Yup, I've distracted myself again. Hang on lemme find some piece of music to go along with the oligatory banner.
Hey its better than the asian food advert I have in my Fallout thread! ...Yeah I could have gone with the game's main theme, but well if you haven't played the Tamriel Rebuilt mod for Morrowind then for shame! Shame!
Sorry, lost track of what I was saying with all that shaming I was doing there. Oh right, aye where was I? Damn its almost if I'm waffling for the lack of content I have for this first post. With Frostgrave out and me having played Mordheim ages ago and never really picked it up, but liking it, I thought I'd try getting into that system. But what models should I use? I did think making a Song of Ice & Fire's Night's Watch actually, though then went back to an idea that I'd had, but shelved to work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. instead.
So here we go then. The start of my foray into making models based on the Elder Scrolls series. Tentatively I'm beginning with Morrowind, partly because the art style's less generic than the later games, but mostly as its my favorite of the series and screw you if you're expecting me to bother with any other practical reason other than my own bias.
Enough waffling then. Here's the start on a Dunmer warband, though I'd hope to expand on this significantly to cover more than just a ragtag band of brigands and sellswords (House Guards, Ordinators, Buoyant Armigers and the like)
So, using the achetypes from the Frostgrave ruleset as a basis, the above's broken down as the following from left to right:
> A thug wearing regular Dunmer clothes with a Redoran Watchman helm and a chitin club.
> An infantryman wearing chitin armour and carrying a chitin spear.
> A Telvanni apprentice mage wearing the robes of his House and a Mole Crab Helm.
> A Man at Arms wearing House Dres Bonemold Armour and armed with a steel cutlass.
> And a thug wearing Netch Leather Armour and wielding an iron axe.
Those are all made from a spare box of Fireforge Games Steppe Warriors from the game Deus Vult with a load of added greenstuff.
I'll need to add to that to make a complete warband for games. Probably a few more guys in Bonemold or Chitin or an archer. The leading Wizard is also missing as of yet, though their apprentice is there. I'm considering going for a guy in Bonemold robes with a glass weapon to set him apart from the typical Wizard look (he'd be a Redoran in that case).
Before I started reading the rules and found out that they didn't allow for mounted units (houserule that!) I had the idea of sticking in one to the band. A House Guard riding a Durzog is what came to mind (I've seen people have Dunmer riding Guars and fleas, but they don't look quite so martial as a giant lizard). Really early with this, and I'd liked to have been further along, but it took forever to hack the head off of this hippopotamus model...
We'll see where this goes then. If this does carry through long enough then I'll be in the unfortunate situation of having yet another box of terrain sitting in the stack with my other stuff. I'll resent not using appropriately themed terrain in games for a while, but like I said if this gains enough traction then hopefully I can throw out some stuff (I've been making Middle Eastern buildings for a thread that've given me ideas). Its a start at least. Now to working out how to change my signature so I can fit in all these threads...
My lamp's bulb's just burnt itself out, so pictures may have to wait a bit till I can replace that, However I'll tell y'all what I'm making today anyway.
To lead the warband I'm going for another Telvanni mage. Originally I was going to go for a Redoran one, till I considered that the apprentices in Frostgrave are styled after their masters, so went for the same house instead. I'm basing the model on this piece of art. Not sure if I want to give them a helmet or to try and find a suitable elven head in my collection instead.
Secondly, either as a wandering construct or to act as a summoned demon for my wizard, I've started on a Flesh Atronach Daedra. I'm going for the Elder Scrolls Online version rather than the original Shivering Isles one as the Reaper Flesh Golem that I have handy looks more like that (though the base model's already a golem, it needs lot of work to make it look less derpy).
Those are the two things planned for today. I should be able to finish the mage, we'll see about the Atronach. Besides those I'm still short on a good few models for my starting warband, who'll mostly be wearing the low tier armour sets from the game (I'll keep the better sets for the more expensive soldiers, and leave the really good stuff to levelled up units or scenario specific encounters).
I'll get onto other countries eventually probably. For a start thought I like Morrowind's visuals, so that's what I'm making models based on. Foreign mercenaries and the Legion however are present in the province. Hmn, I'd say that as far as the time period goes I'll be going for after the Red Year, but before Skyrim (Frostgrave's set in a ruined city, well there's quite a few of those in Morrowind now...). I'm not sure what models to use for Argonians though if I am going for that setting?
Reaper do a few Lizardmen across their various lines that might be suitable, if you're up for sculpting the right armour on them.
GW's Lizardmen are probably too different without heavy conversion; not only would you need to repose them to be more upright, but the Aztec influence wouldn't really fit either.
You may have to scratchbuild some argonians depending on what style you want (from each game), but going off of ESO lore you COULD use GW lizzy aztec weapons and bits
I forgot about Reaper and the silly number of models they have. Damn, and now I remember that my lgs had some of those in stock months ago. I had a look through Reaper's range, but most of its in GW's style unfortunately (which would do for particularly large Argonians or creatures inhabiting Black Marsh I suppose). Argonians look more like this, which sadly Reaper doesn't have much of.
After Oblivion the Argonians did go rather native. They invaded Morrowind and seceded from the Empire, presumably throwing off Imperial culture as well. To that end I'd imagine that Argonians from Black Marsh would be wearing stuff like scale armour, leather, bone, etc, but with ones living outside of that area looking a bit more "civilized". That's the good thing about how Skyrim advanced the plot a bit, most of the provinces went back to their own culture instead of adopting the Imperial style.
Yeah, I only had a hazy recollection of exactly what Reaper did for Lizards.
Would there be any mileage in using normal human bodies and sculpting tails/scales on exposed flesh/adding lizard heads? Don't know how hard that would be in practice.
I'm not really prepared to sculpt a whole head from scratch. Bodies are easy, faces not so much, which is why I use pre-made heads unless they're wearing a helmet. Presumably I could buy a set of lizardman heads that're the right size and style (the same with cat ones too), its just finding them however.
Oh and if I'm doing either of the (main, there's a few) beast races then I would be going for the Morrowind anatomy rather than the human one which appears in later games. I could just use regular human upper bodies, it'd be the legs which would need to be sculpted.
The Telvanni mage is almost finished, its just his staff left to do. Looking at him now I'm not sure if such a dynamic pose is really suitable. He's advancing forward with his staff raised, but looks like he's moving too fast for a Telvanni. =/
What I'd do would be to take a human torso and arms and replace the head (which thinking about it I could do helmet wearing ones which would be easier to sculpt). With the legs I'd cut them off at the groin and repose the thighs so they're facing forward. The calves and feet would need to be done from scratch. Though there was a mod for Skyrim which just replaced the feet which if the model already has its leg slightly bent would probably have the same effect as replacing the whole leg. I'll see what works out when I get around to making some which looks better. Of course it could be that Argonians have different sub-races like the Khajiit, so you have one which has the more human legs.
