Struggling With My Demons

See the end of this post for more about my reader poll. Also, check out my sales page, please!

I finally got the demons done, about a month later than forecasted. It's not that they were especially hard to paint, though it did take me a while to settle on a color plan (short version: red). It's just that Real Life, dread foe to all hobbyists, reared its head. No one big thing, but lots of little things.

Again, these are mostly Caesar knights with 15mm demon heads from CP models. Tails are dramatically bent florist wire. The middle guy above has a goblin head, also from Caesar Miniatures.

Another set. I think the metal armor looks good for "demon legionnaires." The red fabric/quilted stuff looks fine, though I'm not sure how diabolical it looks.

The two big guys above are Twilight Miniatures demons, with one head swap and another head reposition. The female demon is a Caesar elf with bat wings taken from a Safari Ltd. "good luck mini."

Comparison with Sven. There are a lot of different materials used in this project: plastic bods, metal heads, wire tails, rubber wings. I wasn't sure how well paint and primer would take to all these, but they seem pretty cohesive. I'm particularly impressed with how well the CP heads work with 1/72 models, despite being made for smaller scale minis.

Uncompleted is this big guy, a World of Warcraft board game piece with a pitchfork from a LotR Mines of Moria troll. The trick is the red detail, which I somehow thought could be painted in its own color. The fact that it's raised makes it a little easier than you might think, and I know any blackwash I use can hide some of the sloppiness. Still kind of a big job, so he'll have to wait a bit longer.

So I'm going to run my poll a little longer. Thanks to respondents so far. The majority seem interested in the idea of RPG rules related posts, but there is a substantial minority that is uninterested. This suggests maybe starting a new blog, except most of the "yes" votes want to see them on this blog. So maybe I'll start a new blog but be sure to mention new posts in this space.

Anyway, the poll is below again. Please answer if you're a regular reader and haven't done so yet. Also, sales page!

(The poll should be embedded above, but if not, it should be found here.)

Demon-strations

[Painted and completed, 9/26/15!]

While we're waiting for the latest Bones Kickstarter to end, I'll finally share the demon mods I've been working on.

This crew is made up of various Caesar Miniatures knights, most with demon heads from CP models. The green head up top is a Caesar goblin. The tails are pieces of florist wire. If you do a project like this and know anyone into flower arranging, ask to borrow just a piece, which is all I needed for all these tails.

Other demonic critters. The big guy is a World of Warcraft board game piece, with a hand and trident from a GW "Mines of Moria" troll. The demonette is a Caesar elf with bat wings from a Safari Ltd. "Good Luck" mini. Her tail is a paperclip, which is a lot harder to bend into shape than the florist wire. The other guys are Twilight Creations demons: one got a head swap, the other a head repose.

I finished painting the female demon and goblin-head. You can see that I added some horns and a little goatee, made with the tiniest, fiddliest bits of Milliput I ever hope to work with. Superglue plus a layer of Future Shine to seal will hopefully keep these bits attached.

A view from the back, showing off the wings and tails.

I'm making pretty good progress on the other demon legionaires when I actually have time to paint. I hope to have them finished in a month or so.

Splintered Light and Rebel Miniatures sales

I've often mentioned that a number of 15mm metal fantasy mini companies have potential as 1/72 figures. Splintered Light Miniatures and Rebel Miniatures are two such manufacturers. They are both having sales until the end of the year; it's not too late to take advantage of them! For Rebel Miniatures, just enter coupon code Rebel2014 when you checkout for 20% off your order. Likewise, for Splintered Light, just enter code xmas2014 for 20% off. Splintered Light is also offering 30% certain items in their store.

I'll feature some of these figures in better detail in future posts, but I thought I'd show off what I bought to show the potential of some of these figures.

A Large Wolfhound, Dire Hyena and Dire Wolf from Splintered Light. They all look just fine next to Sven. The hyena will make a fine hellhound or direwolf.

