave minions" from the Graveyard set on the right. The stitch golems are a little chunky-looking but just about the size of Sven. Similarly, the graveyard minions have somewhat large heads and hands but are otherwise human-sized. As mockeries of human form, they look just fine!

Plant monsters: A "saproling," and a couple of "death star lillies." The saproling is just a bit bigger than Sven, which is what I'd expect from a modestly-sized tree monster. The lillies look big enough for Sven to fit inside, if he gets too close.

Getting a little bigger. Here we have a naga from the Stoneskull set and a "carrion worm" from the Graveyard set. These would be just a little bigger than Reaper-sized humans but look suitably monstrous next to Sven.

Even bigger: a flesh golem, minotaur, and larger stitch golem from Stoneskull, plus one of the ogres from the core set. I always like when large minis are looking down, like the minotaur is doing here. It makes it look like they're sizing up smaller adversaries like Sven.

Finally, the biggest: an absolutely titanic iron golem, and a clear plastic air elemental. The latter should make a fine companion to the fire and water elementals from the previous Kickstarters.

I expect that soon after Reaper finishes fulfilling the current Kickstarter, the Kickstarter for Bones IV: I Can't Believe We're Doing Another One will launch soon after. I'm not sure I have the scratch to back this one (depends on how well I do on my sales page!), but I'll definitely keep an eye on it and live-blog updates. In the meantime, check out this gallery for a preview.

Bump in the Night minis

Like these and other Twilight Creations minis? I'm selling a bunch in small lots. Check out my sales page for more info.

Bump in the Night is a now-out-of-print board game from Twilight Creations. It has some interesting minis well-suited for fantasy gaming, and since other minis by the company were close to 1/72 scale (the preferred scale of this blog), I thought I'd check out a copy of the game and see how they looked. Was this a wise decision? Let's see.

Here's a set of the player minis. There are six sets in six different colors, plus 14 child minis for the monsters to scare. That's 36 monsters total. We have some bats, Death, a cat, a ghost, a goblin, and a poltergeist. On the plus side these have a lot of character, and they portray creatures that are not easy to find in 1/72 scale. On the negative, you can see they are just a little large, something that is especially apparent with the ghost mini.

Some comparisons. The cat and the bats are compared with a few Reaper Bones familiars. The familiars are already a little on the large side for 1/72, as they are technically for 28-32mm scale. And the Bump in the Night figures are even larger, though since they are still smaller than Sven, I don't think it matters. I mean, that Bump in the Night cat is probably about the size of a 1/72 scale golden retriever, but I doubt anyone at the table would notice. The Bump in the Night goblin is stylistically similar to its counterpart from Caesar Miniatures, but is likewise much larger. Maybe it could be a goblin brawler, a giant among goblins (like Brandobras "Bullroarer" Took, a hobbit tall enough to ride a horse).

Comparisons with the specral figures and some modified Caesar undead. You can clearly see how much taller these are.

Verdict? It really depends on how much the scale differences bug you. I think the cat and bats are perfectly usable, the goblin somewhat adaptable, and the spirits useful perhaps as solo or boss figures. I didn't show any of the child minis, but they are almost as tall as Sven. The plastic is a lot more solid that the rubbery "Zombies!!!" material Twilight Creations is known for. The minis all have great character and are just a little cartoony. The tall "ghost" figure is particularly frightening despite, or because of, its larger size. I paid about $22; if you can find it for that or less and you like the figures, go for it!

Lightbox upgrade

I've enjoyed the effect my cheap lightbox has had on my mini photography. The one thing I didn't like was the white backdrop. It seemed to either dampen the contrast in my photos or, if I adjusted the Brightness-Contrast levels in image editing, create a blasted, irradiated look. I had read in various places that the way to eliminate these effects is with a more neutral-colored backdrop, preferably with a bit of a pattern. I found a large sheet of artist's paper at Hobby Lobby the other day, so today I messed around with using it as a new background.