You could probably get away with using skink legs. Hell, you could use a skink head, cut off the fin, and add other argonian goodness. (I like argonians. Can you tell? )
Don't worry, I imagine that Argonians enslaved a deal of Dunmer during their invasion if that's of consequence. Or ate/ sacrificed them. Wait, no, that's the Bosmer.
Damn, I thought that was an easy one. Guess nobody cheated and read the image title. Its going to be a Skyrim style Flame Atronach. I've sculpted about half of it, so I should manage to post up a WIP in a bit (some people spend days sculpting...).
My Telvanni wizard is going to be a summoner, so the Atronach will count as a lesser Demon for Frostgrave.
It'd probably be harder to make one of the older ones because they have less detail, whereas the newer ones are just a case of copying the designs.
Did Flame Atronachs ever have tails? For some reason I want to give this thing a tail.
Sculpting continues on the Flesh Atronach as well. I've blocked out the main components, now its filling those out and detailing them. Once the body's done then I have to add on the armour and source some chains for all the shackles (I did have some metal Black Cat ones, but can't find them in the mounds of loose bits I have. Craft chain may do, but I'd rather have the cast ones). Oh and its face looks real derpy.
For today's viewing guff, I've managed to paint my first models for this thread.
Firstly here's the House Guard now finished. I added some wee Daedric characters to break up the colours a bit.
And, somehow before the cannon-fodder's done, here's the big man himself, the Telvanni mage.
Two out of ten models for a starting warband painted. My current planned warband will be: 1x Wizard, 1x Apprentice, 3x Thugs, 3x Arches, 1x Man at Arms and 1x Warhound (which doesn't match up with all the models that I've made so far, but meh, spares).
And another new model.The Flame Atronach looks like its ready for a lick of paint.
I begrudge myself that it takes me so long to paint stuff. One model in two or three hours really means I'm skiving watching Youtube videos and on Facebook for a third of that time at least.
I've started piecing together the last members of my initial Frostgrave warband (two more thugs and three arches. There'll be a dog too, but I CBA sculpting a Nix-Hound right now). Even with those done I'll still need to make all the Daedra (why oh why did I have to pick a Summoner...), so I can't expect to be able to play an actual game for at least a week. ...And then when I do play one I'll find out that my choice of soldiers is crap and I'll have to make a load of new ones. Meh, I have a new job starting on Monday, so don't expect this pace to keep up unfortunately. Boo hiss. =/
By page 36 of this (where my Fallout thread is) expect to see a scale replica of Vivec's cantons to turn up or something.
Oh you're making me melt, right in the childhood feels. Though I'm a filthy scumlord and played in this order: Oblivion-->Skyrim---> Morrowind. I wish I knew more about Morrowind but, I'm really having a hard time with Morrowind as the weapon hitboxes in the steam version suck. (So by the logic, I somehow have ended up in Daggerfall.)
Really turned me off of something so grand and iconic to the Elder Scrolls series. Anyways, as others said I would be soooooo down for 100 pages of this. Also, how many cups of coffee have you injected into the blood stream to keep this pace?
Also, am I alone that I feel bad because when I see a /great/ blog, it inspires me to give what the person is doing a shot. Like Phutarf and his Death Guard, STC and his 30k army, Weirdingway's Navigators, and then finally your elder scrolls stuff. It makes me feel cheap and unoriginal but, seeing that guy painted up makes me want to make and paint some Redoran guards. I guess that is how good art/miniatures should be.
Ahem. TL;DR, awesome stuff, keep goiiinnngggg.
Also, not that I need to remind anyone but, sometimes I forget to do it myself. We should all be exalting this thread.
This is wicked! Love your stuff so far. Brings back great memories.
I agree with you that Morrowind had the best art and most distinct theme. I was addicted to that game when it came out. My girlfriend, her roommate and I had it going on a 24-hr rotation playing in 2-hr shifts so the game was never turned off at all on weekends.
Stormwall wrote: Oh you're making me melt, right in the childhood feels. Though I'm a filthy scumlord and played in this order: Oblivion-->Skyrim---> Morrowind. I wish I knew more about Morrowind but, I'm really having a hard time with Morrowind as the weapon hitboxes in the steam version suck. (So by the logic, I somehow have ended up in Daggerfall.)
Really turned me off of something so grand and iconic to the Elder Scrolls series. Anyways, as others said I would be soooooo down for 100 pages of this. Also, how many cups of coffee have you injected into the blood stream to keep this pace?
Also, am I alone that I feel bad because when I see a /great/ blog, it inspires me to give what the person is doing a shot. Like Phutarf and his Death Guard, STC and his 30k army, Weirdingway's Navigators, and then finally your elder scrolls stuff. It makes me feel cheap and unoriginal but, seeing that guy painted up makes me want to make and paint some Redoran guards. I guess that is how good art/miniatures should be.
Ahem. TL;DR, awesome stuff, keep goiiinnngggg.
Also, not that I need to remind anyone but, sometimes I forget to do it myself. We should all be exalting this thread.
I'm similarly heretical; I actually played Morrowind at release, but in spite of the mechanics; I can't bring myself to play through it again despite my love for the story. On the plus side, we have both Skywind(original Morrowind ported into the Skyrim game engine) and Beyond Skyrim(Skyrim-based Tamriel Rebuilt-style mod that features the other provinces, Morrowind included, as they would be in the Skyrim era) in active development right now, so hopefully we should get all the Dunmer-based goodness we can handle before the next official Elder Scrolls game.
Can't wait to see where this thread goes, Morrowind remains the pinnacle of the series in terms of story and art design, and if you realise that in model form as well as your Fallout thread this should be a real treat
The hitboxes are fine, its that instead of every contact counting as a "hit" the game works off of percentages. So even though it looks like you should wound the RNG says that because you're level 1 you only have a 60% chance of causing actual damage. ...Old game design logic.
...I ah have been avoiding using my time productively in other areas of my life like eating and sleeping? Hmn, and here's me thinking that I've been going slow with this thing actually.
Ack, I already have two other video game threads going, I'm just the guy who's so cheap that he makes models based off of nostalgia. ...And I CBA making any more Fallout models for the short term, so my solution for that block is to start another thread.
@ The Riddle of Steel
We're all lucky that Morrowind wasn't on Steam. I look at my play time in Skyrim and cringe. Then I cringe some more when it hits me that Steam doesn't record hours that you have the game running with the script extender all the time.