Heroes of Shadow, also from Splintered Light. They're about the size of some of my halfing minis, such as Lidda from the One Inch Guild.

A Splintered Light hyenaman/gnoll and kobold are on the left. The rest are from Rebel Minis: a Deep One, two Wolven, and two Monkey Boys. The kobold is sold as 20mm, but is a little small for my taste. Most of these I think are a bit on the small side, but the Deep One works as a small fishman, and the Wolven are actually perfect as 1/72 werewolves (the "15mm Werewolves" that Rebel sells are probably too small for 1/72, so don't mix them up!).

Many of these figures I got as free samples on request. Both Rebel and Splintered Light are great companies that will happily provide such samples; just leave a note with your order. I'll definitely be making future orders thanks to seeing some of these figures in person.

Metal minis are a bit more expensive than plastic, and though I understand that these are delicate figures, I wish there were cheaper shipping options at both companies. Still, they often have figures that can't be found or made in plastic, so when they offer sales like these, it's a great time to stock up.

Gnoll-ification

More gnoll puns where that came from.

Let me start by suggesting how you should do 1/72 scale gnolls, since my way is basically bonkers: Just some Splintered Light 18mm Hyenamen, either in units or the boxed set. They're almost exactly 18mm tall, so you can either use them unmodified and settle for short gnolls, or try to make taller using some of the techniques EY uses to adapt 18mm figures to 1/72 scale. It's maybe a buck a figure, and it's not much of a fuss.

So here's what I'm doing:

A work in progress, obviously. I'll need to fill in the gaps and maybe add some mane with Milliput. The bodies are Alliance elves. I bought a set when it seemed Caesar Miniatures had stopped producing their set of elves, and these were the only alternatives in plastic. I got them despite their having notoriously large and spindly poses, as I thought I could use the heads for swaps with human-sized bodies for less weird-looking elves and drow. Then I thought about what to do with the bodies and realized that one classic D&D fantasy monster with tall and lanky proportions were gnolls.

The heads and tails are from gnoll figures from the World of Warcraft boardgame. I managed to get a whole bunch of them cheap, though they're now hard to find. Maybe Skaven heads would make a good substitute?

On the right is the original figure. My original plan was to take this pose and do a bunch of weapon swaps for variety, but I think they would still look to much like clones. For a magic user and champion, I used Arcane Legions mummy figures—you can see their original heads on the shaman's totem. These are also tall and spindly, and while I'll have to fill in the more skeletal bits, I like that the leaders are even more wildly skinny.

Height comparison. You can see just how much taller than Sven these guys are. I'm planning on preserving one of the original figures as a brute, maybe swapping his basic sword with something a little more fierce and crazy-looking.

I'll do another post when I'm done with all the conversion. Hopefully I'll have time to paint them in relatively short order, but we'll see.

Ask the CFM: Here fishy fishman!

Pic credit: Wookiepedia

Going out of town this week, so no time to paint! Instead, it's Ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist, where I answer your questions about 1/72 fantasy minis. Back in October '13, David Thorpe asks:

Are you aware of any mermaid/mermen/sea people etc in 1/72? Would like some to create an army for a Poseidon I have. I already have large sea monsters and some 1/72 dolphins/sharks/rays for riders if I can make some, but actual mer type people seem to be hard to find or too large. Thanks

My original answer:

Depends on what you mean: these fishmen from Elhiem Miniatures are ostensibly 20mm, though they're apparently on the stumpy side. I also like the murloc figures (on the right) from the WoW board game, though you may have trouble finding them (I got lucky and found an incomplete set of the board game on eBay for cheap). 

For mermaids, there's this 15mm model from Rebel Miniatures, or these HO scale figures from Preiser. Both may be a little small, and either would be kind of an expensive way to make an army. I also think these snake women figures (discussed in this post) could make for good conversion possibilities.

