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?

Fences

Quick post of some scenery items I've painted recently. There are other scenery bits I've done lately as well, but I've got one more I want to finish before featuring the rest.

These are fences, from Imex's excellent Battlefield Accessories set. Only two of each fence type per set, but I lucked into getting three sets cheap on eBay, so I have six each. There are also "broken" versions of each type, but I haven't painted those. Pretty simple to paint: prime, base color, drybrush, wash.

Wooden split-rail fences. I see now the bases need some touching up! The fence pieces are pretty thin, which made painting just a little tricky, but not too bad overall.

Stone fences. The small washers make pretty good, solid bases, especially on these pieces. Some sort of metal strip might have been better, but this was a pretty cheap method.

Overhead view of the stone fences. There aren't enough pieces here for large wargaming scenery, but for small RPG-type scenes I believe I have more than enough.

Kris just did a post about making similar stone fences for 28mm; his technique may be adaptable to 1/72 scale. He's done a lot of great posts in the past year about cheap do-it-yourself scenery, often for 1/72, that are worth checking out; his scourpad trees in particular are on my bucket list.

More new soon!

Fire and water

I finally got around to painting the Reaper fire elemental I messed around with last year. And since I now have the similar clear blue plastic water elemental from the newest Reaper Kickstarter, I painted it up as well.

I don't know why I put off painting the fire elemental, because painting was actually pretty easy. I started with a wash of yellow paint mixed with Future shine, then some drybrushing with red and a bit of dark red, then another coat of undiluted Future shine to seal and keep everything at a fire-like gleam.

The water elemental was a similar combination of washes, drybrushing, and a final "wet" coat of Future shine. The texture on the mini made this light work, giving the crests a nice foamy look.

I discussed the light-up base I made for the fire elemental previously. Here it is in action. While I would have liked it if both halves of the figure lit up, it's still a nice effect.

I've had lots more time to paint lately than I have had all year, so there should be more posts coming very soon!

Alliance Amazons, pics, review

Hannants surprised me by shipping my recent order with them in just a week, so I have lots of interesting swag to show off. Most novel are the Amazons that Alliance just released. A shortage of female 1/72 minis has just been relieved, but is it worth it?

I'm judging these safe-for-work, because after all they are unpainted small-scale plastic figures. But there's definitely plenty of bare-chestedness going on in these figures, to an arguably gratuitous degree. Yes, yes, there are certainly precedents for nude figures in this scale, both male and female, and I don't want to gainsay anyone's tastes or preferences in this regard. But maybe you can see what I mean here. Some of these costumes, if not quite PG-13, make sense for a race of warrior women, but others are rather more, shall we say, eye-catching that practical for life on the battlefield. I haven't shown the backs of these figures, which are even more ridiculous: either these outfits have very, very tight breeches, or they are quite drafty. In other words, it's not just that these figures are too sexy; in trying to be sexy they've turned out a little bit goofy as well.

It's too bad, because the sculpting is actually pretty well done. These Amazons are a bit on the tall side, but not too tall; the poses are lively even if a bit flat, and there's lots of variety. Some of these are obviously suitable for quasi-Greek campaigns, but others are more generic. Besides, the crests of those Greek helmets can easily be snipped for a less Hellenistic look.

Anyway, I promised pics. There are currently two sets, a foot set and a cavalry set. The first is 40 figures in 10 poses, the second is 12 unique figures, plus 10 horses (not the cool mounts shown in this preview, alas!). Here they are:

Melee figures from the first set, mostly spears. The Greek-looking figures especially are leaving little to the imagination, though with some paint and perhaps a spot of glue here and there their dress could be a little more modest.

Archers from the first set. These are a bit more realistically dressed IMO.

Riders with swords plus two command figures, from the second cavalry set. I don't have much use for cavalry, but I think I can make some leg swaps and still use these figures.

Spears and archers on horseback. The infamous spiral armor makes an appearance here. By the way, while it's not obvious from the front, the cavalry figures mostly seem to lack pants, which is especially goofy if one considers the deleterious effects of saddle-soreness!

I'm perhaps letting my focus on the whole goofy/sexy design of these figures make this review sound overly negative. Really, they're pretty good figures, and it's great to have more female figures in this niche-in-a-niche of a hobby. I just wish the focus was more heroic and a little less gratuitous. Still, it will be an interesting project to mod these a little more to my tastes.

Drow! You stabbed me!

An extraordinarily busy March and April meant that I put off painting the dark elf figures I put together months ago. But they're done now!

Pretty simple painting; a lot of grays with some purple, which looks more washed-out in these photos than in person. Because of the dark color scheme, I did a lot more drybrushing than I usually do, with light gray on the clothes and pure white on the face and hair. These are pretty typical drow colors, though I suppose the blue hair might be a bit unusual. I think it works though; with the heavy drybrushing, the blue almost looks like a wash, so it's more of an accent color.

Below are the sword guys. The figure on the left is an unmodified Caesar elf. The rest are Alliance elf heads on various bods, mostly Caesar. The female fighter has an Arcane Legions body, while the one in the middle has one from a Hat Celt leader.

Next are the archers. These are mostly unmodified Caesar elves, though I swapped the "conehead" elf head with an Alliance head for the figure on the left. The running archer has a bod from a Hat "Robin Hood" figure.

A couple spellcasters. On the left, a Caesar elf head with a Caesar "Adventurer" body. On the right, an Alliance elf head with a Twilight Creations cultist bod.

Here's Sven the 1/72 comparison viking with Salogel of the One Inch Guild, with his counterpart from the Realm of Lolth.

But which one is the real you?!

I decided to finish these guys first before working on the driders, also featured in the first drow post. They're next!

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.

Alliance Amazons pics!

We've seen the zombies, but we've been waiting for something more from Alliance regarding their upcoming Amazons set. Via the 1/72 wall at VK, we finally get a closer look! Here's the back of the infantry box showing the poses inside:

Very Hellenistic! Mostly spears and bows, crested helms, lots of Greek trappings, as we knew. It's hard to tell for sure, but the figures seem, um, lightly dressed, which I guess isn't surprising. I'd have preferred something more family-friendly, but with some judicious painting I could certainly make them work. Despite the Greek look these should be easily adaptable for generic fantasy.

Also available is this preview from the cavalry set:

The dress is more to my liking, but what's really striking are the mounts. Unicorns! Lions! No saddle on the unicorn, so maybe these could be standalone monsters as well as mounts. Maybe Redbox will even sell them separately, like they did with the wargs from their orc cavalry.

I gather that the release date is a long ways away, but these will be very welcome sets when they finally arrive.

PS: I feel a little disappointed that I've left this site and the hobby in such neglect. This is normally a busy time anyway, plus I've got a big freelance project that I'm working on, so painting and so on haven't gotten much attention. I'll be able to paint more in a few weeks, so stay tuned!

By the way, the Reaper Bones II sale has been going very well. I still have a few figures left to sell. I naturally haven't had time to update my sales page with what's available, but please feel free to inquire! All the info you need is on the sales page. Thanks!