(its 562 btw)
@ Dreadclaw69
I actually just looked at the Mantic Games thread and considered using one of their upcoming Succubus as a Dark Seducer actually. Though I'm making a Golden Saint in the mean time. That and that male demon holding its cock also struck me as being able to work as a water fountain piece of terrain...
@ Yodhrin
"Active Developement" - looks at the Tamriel Rebuilt mod for Morrowind which has been getting worked on for over a decade and still isn't finished...
I did play some of those mods for Skyrim though (actually the ones for Morrowind and Oblivion too). I've been looking at the concept art for those along with the original Morrowind stuff as a basis for models, one being that Telvanni mage actually.
@ Chubias244
Find me a cat head and a M'aiq the Liar shouldn't be hard to do.
Righto. I would have been more productive last night, but I was wrangled out clubbing instead (personally I would have rather stuck with the models...). I threw this together after I got home though.
Its an ashlander. Right now I'm just going for random models to throw together to make a starting warband, but I'll probably expand out the factions eventually to have enough for ones comprised entirely of Redoran, bandits, etc.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit:
And a Golden Saint as well, as seeing as I'd have two Summoners on the board at a time there's a chance that I may summon in two Minor Demons and need another model.
I've seen them played, I think I own the first one (or rather the first Dark Souls), but never played themself. Maybe its because that game was horribly ported, or rather just that I CBA with that particular type of Japanese game (though somehow I find the Witcher fine).
You could probably make models of all those knights pretty easily with some of the Perry's War of the Roses stuff and a bit of greenstuff.
Another WIP. This time a piece of terrain. The penny base and shield and temporary. Lemme start a strawpoll for all the guesses about what it actually is.
No, it won't look anything like a WWII Soviet soldier when I'm done with it.
Feth everything I now know, I'm going to push through it and play Morrowind! Also, still loving this blog. I apologize if I was rude about the coffee thing, it was just a joke.
Welcome to the days when Bethesda still used a D&D like system to determine how things worked in their games. Its all right in turn based ones, but all those percentages get weird in real time (try having silly stats, that when you'll be one shotting everything... Remember that this is also the game where buffs stack and there's no upper limit, so you can in fact have level 9999 sword fighting). Hmn, weird, for a game that started out as a D&D campaign you'd think that there would be a roleplaying game out for it.
Its not coffee. Its stomach destroying Ribena mixed with Cream Soda. =P
The statue's now properly assembled, silly ears and all.
Have fun going back and looking at the original Soviet model and knowing that that's under all that clay.
Heh, what I have to do before and after pictures of the various WIP stages now too?
Fist day at work, so productivity's gone down quite a bit, and I can see it staying there for the immediate future. =/
I'm painting the statue and the Golden Saint right now. It helps that both of them are mostly one major colour. It doesn't help that they're (at least the Saint) made up of different tones...
So far, and I've only really just started with the Saint, I'm liking that she and the Fire Atronach are coming out quite a bit more colourful (or at least not quite so brown) as the rest of my warband. Means that they're set apart and its a bit more obvious that they are just regular models on the table. Hmn, the Golden Saint may have issues though seeing as how human she looks, despite the yellow skin. Damn, it'll be even worse if I make some High Elves...
I could go the Messyart route and sell models through Paypal via private messages, but unless I learn how to cast it'd be commissions, which I sort of thing to be a bit constricting. Were I unemployed right now or a student then yes it would be a consideration, but I've just started a new job which has cut into my hobby hours (only making one model a day instead of three! Heh) quite a bit. Once that stabilizes a tad then I can think about something other than not acting like a complete novice at work.
But yes, possible, but unless I have the time available and the confidence in my own skills (people may praise me, but I think my stuff's pretty naff) then selling stuff on any sort of scale beyond one off bits to people at my club's just a wee dot on the horizon. Youknow, the type that's still a dot even if you stare at it through a NASA telescope. ...Or is that just a bit of dirt?
I could go the Messyart route and sell models through Paypal via private messages, but unless I learn how to cast it'd be commissions, which I sort of thing to be a bit constricting. Were I unemployed right now or a student then yes it would be a consideration, but I've just started a new job which has cut into my hobby hours (only making one model a day instead of three! Heh) quite a bit. Once that stabilizes a tad then I can think about something other than not acting like a complete novice at work.
But yes, possible, but unless I have the time available and the confidence in my own skills (people may praise me, but I think my stuff's pretty naff) then selling stuff on any sort of scale beyond one off bits to people at my club's just a wee dot on the horizon. Youknow, the type that's still a dot even if you stare at it through a NASA telescope. ...Or is that just a bit of dirt?
I mean, casting is pretty easy, especially for people with your obvious skill. There's quite a few guides on 1d4chan on how to do it quickly, easily and cheaply.
Aye, and my point is that I could do a lot of things, but its the time and effort required which put me off. I leave the door at eight every morning and get back ten hours later, so am not exactly in the mood for much beyond sitting pissing about on a forum. Weekends sure, but I've already the backlog from the week to deal with at that point. =/
If you do decide to take up casting, shoot either myself or Cyporean here on the forums a PM. I can write up a quick tutorial on the process I use, and while I taught her, she and her husband have been making Endless stuff on their own for a year or two now and have probably gotten a lot better than me by this point
Wyrmalla wrote: Aye, and my point is that I could do a lot of things, but its the time and effort required which put me off. I leave the door at eight every morning and get back ten hours later, so am not exactly in the mood for much beyond sitting pissing about on a forum. Weekends sure, but I've already the backlog from the week to deal with at that point. =/
I understand where you're coming from. Damn sexy sculpts, though.
Ack, its something I'll look into once I'm settled a bit at work. The actual casting then seeing how silly the postage gets... Reasons why I don't sell terrain here on Dakka. =/
Here's the Dwemer Statue now in a usable state.
I've started painting that Ashlander archer as well. I had a go at a Scamp, but I'm still working out the proportions on the armature (which is all it is right now, just sticks). See what I can get up tonight. =P
Ack, its something I'll look into once I'm settled a bit at work. The actual casting then seeing how silly the postage gets... Reasons why I don't sell terrain here on Dakka. =/
Here's the Dwemer Statue now in a usable state.
I've started painting that Ashlander archer as well. I had a go at a Scamp, but I'm still working out the proportions on the armature (which is all it is right now, just sticks). See what I can get up tonight. =P
Oi ya silluh git! I sents Wehr dat pm waagh! As for the shipping costs, well... you make the person buying pay them. Also, that statue is lovely. I'm still mad at you by the way for this but uh, I think it's time to play some more Morrowind.