You could go the other way: find some tails from some fish minis that are about the right size (these Safari Ltd. critters, possibly?) and swap them with the legs of some suitable 1/72 soldiers. Ironically, these "Sea Peoples" figures might fit the bill.

Further thoughts: The new Zombie Pirates set from Mars, which I recently discussed, has a 1/72 mermaid figure. Mars' original Zombie Pirates set has a few movie-inspired sea mutant figures that may also work for a marine army, depending on how grotesque you want to get.

Got a question about 1/72 fantasy? Feel free to leave a question in the comments.

Potpouri: Zombie Pirates, Uruk-hai, scale wonkery

Way too much to do this week to have free time for the hobby, but I thought I'd take what little time I have to share some interesting news and discussions related to 1/72 fantasy gaming.

1.) Plastic Soldier Review had a news item about new products from Mars miniatures that included a cryptic and snobbishly dismissive note that "one set is zombies." There was no other info, but I managed to track down this pic from a Russian minis forum.

If you didn't know, Mars made a previous Zombie pirates set, based on the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. 1/72 Multiverse reviewed the set, which featured fewer actual zombie pirates and more unlicensed characters from the movie than you might imagine. This set seems to correct the issue by featuring more undead swashbucklers and fewer extravagant cinematically-inspired sea-mutants than its predecessor. I also dig the evil mermaid figure. I'm looking forward to this one!

2. Also from the same Russian website, this teaser image from Alliance miniatures.

They seem to be fleshing out their not-LOTR line with not-Uruk-hai half-orcs. With bonus evil-white-wizard anarchist, it appears!

3.) Finally some interesting discussions at TMP. I recently started a thread about adapting 15-18mm minis to 1/72 scale. Fellow 1/72 fantasy enthusiast TwinMirror started a similar thread from the other direction, discussing "true 25mm" figures and their adaption to the preferred scale of this blog. Both should have a lot of useful info for the cheap fantasy miniaturist.

Ask the CFM: Devils and Clerics (and other folks)

Pic credit: Zigzag Journeys to Northern Lands; via Project Gutenberg.

It's "Ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist", where I try to answer reader questions about 1/72 fantasy miniatures. In this installment, Raph from the 1/72 Minis Google+ group asks:

1- what about tieflings and other d&d playable races (halfeling, ferals, etc.)2 - what would be your choice for a typical d&d cleric ?

1.) Tieflings could simply be any old human figure painted red or some other exotic color, maybe with some horns made from Milliput or Kneadatite. If you're looking for something more overtly devilish, there are certainly possibilities. I've discussed some devilish conversions I made previously. You may also want to check out these demon figures from Twilight Creations; they're a pretty good match for 1/72 figures.

I could do a pretty detailed post about halfings, but I'll keep it short (heh). Turns out there are a lot of DnD halfling figures that work with 1/72 scale. I'd also consider 15mm figures, such as these guys, for 1/72 halflings. Lord of the Rings hobbit minis from Games Workshop may also be something to consider; they look a little too chunky next to 1/72 figures, but aren't bad.

A DnD halfling, Games Workshop hobbit, and Sven.

I'm not sure what you mean by "ferals." If you mean wildmen, there are lots of 1/72 barbarian sets available (these are my favorite). If you mean beastmen, there are various 20mm and 15mm metal figures that ought to work, and headswaps with animal figures are always an option.

2.) There are two images that come to mind when one thinks of a DnD cleric; the armored warpriest, and enrobed holy man. For the former, any old knight figure (such as these) should do the trick. You may also find this post helpful for finding suitable clerics of this type.

There are more 1/72 scale guys in robes than you might imagine. For Christian priests, consider these sets among many. For more generic dudes in robes, these sets may be useful.

Any more questions? Feel free to ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist, and I'll do what I can.

Ask the CFM: Greek Monsters

Photo credit www.CEDMagic.com

It's "Ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist"! Every now and then visitors ask me questions about where to find various minis in 1/72 scale, and I do my best to answer in the comments. Since I'm on a hiatus from the hobby, I thought it'd be good to feature some of these Qs&As.