Here's the new setup. I just cut the paper to fit and taped it over the old white posterboard backdrop. Arguably this was a bit premature, but I was feeling confident. Note to self: Figure out a way to bolster the top dimensions of my lightbox. It's starting to look a little crushed.

I wanted to try some of the minis I recently took with the old lightbox setup. Here's Heinz and French, the condiment trolls, a few weeks ago.

And here they are now.

They no longer look like they are standing in a supernova. But the contrast is only a little better than before. Not the improvement I was hoping for, but wait: Notice the bleeding irradiated look on the right side. Maybe I need to adjust my lighting?

I tried again with some more brightly-colored lizardmen, just in case the problem was with the figures themselves.

Better, but still a little less contrast than I'd like. Lets move the right light and try again, this time with some goblins.

That's much better! Great contrast, and they're not overlit. I tried again just once more with the One Inch Guild. Here's how they looked a few weeks ago.

And here they are now.

I remember I had to oversaturate the first photo a bit just so it looked at all decent. I could have upped the saturation on the more recent shot as well, and it would have turned out a little better. Overall I like the second one more, though. They look more natural, and the eye is drawn to the figures, not the background.

I'm still learning a little bit about light placement and the like, but overall I think the new backdrop was a good investment.

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!

Cultists, and other figure mods

Hey, don't forget I'm selling a ton of cheap plastic minis, including Kickstarter Reaper Bones and WoW boardgame figures. Check out the sale here.

Painting miniatures is great, but sometimes I need a distraction while still doing something hobby-related. Sometimes I need something a little more instantly gratifying than what painting can give me. I'm finding that modifying figures to create something new gives me exactly this: it's creative, I get results I like very quickly, and given that not everything I want is in 1/72 (the preferred scale of this blog), it's often necessary. I describe the basic technique I use here. Of course I still have to paint the little dudes eventually, but that comes later, usually after I finish the concurrent painting project.

Let's start with some evil cultists. I got the idea from Plasticgeneral's and El Senyor Verd's blogs. The bodies are Caesar Miniatures undead, while the heads are from Zvezda peasants or HAT/Airfix Robin Hood figures. I decided to completely carve away the scythes the bodies were holding, and though it looks a little rough, I think it will look okay once painted. I also tried some reposing with the arms, and I may do a little more so it doesn't look like the entire sinister congregation is holding invisible polearms. You can see the yellow blobs of Milliput I used to hide the seems in a few figures, but for the most part everything lined up surprisingly well.

Of course, everyone knows that if you join an evil cult, there's a fair chance you'll wind up turning into a degenerate snake monster (or evil fish beast, or host to an eldritch squid god). These guys got head swaps with Arcane Legions sta figures. The middle guy also got a hand swap because I thought he ought to be holding the nifty snake staff the necromancer-looking guy above has. The hooded fellow on the left (possibly a snakeman in cognito) has a head from a Micro Machines jawa miniature.

Here's a picture I took of some body swaps I did months ago. You can see the original figures and the resulting swaps. We have a Caesar Miniatures knight, an Arcane Legions lion-rider, a CM elf, and an AL jorogumo (spider-monster). The idea for the elf-jorogumo swap was to make a drider, a classic dark-elf/spider monster from D&D. You can see the glob of wood glue I used to crudely fill in the gap between the two halves.

As I was messing around with the more recent headswaps, I took the opportunity to fill in the seams a little better with some Milliput. I also did a few more headswaps using Caesar Miniatures goblins. The goblin wizard on the left has a jawa body (its head went to the hooded cultist above) (P.S., my wife mentioned that the goblin wizard looks like Yoda, who when you think about it basically is a goblin wizard). Next to him is a swap between two goblin figures to make a goblin chieftan. Since I didn't want to waste the leftover bodies, I added some Greek villager heads from Age of Mythology minis to make some halfing barbarians: They aren't quite as crude and radioactive-looking in person.

I'm also messing around with some conversions for a demon army, but that will probably be a later post.