Please don't spoil anything for me but, I loved the Solthsteim expansion so very much. Will I get that feel once I start crawling the ash wastes in Morrowind?? Or timeline was has that even happened yet? I just loved the voice actors for the Redoran guards, and going outside of the Bulwark.
If you sit there and download a ton of graphical improvement mods along with ones which improve the locations, outfits and add more NPCs too. Mind that that game is like ten years old. Its what you make of it I suppose. =P
Though aye remember that the Dragornborn expansion is set in an ashlands environment, which whilst being a location in the Morrowind game, is only one part of it. You start in the swamp lands, with the ashlands forming the central area of the island (where the higher level enemies tend to be). Dragonborn's set 200 years after Morrowind. You'll meet a few characters from that game in the DLC, but bare in mind that ...well things didn't go too well for that province after that game finished (* spoilers from Skyrim* ...Daedra, Invasion, meteor hitting it, volcano destroying all of Vvardenfell).
Oh and yes the voice actors in Skyrim went back to the Morrowind style Dunmer voices. In that game they were all gravely and such. Kind of sort of because the Dunmer of Morrowind have to breath in volcanic ash all day....
Tsk, the problem that I had with Skyrim's Solstheim was that I had a mod for Morrowind which redid the lanscape. That whole area north of the fort was a taiga forest, but in Dragonborn its a dead (snowy/ashy) wasteland. Ignoring the modded changes, Skyrim also oddly removed the great big frozen lake from the middle of the map, and put the mead hall at the bottom of a mountain rather on top of it. Strange. ...But explained away by the volcanic eruption apparently reshaping the island ...though somehow leaving all the buildings intact (well bar the fort).
Not that I really cared, just sayin'. Oh, for those who do go back to Morrowind, have fun seeing that crashed Dwemer airship only just after it reached the island.
God damn it I looked at the Morrowind Nexus and now I want to go ahead and download a ton of mods again. No. ...Mostly because my free time's going to be going towards Fallout 4. =P
* edit: and woo I'm no longer located in the EU apparently (work's servers are based in Ireland).
Still, minis that are made off the armors in Skyrim/Elder scrolls is something that also looks good, as also modded with modern weapons, the armor of the solstheim guards looks like something from Star Wars
Before I lapse too much into inactivity, here's a WIP from today.
She's a Morag Tong assasin, based on their original concept art rather than the shameful Chitin armour reskin which appeared in Skyrim. Not an exact recreation obviously. Damn, really like this art style. Not just that, all that cloth subverts the low-fantasy European vibe which later games stuck with, but that doesn't really suit all the different cultures of Tamriel.
In Frostgrave this she'll be a Treasure Hunter, given that archetype's dexterity (or an actual assassin if they ever add one to an expansion). Not that that guild really take on contracts as mercenaries though, but I suppose I can get away with using her as per rule of cool.
I've gotten around to painting the Apprentice to my Wizard now. His outfit's based on Master Neloth's one from Skyrim's Dragonborn expansion.
And one of my archers, an Ashlander. Lore wise its a bit odd to see an Ashlander alongside members of the Great Houses (or rather other Great Houses, given that the Ashlanders are just those who chose to stick to the old ways), but put that down to him going off walkabout or something.
An a WIP, which is now being painted alongside the Morag Tong assassin. The second of my thugs (the one in Netch Leather armour's being painted too), this time wearing elements of Chitin Armour alongside other bits of exposed cloth to suit the rag-tag look of a bandit. =P
A second archer, this one wearing Netch Leather armour, plus the armature for the Nix Hound. Not entirely sure on the Nix Hound's size, though that may be down to it being in an idle standing pose rather than crouched over as you typically see them in the game.
An early (earlier than I'd like as I ran out of clay, stupid because I was in a craft shop today) look at a Telvanni mushroom house.
Its two polystyrene balls stuck together with milliput over them. Just as a show of concept and all, it lacks any sort of detail or texturing, hell I haven't even finished blocking out the shapes as of yet. Its pretty small for a house, though its a first try and the craft shop sells larger balls.
That's the Flesh Atronach which I started next to it BTW, which (along with the area marked out for a door at the front there) is on a 40mm base, for a scale reference. Couple of these along with larger ones and a few mushroom trees would do for a small Telvanni settlement (before I start getting silly and making root platforms and what not).
Oh and aye I could lay one of those balls on its side and cover it in milliput to make a dead Silt Strider easily enough. An alive one would be spending ages sculpting out the individual legs...
Edit: Ooh, and I suppose that rather than having them as a board unto themselves they would in fact suit my own wizard's home. In Frostgrave each Wizard can take over an area within the city as their home base, be it a tavern, a ruined library, a crypt, etc. Now I don't believe there's any scenarios where those bases are attacked, but this custom terrain would do for representing a Telvanni wizard's idea of a small encampment far from home.
Bethesda don't give a crap about miniatures for their games, or reasons why companies like Brother Vinni and Trollforged can make models without the lawyer boot going down on them. There's This is Not a Test for Fallout, whilst The Elder Scrolls is just your typical fantasy world, so you could probably get away with using any old ruleset for it with some tweaks. Bearing in mind that originally the series began as a D&D campaign, so whatever tabletop games are based on that RPG aught to be a decent basis for an Elder Scrolls game. =P
Its just spending long enough at it to get to this stage I suppose. Probably should take some actual classes or at least read an article on how to sculpt some time... I could be better if I didn't just sculpt the entire model in one go and put the effort into actual details instead of just blocked out shapes. I could, but that'd take actual commitment and quality control, rather than me churning out crap as I sit on my bed about to go to sleep.
I use Gale Force 9 greenstuff. It comes in rolls for £10. One roll's been enough to do me for a year at least, though there's only as much as a couple of Games Workshop packs left on it by now (jump into my WIP folder on the gallery and count how many greens are in there if you want to know how many models that equates to, I'd say at least a good few dozen). Personally I find that grey stuff's a better material to use, but nowhere about her stocks it, so I wind up just using greenstuff, which is a fairly meh sculpting material.
...Least its better than milliput. Though who the hell is sculpting detail with milliput?
Wyrmalla wrote: I look at my play time in Skyrim and cringe. Then I cringe some more when it hits me that Steam doesn't record hours that you have the game running with the script extender all the time.
(its 562 btw)
Steam tells me I've played 1055 hours of skyrim. I don't know if that makes you feel any better about your time spent, or makes me feel bad about the possibility of having spent twice that time... (I've only been using the script extender for the last character I played).
I'm currently back in Oblivion though (which I've also clocked up over 1000 hours in). But the latest character has got to the point of being able to pick her fights or just to kill quietly (and only if they are likely to have good loot on them, or I want a soul to recharge a weapon).
Wyrmalla wrote:...Least its better than milliput. Though who the hell is sculpting detail with milliput?