Let's start with Dave, who in this thread asks:

Hi, was wondering if you have any harpies, satyrs, driders or half snake type D&D minis, and if so, how well do they fit into 1/72.

They look ideal for adding to an ancient Greek army I'm slowly putting together; but as i'm UK based I don't want to waste any money on ordering from either the US or overpriced UK stockists if they're too big/small.

Thanks for any help! Love the blog :-)
Dave

My answer:

Hey Dave, thanks! You'll find that most DnD minis will look a little large next to 1/72 figures. The ones I use are actually meant for small critters in DnD scale; a lot of those halfing minis look about human sized in 1/72, but that also means that most human figures in DnD scale look too big in 1/72.

There are some other possibilities. For satyrs, try Splintered Light in 20mm. For snakemen, you might be able to modify these Armies of Arcana 15mm figures, or just settle for smaller snakemen. Similarly, you may be able to make these 15mm Demonworld harpies work. For driders, you can try to find jorogumo figures from Arcane Legions, or just buy a Han booster brick. I discuss these figures here. I'm going to do some body swaps on the jorogumo figures with some Caesar Miniatures elves to give my driders more variety.

A recent post at 1/72 Multiverse shows that this harpy figure is also a good match for 1/72. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out my snakemen conversions. For other Greek Monsters, check out the Roman or Egyptian booster brick for Arcane Legions or the Greek Age of Mythology set from Eagle Games.

I've got a few more of these questions I'd like to feature. If you have anything more for me, feel free to ask!

Mod Squad (a squad of mods, that is)

I'm doing a little bit of painting, but it's a little bit tricky with the basement renovation going on. I did have a chance to play around with some mods and conversions, though. Behold my handiwork!

You've already met the demon legionnaire on the left; he's a Caesar Miniatures knight with a CP Models head. To his left is an earlier experiment with the demon legionnaire concept, which involved a head swap with a Caesar goblin. The female demon is a Caesar elf with some bat wings borrowed from a Safari Ltd. "good luck mini": she's also got a tale made from a paperclip, but it's hard to see. Fighting against these diabolical forces is an angelic warrior, made from an Arcane Legions hoplite and a pair of metal bird-wing charms. Less eschatological but no less fantastic is a 1/72 scale warforged, contrived here from a DDM Warforged Scout and the legs of a Caesar knight to give it height.

Dollar-store Thor gets a bit of an upgrade, as his hammer looked a little dinky in this particular sculpt. He got new hands and a sword from a Reaper Miniatures Battleguard Golem. I don't know if the golem figure will get Thor's old hands or something else.

Last are a bunch of hobgoblins. Hobgoblins in D&D are basically socially advanced, more militarized orcs, so I just used the more heavily armored Caesar orcs. Headswaps with Caesar knights allowed for even better armor, and weapon swaps with other orcs, along with some shields borrowed from my Italeri barbarians set, gave them some variety. I primed these guys today, so after I paint the larger minis I'm working on, these guys are probably my next project.

Heads by CP Models

I'll probably keep updating my Bones II post throughout the month. For now, this:

I mentioned these heads in an earlier post. They are made by CP Models for 15mm scifi miniature conversions, but I had a hunch that they'd work well for 1/72 scale. I think I was right!

Sorry for the blurry photo and indirect poses. From left to right are a walrus head, a gas mask, a cyclops, a bug head, a reptile head (which looks more pig-like than saurian to me), a squid head, and a daemon. I'm missing the amphibian and chimp heads. The cyclops looks a little small, but all the other heads are about the size of Sven's.

Conversion time! I set pins in my styrofoam blocks, with little bits of Sticky Tac to hold the heads in place. I then put Superglue on the pinheads and positioned the heads, then allowed to dry. The heads have little niches that are just a little smaller than the pins I used. Next time I may try a smaller pinhead, or just clip the pinheads off entirely. 