Couldn't tell you. Would have to be a madman to use milliput...
Good work throughout, Wyr'. Like the Fire atronach.
I have a silly time in Skyrim too, and I installed the script extender fairly early on...
Hmn, the problem I have with those games is that I play a light armoured sneaky type, but wind up having to act like a tank due to how the levels are designed (and being too lazy to sneak). So I probably aught to wear heavy armour, but that weights a ton ...and isn't so stylish. =P
I'll probably stick up a tutorial for that Telvanni house once I've made one. With that it shouldn't be too difficult to transpose the basic design onto larger structures, the only difference is having more roots and bulbs.
Edit: this thread's views went up by 400 in one day. Weird. Its been at around 150 every other day. ...Yes I have actually bothered to look at the number of views on one of my threads once. Kind of hard to follow with my 80k other thread though. :(
Wyrmalla wrote: Edit: this thread's views went up by 400 in one day. Weird. Its been at around 150 every other day. ...Yes I have actually bothered to look at the number of views on one of my threads once. Kind of hard to follow with my 80k other thread though. :(
That might be me. I posted it yesterday on /r/Skyrim and reposted it today.
Oh for crying out loud. 3500 views? Screw my bloody numbers!
Feth it.
In other news I'll probably post that mushroom house a bit further along tomorrow as I've bothered my arse to actually buy clay today. Should have it done quick enough hopefully, though I'm trying to push myself to have enough models finished to play a game with them this Tuesday coming hopefully as well.
Ignore the half painted Morag Tong assassin which I've been too lazy to finish. I prioritized that Hot Dog van (in my Fallout thread) over any stuff for myself. =P
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ah lemme check:
20:27 yesterday night was: 1792
07:50 this morning was: 2154
23:06 (current) is: 3446
...I don't really care too much about the numbers. Its that watching them tick off while at work gives me something interesting to do on the side.
Huh, I thought I said what the first batch were made from? ...I usually do so in case someone comes along in a decade and wants to know, so they aren't totally screwed as with other threads.
That first lot were made from Deus Vult Steppe Warriors; with the inferred reposing and greenstuff. If you were to use them I'd say that they're more 25mm than 28 and are a bit limited as far as posing goes (unless you want to arse about with greenstuff).
For what they are I'd suggest just sculpting skirts onto other models which are better. If you want the extra hassle Perry plastics are probably a better base, its just that I happened to have a spare box of those Steppe Warriors. =P
Ready to paint, bar adding some crap to the base possibly. I would say that the next one which I make will be a bit squatter with a larger roof and with a Morrowind style staircase rather than the Skyrim one I have on this. Least that means they'll be a bit varied.
Skyrim and Mass Effect are the two table top games I'd most want. I have Infinity but nothing really comes close to Elder Scrolls.
I'd kill (not literally) for a good Argonian model line.
The Morag Tong Assassin. Hmn, could have probably have done more with those red areas.
Tis an enchanted sword, hence that weird blue effect which Morrowind felt the need to put on all its enchanted bits of gear (...I removed that texture when playing)
A Dunmer thug type. ...I do have a thing for Chitin armour.
And err, a Scamp in a vase. Damn the manufacturer's slipped my mind, but its from a line of comical Goblin minis from the 90s IIRC. There were tons going second hand, but I only took this one. It'll be a Treasure Marker in Frostgrave (adventurer walks up to that fabulous - not crappy - looking vase and has a Scamp jump out, blow them a raspberry, then scuttle off).
The mushroom house's being painted, so are three more thugs for my warband.After those its just the Nix-Hound and another archer, though looking at my time I may have to use a regular wolf as my warhound during my first game on Tuesday. We'll see what happens. =P
****
God do I hate "automatically appended last post". Wish it'd clock off based on word count/ images.
Churning through these so I can at least have something to play with this week...
Two bandits and an archer:
Netch Leather over a robe - made from a Deus Vult Steppe Warrior.
Just plain clothes, but I suppose the massive axe does him fine. He's a Frostgrave soldier plastic with a new head. I'll probably use that kit for Nords rather than Dunmer, just wanted to see how one would look in Dunmer colours.
And lastly an archer in more Netch Leather armour. He began as a Wargames Factory WWII soldier.
The only model of immediate concern which I need to finish for my warband is another archer (who'll probably be wearing Chitin Armour). The rest, including a Nix-Hound, two Imps (one of them a Scamp) and two Major Demons (a Flesh Atronach and perhaps a Storm Atronach) can be proxied, so aren't a priority just yet.
Amazing work! Very "in character" and with great attention to details. (I am so stealing that idea about mushroom buildings on the tabletop, somehow I didn't thought they would be practical to make, but Your example makes me rethink that. Thanks!)
Look pictures! With real models in them! This thread isn't dead!
...Neither are my two other ones. What? Oi I have other crap to do other than play with my dollies. Like sleeping. ...And uh, sitting on Facebook. ...an' ...stuff.
I played my first game of Frostgrave this week. Out of that I noted the need for a token to represent the Wizard's Eye spell. So here we go, a two pence piece with the Imperial Mage's Guild symbol painted on it. ...Yes I know the Morrowind branch used a different symbol. Yes I know that the Mages Guild, along with many other establishments, went down with the Septim Empire. No, I frankly don't care.
Ooh, something like that'd do for those magical traps from Skyrim...
Some Reaper Miniatures ...miniatures which seemed suitable were picked up too. This is one of their "Dregs" which I'm using as a stand in for a Lame Corpus (even if the Divine Disease was cured with the fall of Dagoth Ur and I'm thinking of setting my games after the Red Year). Not sure about the exposed intestines, but I didn't want to mess with such a nice model.
The other minis which were picked up are going towards an Ash Slave, Thalmor Wizard and a Nord Warrior in Iron Armour. Hmn, it may be an idea to make some more Sixth House models at some point.
In other news my hard drive failed so I lost all the resource pictures which I collected for this. So a couple of hundred of those and about three times as many for my Fallout and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stuff.
I may make a ruined Hllalu style building this weekend. Youknow like the ones in Balmora. I may not. Hmn. That mushroom's mostly finish, but procrastinating is awesome. Whatever, guess you'll see what crops up.
Off the back of one unfinished terrain piece, here's another. A Halalu building, actually in the style of the first one most people will see in the game as they come down off of the Balmora Stilt Strider dock.
Spoiler:
Sans the optional gutting out curved bits, which are optional to the design and not present on all the buildings of this particular style.
Its 7 by 4.5 inches wide and 4.5 inches too, though it appears larger due to the perspective in the photo oddly. I made it out of the same cork tile material which I've been using for the Middle Eastern buildings which I've been making for a friend (they're in my gallery, but I haven't bothered making a separate thread for them). I thought that I'd have a go first at an intact building then once I'd worked out that move onto ruins.
There that is anyhow. Currently being painted besides this is that Nord warrior and Ash Slave which I mentioned yesterday. Expect something to turn up here tomorrow in a painted state unless I become super lazy, which is a possibility...
Well if you want your computer to lag out to all hell... There were mods which expanded the size of the town significantly though, but with game limitations you can only do so much. For instance when you extend the view distance from 10 feet in front of you soon discover how close all the towns are to each other.
Then you have mods like Tamriel Rebuilt which add stuff like this.
@ Stormwall This stuff. I buy it in rolls for £3, though I know you can find it cheaper elsewhere. Ah it says "4 oz (113.4g)" a pack on the back. That mushroom took like two and a half packs.
With greenstuff I bought pack of the same size as this milliput and its lasted me a year. With this clay though I find I go tear right through it though as you only use greenstuff for individual small models, whereas milliput is for larger things like terrain.
You mean just the two holes there at the back? Well if you're wanting a smooth finish and don't want to use plasticard then sure. Its cheap enough too. I'd advise smoothing it out with water and perhaps putting down an initial layer then going out it again with another in case it sinks into the holes a bit. Milliput sets pretty hard so you can pull out a piece of glass paper and sand it down easily enough. Though aye, smooth it down with water then scrape away any excess with a cocktail stick or something.
Morrowind Graphics Extender extends the view distance in the game by however much the players it to (that's Red Mountain way in the background taken from the city of Almalexia by the Argonian border). It can load the default one cell vanilla goes for (i.e. a couple of feet in front of you) or as far as your computer can take. Plus some random other things. I haven't played the game in years, but there were all sorts of mods which improved graphics. For instance one which added grass which blows in the wind. ...Morrowind didn't have grass which did that. Pity then that the game's so old now that a lot of the mods aren't available any more because the hosts have went under. :(
Quick dab of paint and this thing is done. Bet you all thought I was going to do it up all respectable like? Nah, its a crap hole.
And like with my Fallout stuff, its any excuse to stick on some graffiti:
Front side: Thieves guild shadowmarks - "empty" - "Hlaalu"
Right Side: Hlaalu symbol with "traitors" beneath, "N'wah", Crossed Imperial Dragon with "Imperials Out"
Rear: Calling some guy a drunkard, "Fallen Gods" and House Dagoth sigil with "the dreamer is awake"
Left side: The meteor Baar Dur (intentionally mispelled) hanging above Vivec city
And the model for scale in the above is a Nord Warrior which I painted up last night.
She's a Reaper Miniature's "Female Barbarian" who I sculpted a bit of armour onto (before she was half naked" I guess acting as a Nord mercenary or treasure hunter in the remains of Morrowind.
Hmn, and now to start planning out a proper ruined version of one of those buildings...
Damn you Wyrmalla. Now I wanna do an Elder Scrolls/Frostgrave project of my own. I already blame you for my £80 order with Brother Vinni for Fallout minis.
The Nord, swashbuckler Dunmer thug and the Golden Saint are my favourite.
Wyrmalla inspires us all. I really, really hope you make the Steel plate armor Nord or Dunmer from Skyrim. If not, I definitely will.
Thank you for all your advice. My plan is to actually fill those chambers because I want this to be sturdy. They're loosely cemented together right now, waiting for the putty to be put in. Then plasticard detailing/panels will go over them to hide the mess. (This is for a gift or I wouldn't go so crazy with it.) So thanks.
I also downloaded that mod and got it working in an hour or less. My FPS has dropped from 45 to 20 but, it's so worth it! Definitely will increase my Morrowind playtime.
An added side-effect is that I now recognize a lot of the stuff you're making. When you started on that building, I was wondering if it was near/the Silt Strider building. You did an awesome job with that.
LeCacty wrote: *tries to mod morrowind* *fails* Loving the graffiti on the house! It really gives it character,
When you go to manually download it without the Nexus Mod manager (having googled the mod he listed,) inside the rar file there is a PDF. Open it, then open the youtube video.
Follow the video, boom, you've got a modded sexy Morrowind. (Not that it wasn't for it's own time to begin with.) It totally changed this game for me. Love the graffiti, I didn't notice that the first time.
Next project: making the soldiers from the film Curse of the Golden Flower out of real gold...
I'm a bad influence.
@ Stormwall
You mean this set? See you could probably get away with just using some Perry War of the Roses era foot knights and sticking on some fur with that set. It doesn't really encapture the Nordic style to me, rather its more like they took it from the Imperials or Bretons. Morrowind's and Dragonborn's Nordic armour looks less generic to me.
Spoiler:
Though random bitching aside, if anything happens to jump at someone throw up pictures here and I'll probably get around to poorly sculpting it.
Oh I'm making a half collapsed version of that same building right now, though its back to work for me so it may take a few days to see it painted. Someone mentioned Silt Striders before. Hmn, a Silt Strider port could be a decent way for including some high terrain in an urban environment...
Meh, I may as well post where I am with that other ruin. Super early, its still missing parts, a base, the milliput and all the rubble, but meh, pictures are better than words and all that. =P
Edit: I took most of the graffiti from this thread for the Tes Renewal mod for Skyrim, which is involved in porting Morrowind into that game. They've gone back and updated the visuals of Morrowind a bit, so its interesting to see how those old locations would be made today. That and there's a wealth of concept art as well, notably I based my Telvanni Wizard off of one of those pieces.
@ LeCacty
At a basic level Bethesda games are some of the least obtuse games to mod out there. Its mostly just a case of dragging and dropping the mod folders into the game's location and turning them on. Later you'll need to deal with incompatibilities, load orders, combining mods and cleaning things, but if you just want to play with a few then you shouldn't be having any trouble.
Of course you can't just play with a few. No. You need to be sitting watching the mod sites every day to see if anything new comes out. You need to compile whole spread sheets of hundreds of mods before you even begin to download and install them. If you want to play a Bethesda game then its days of sitting there messing around with files before you ever even see the game's intro scene...
Or youknow you can just download a texture pack and an FPS booster. ...But well if that's all you're going to do then you really shouldn't be playing the things on PC anyway.
Thank you for all your advice. My plan is to actually fill those chambers because I want this to be sturdy. They're loosely cemented together right now, waiting for the putty to be put in. Then plasticard detailing/panels will go over them to hide the mess. (This is for a gift or I wouldn't go so crazy with it.) So thanks.