The permanently mounted heads. You can see there are little bits of metal flash, but I wasn't prepared to deal with them until they were more securely glued to their new bodies.

For the rest, I more or less following the steps I described for my zombie conversions: I drilled a fairly deep hole in the neck, trimmed the pin so it wasn't too long, added glue to the hole, and pushed the remainder of the pin until the new heads were flush with their bodies. Pushing on the head with a folded piece of paper towel ensures you have enough force without damaging the fine metal details on the heads. I then used a needle file to remove the bits of flash remaining on the heads.

The completed mods: A Caesar Miniatures knight and Hat druid become a demon legionnaire and a mind flayer.

Pros to the CP heads: Great detail, lots of variety and character available, most work perfectly for 20mm/1-72 scale conversions. Cons: some flash, conversions aren't easy with the pins I use, though paper clips or piano wire of the right gauge would work just fine. They are also just a little expensive: I paid about 50 cents a head, which puts me over my ideal budget of 50 cents a figure when you add the cost of the bodies. The random assortments are a little cheaper, with the tradeoff that you don't know what you'll get.

All in all I recommend these heads for the cheap fantasy miniaturist looking for a little variety in his collection. I bought a bunch of the daemon heads with the idea of putting together a demonic legion. But that will be a later post.

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.

Where to buy cheap minis?

I promise I'll do a post with some new pictures soon, but in the meantime I want to do one more informative post. Someone at EN World asked about where these figures can be found. I had put a big post on EN World about that very topic recently, but I think if I repost that info in list form, it might be more useful. I'll organize by types of figures, describe them a little bit, then list some useful sources for these figures.

1/72 miniatures for toy soldier hobbyists

• Major fantasy lines include Caesar Miniatures and Red Box (under the Dark/Light Alliance imprints).

Caesar Miniatures orcs and goblins

• There are also dozens of companies making hundreds of historic figures which are easily adaptable to typical medieval RPGs. Plastic Soldier Review is a great resource for checking out these miniatures.


• Some North American sources with great selection include Hobby Bunker, Michigan Toy Company, and Woodrow's. Pegasus Hobbies seems to be the American distributor for Caesar Miniatures and has the best prices I've found (watch the shipping, though). Hobbylinc, a very large online discount hobby store, recently expanded their stock of 1/72 miniatures to include many sets discussed on this blog.


• Other sources that ship internationally include Hannant's (UK), Always Model (Taiwan), Linear-B (Germany), and HobbyTerra (Ukraine, I believe). Other online hobby stores often have a limited selection of 1/72 soldiers, and eBay is always worth investigating.

1/72 tabletop/board games

• Arcane Legions is a defunct tabletop miniatures game, and one of the few such games in 1/72 scale. It's now being liquidated: Miniature Market sells booster bricks (around 50-60 figures) for $24 (now $12, as of late September 2013).

Modified and repainted Arcane Legions centaurs

Repainted Arcane Legions boosters

Manufacturer paintjobs for Arcane Legions boosters

• Age of Mythology is a board game published by Eagle Games with various mythic hero and monster figures. Human-sized figures are 1/72, while some monsters are a bit smaller than I'd like, but still useful. You can buy the miniatures individually for $3 a faction directly from the publisher, which is crazy-cheap.

The dwarf with the red beard is an Arcane Legions figure. The rest are Age of Mythology minis. The death knight in the middle was a Viking hero that got accidentally melted a bit (a candle is not the best way to remove excess plastic flash, by the way).

• Twilight Creations makes the popular Zombies!!! board games and other gonzo-horror games. Their miniatures are just a bit larger than 1/72, but still quite usable. I'm not a fan of their zombie sculpts, but it's hard to argue with the price of their "Bag o'" miniature sets, $10-$12 for 100 minis, available at most gaming stores. Less well known is their set of demon figures, only available at their online store, but also pretty cheap.

Twilight Creations demon figures.