Mind that milliput can weight a bit once you start pilling it on, so if you want to fill the entirety of those track sections you're going to make it heavy. I'd just put in an initial layer of milliput to fill the hole (enough so that there's a lip in the inside so it doesn't just pop off), wait for that to dry, then stick on another layer just to smooth it out. Though if you're wanting to just cover the thing in plasticard I wouldn't bother with the milliput apart from filling in any gaps around that's edges. Use a decent enough glue and you shouldn't have to worry about the thing falling apart on you. Filling the thing with millput will make it sturdier, though so would concrete...
Okay. So... you're saying I should fill it with concrete? Can do!
(I've PM'd you a picture of the scale of the vehicle we're talking here just for ref. Weight won't matter lol.) Also, the armor you put up was the one I was referring to. I guess it is rather Bretonish afterall, aside from the helmet. I'll have to check out the Perry miniatures now, I'm curious.
Anyways, here is the reason I recognized those buildings. (And I think this picture shows the mod worked on my potato.) Oh right, I probably shouldn't derail your thread any farther.
I'm going just back from work and going straight to be right now, so sorry that I haven't read that PM yet. :/
Might have a go at one of the guard towers next, except with the upper half all crumbled away (though with the remains of some stairs still going up).
Blame the wiki again for its weird cache issues. Instead enjoy what remains of the little town I built on one of the older Dakka Minecraft servers. Yes my projects are rather circular. =P
@LeCacty
There may not be a mod manager for Morrowind, but the engine's the same. All you need to do is drag and drop the mods into the data folder and check the .esp in the launcher to run them.
Theres a mod manager. The packs are just a bitch to install. I also have probelms with low fov, and the only pack that fixes that doesnt work for me...
SILT STRIDER. YES.
FOV as in the draw distance or as in...FOV? The Morrowind Graphics Extender sorts out both of those IIRC. Also what do you mean packs? When you go to a site like the Morrowind Nexus you have mods. You download say a texture pack and open it up in 7Zip. Once opened you then navigate to the folder which contains things like "Textures, Meshes, blah blah blah.esp, etc" and move those from that folder to Morrowind's Data folder (unless explicitly told. For instance some files will go in Morrowind's route folder, whereas others may come loose and need to be put directly into the textures, etc folders).
I'll buy a polysterene egg for a dead Silt Strider after work. =P
MGE does draw distance, not FOV. Like I said, I need atleast 110. Which is hard to get with older games. I have but about 120 hours in morrowind though, so I get it
The version of the Morrowind Grapgics Extender which I was using years ago had a FOV option. They may have taken it out, but if that's the case then I suppose you could just find an older version which does include it. Weird that they'd take it out though, have you looked everywhere in it for it?
Heh, you can miss out years of Elder Scrolls mods, come back and find that they're all still half finished. Case in point the Tamriel Rebuilt mod, where the original modding team have gone from being early teens to twenty somethings, yet the mod's still in the alpha stage...
Hmn, should I post my Middle Eastern terrain in this thread or leave it out? Its similar, but I'm not sure if it'd dilute the subject matter a little considering that its more of a modern project. That and I'm not going to be the one painting it, so it may leave things a bit too open ended for those following this thing?
Spoiler:
...Trying to justify the time I spend on that stuff besides the fact I'm being compensated for them. Today its another one of those. Tomorrow the plan's something else Morrowind themed.
Really awesome work here! Always nice to see something non mainstream in terms of miniatures.
Wyrmalla wrote: Heh, you can miss out years of Elder Scrolls mods, come back and find that they're all still half finished. Case in point the Tamriel Rebuilt mod, where the original modding team have gone from being early teens to twenty somethings, yet the mod's still in the alpha stage...
Heh to be fair thats pretty much ANY mod group. I have been following Command and Conquer General mods (a game that came out in 2003-2004) where there are mods that promise a newer version or even a release build of their mods. The hard part is that most mods are almost making an entire new video game/expansion....but don't get paid for it! Hard to be super motivated.
Holiday project: I bother my arse to join the Tamriel Rebuilt modding team. ...Wait no. I've seen my mods. People won't like having a thousand items crammed into a ten by ten meter sized cell (my house mods were very hoarder styled, with posters layering the walls and every surface filled ...though I'd like to think that that fits most kleptomaniac adventurers).
Its the week. After work I mostly sleep, so I'm not exactly productive enough to make crap to post here. So if its waffling about other crap then meh, its my thread and well leave it to a mod to try and steer it back to whatever the apparent topic is.
My Fallout blog literally has pages and pages of fluff discussion down the most inane details. =P
I should have, but no they sat on my drive till I wanted a new house and deleted them. I was about to release a campaign for Shadowrun: Returns, but that computer died and wiped everything. Bonus points that I don't have any images left of those either. =/
If it weren't for work right now I'd consider joining the Tamriel Rebuilt team and making things for them. As it is though what time I have for games will probably be dumped towards Fallout 4.
Today's batch of bollocks, which is mostly a result of me trying to find anything at all to post here seeing as its been a few days without pictures.
Some bandit type or caravan guard from the Ashlands kitted out in meagre Chitin armour and carrying a Chitin spear.
Another model made from one of those Deus Vult Steppe Warriors covered in greenstuff.
And a quick piece of filler terrain in the form of a bamboo cart.
Spoiler:
There's a WIP image of this in my gallery, though its really just some cotton buds, a bit of balsa and two wheels from a Tamiya kit. I may pick up some of 4grounds Japanese carts as well at some point too.
Spoiler:
I'm painting the second Hlaalu ruin right now, though I've not had much time this week to work on much else. Sorry that the mushroom's still sitting there like 80% done, but as it stands I'm going to find more use out of the Hlaalu stuff at least in the short term while I don't have much time to work on terrain.
This killed whatever particular paint of the main colours which I use up unfortunately. Without my brown ink how can I paint!?
Seriously discovering that stuff can be marked as one of the changing points in my life.
Aye there's a second ruin, this one with just the stairs side. The graffiti reads: "Out Blasphemer" and in red "Sheogorath", obviously the locals didn't take to the owner's religious leanings...
So, I'm not sure how productive I can be until I pick up some more paint. Mostly I think I'll just be dealing with finishing another modern Middle Eastern building for a friend. With these Hlaalu buildings its the current plan to make an intact version of each building then go onto a ruined one, though I'm not sure if that ratio is too perfect. Hopefully as long as the intact ones still allow for some sort of movement through them (case in point the stairs on this one) they shouldn't limit movement too much. I'm looking at the asset set for Hlaalu towns right now, and there's at least twenty two variants of the standard houses, so I should be set for a decent looking board without just having the same brick of a building over an over at least.
I put in an Reaper Miniature's order there after having gone through their full catalog to find crap that'd suit the setting. So, what'd I buy?