• War of the Ring is a tactical Lord of the Rings board game with lots of 1/72 fantasy miniatures. The sculpts are a little static, and I can't find any way to buy them apart from the game. Even the obsolete 1st edition of the game is pretty expensive, but if it were cheaper, I might go for it.


• Other fantasy board games have figures in larger scales, but they might be usable in 1/72 scale. See "Larger Scale Minis" below:

Larger scale minis

• As I mentioned in my last post, larger scale minis have many uses in 1/72 gaming. A 28-32mm D&D halfling looks about human-sized in 1/72. A large figure in these scales look only a little larger in 1/72 and are quite believable. Some really small figures still look pretty small compared to 1/72 humans and are usable for small or tiny creatures.


• The secondary market for D&D minis isn't quite the bargain it used to be, but there are still a few places that resell individual minis pretty cheaply. Auggie's and Gold Dragon Horde are two of the cheapest. Other online stores with great selection include Troll and Toad, Cool Stuff Inc., and Miniature Market (who also carries Arcane Legions and Bones miniatures).

D&D halflings repurposed as 1/72 scale humans and halflings.

• The Bones line of plastic figures from Reaper Miniatures is set to expand hugely in the next month or so, thanks to their highly publicized Kickstarter project this past year. I already have a couple large monsters, and I can tell you that their kobolds look pretty good next to 1/72 figures. Most online game stores sell them at around 20-25% off MSRP.

Some Bones kobolds, with a few simple mods.

Some Bones gnomes and halflings adapted as 1/72 humans.

Large Bones monsters.

• A few Warhammer sets look pretty good in 1/72, despite some oddly-proportioned hands and weapons. Skinks and skaven make great lizardmen and ratmen in 1/72. Games Workshop, who produces Warhammer, also produces various Lord of the Rings minis: goblins and hobbits from these sets make good orcs and halflings in 1/72 scale. Ebay is a good place to get full sets, as a lot of Warhammer hobbyists wind up buying more sets than they can use. You might have good luck finding bargains at bits stores on eBay, or from places like Hoard o' Bits or Bitz Barn.

Some Warhammer lizardmen adapted for 1/72 scale.

• You can often find figures from 28mm fantasy board games sold individually online. Good minis can be found from games like Castle Ravenloft, The Legend of Drizz't, Wrath of Ashardalon, Descent, and the World of Warcraft board game.

Various unpainted board game minis, with a few painted D&D minis.

• 1/32 scale miniatures are often perfect for giants and large monsters in 1/72. Lots of great minis in this scale are marketed as toys and can be found in stores like Hobby Lobby or Michael's. Safari Ltd. "toobs", Papo "mini tubs", and Tim Mee bagged toys are some products to look out for. Tehnolog is a Russian company that makes plastic 1/32 figures for gaming; a lot of eBay stores sell them.

Tim Mee cavemen as 1/72 hill giants.

Metal miniatures

• Metal miniature manufacturers are more numerous than plastic manufacturers, but they are also more expensive. There is also a greater variety available, so sometimes the mini you want can only be found in metal.


• 20mm scale is more or less equivalent to 1/72 scale. Some 20mm fantasy metal mini manufacturers include Splintered Light Miniatures, Elhiem Figures, and CP Models.

A few Elhiem figures, along with a 15mm East Riding boar.

• 15-18mm miniatures are a bit smaller, but they can often be adapted or converted to 1/72. Smaller figures might make good halfling-sized figures in 1/72, larger figures might look human-sized in 1/72, and you might be able to modify them into 1/72 scale figures.


• Some 15-18mm fantasy mini manufacturers include Magister Militum, Splintered Light Miniatures, Black Raven Foundry, Khurasan Miniatures, East Riding Miniatures, Eureka Miniatures, and Lone Gunman Games. A lot of Black Raven Foundry minis appear to be really close to 1/72 scale, according to my research, as are several of the fantasy minis from Eureka.