Spoiler:
This thing, which looks like I could manage an Alit from Morrowind out of it with a bit of work? Maybe? Uh...?
A vampire of clan Berne? They're the shadowy types. =P
An Ashlander mage, using necromantic spells (...I think the Dunmer prefer to call it "Ancestor Worship").
Um, a token Khajiit archer. ...Elder Scrolls style beast race models are a bit difficult to get a hold of. =/
An Argonian mercenary wearing steel or Ebony armour.
And last an Imperial Mage, who could be sidelined as an Apprentice beside a more Roman like or Mages Guild styled wizard. That halberd will be painted up to look like its Daedric.
So mostly just a smattering of random models of various faces and factions. Hey I could make a warband up entirely of Bonemold armoured House Guards with a uniform look, or instead go for rag tag mercenaries. ...One probably won't have me sticking me head through a wall with boredom.
I've never looked into 3D printing at all, though I'm not sure if all they'd need were just the mesh files. I wonder if as part of the service the printer'd edit the files so they could be printed properly or not. I really have no idea. Hmn, and whether or not the size of the models would effect the level of detail would be a concern too. However stuff like terrain (for instance statues) wouldn't have the same issue.
Flimmin new fangled technology. Certainly it'd make putting together the more fankly bits together easier, though it'd have to be the higher quality files from Skyrim's Morrowind mods rather than the vanilla game ones as they're far too blocky. =P
Wyrmalla wrote: I've never looked into 3D printing at all, though I'm not sure if all they'd need were just the mesh files. I wonder if as part of the service the printer'd edit the files so they could be printed properly or not. I really have no idea. Hmn, and whether or not the size of the models would effect the level of detail would be a concern too. However stuff like terrain (for instance statues) wouldn't have the same issue.
Flimmin new fangled technology. Certainly it'd make putting together the more fankly bits together easier, though it'd have to be the higher quality files from Skyrim's Morrowind mods rather than the vanilla game ones as they're far too blocky. =P
Spoiler:
Yes obviousley something from skyrim. I'm thinking all you'd need to do is convert it from .bsa to .stl. Maybe chop it into peices too. Someone on here or some 3d printing forum might know, I just think it would be pretty damn cool!
The second pic isnt working fyi. Looking good, though. Is corkboard good for this kind of stuff? I'm looking into making a beastmen diorama for a comp.
Ah, its from the TesRenewal site, and they don't like hyper linking for some reason. No worry, its like showing you a burnt stump and telling you it used to be a tree. =P
Specifically the stuff I'm using is this. Its real easy to cut and you don't need to bother texturing it either. When it comes to damaged sections you can break it apart with your fingers (not to say it'll fall apart during a game though).
You are the Nerevarine of custom videogame minis. :p In the meantime, I can only hope you do some Redoran/Raven Rock Guards. Also that cork he is using is a bit thinner and bettet but, you can buy sheets of it from CVS or Walmart in the office sections. It lasts forever too.
I'm just using that cork because its what I was given to make some Middle Eastern terrain for a friend. Aye I probably aught to go onto Ebay and find some larger sheets, but we'll see what happens.
You mean one of these guys or the Morrowind ones? The House Guard which I've already made is wearing a stripped down version of the Skyrim Bonemold armour, though yes its not the same as making one entirely based on the set from the DLC.
However right this second I'm making a Tang Mo mercenary from Akavir, albeit with a gorilla head rather than a chimp one.
The guy on the far left of the first picture I posted in this thread is wearing a Redoran Watchmen's helm. Though I don't like the model, so he'll probably never be painted. =P
I could probably manage a Redoran Watchmen armed with a spear easily enough. Not sure if people appreciate the skirts which some Redoran guards wear though.
Though aye, I don't like how those pauldrons go with that helmet. Something less obnoxious (like in that image LeCacty posted) would suit it better, or rather some Chitin Armour.
But wait no, I think Stormwall's looking for something more like this right?
...Because the armour which the Redoran guards in the Dragonborn DLC are wearing is actually a mix of the Hlaalu and Redoran sets actually.
Oh I'd also throw up this updated version of the Morrowind Ebony armour set which gives it less of an Imperial and more of a Dunmer look when talking about the Watchman's helm.
And this has literally just been an excuse for me to spam images.
I just look at Skyrim's interpretation of bonemold, consider what a dead Horsehoe Crab smells like in real life and think just how smelly a province Morrowind would be... Not counting all the Netch Leather, giant insects and fungus.
Its interesting aesthetic to have the native armours made from animal parts instead of metals of course (barring the highest tier stuff like Ebony and Glass).
A Tang Mo mercenary and a Redoran Guardsman (his shield's gone walkies however). Both are just metal armatures with a bit of greenstuff on them. The Tang Mo's head's by Crooked Dice (no comment on why an Ape has a tail, I didn't have any Chimp heads spare). =P
And now I'm downloading The Elder Scrolls Online. Don't worry, it won't suck up my life or model making time, because it probably won't run on this laptop of mine.
A Tang Mo mercenary and a Redoran Guardsman (his shield's gone walkies however). Both are just metal armatures with a bit of greenstuff on them. The Tang Mo's head's by Crooked Dice (no comment on why an Ape has a tail, I didn't have any Chimp heads spare). =P
And now I'm downloading The Elder Scrolls Online. Don't worry, it won't suck up my life or model making time, because it probably won't run on this laptop of mine.
Progress update, of a sorts. Two reasons why I haven't been very productive with this thread this week. One I installed the Elder Scrolls Online and it actually worked, so you expect what playing an MMORPG's done for my time keeping, and secondly today I threw together six buildings for that modern Middle Eastern project which I've been working on. Now what I will say is that once those six are done and given away the guy who I'm giving them to'll probably spend a while working on them, so I'll have a while before I have to make the next lot for him.
So, the immediate plan is to paint up the ruin which I posted up here earlier in the week. I'm out of cork, so no more buildings for the short term. However, that means back to painting soldiers then. My Reaper Miniatures order turned up this morning, so I'll be sifting through to see if anything looks like it has some immediacy about it. Those two greens I posted though'll probably be first to be painted though. That or I make some terrain out of balsa, such as market stalls or stacks of crates.
Ah, no promises that I won't waste even more time playing that game, but I'll try and put aside the time to manage something Morrowind related at the least. Hmn, had that game chosen to stick more to Morrowind's aestethic with its architecture I may have taken some ideas from it. Right now though whilst it does add to the series, the areas of Morrowind which you can visit don't include any clay buildings, instead going for the Mournhold style. At least the environments besides the buildings is pretty evocative of Vvardenfell however. ...Sorry though I'm rambling a tad here. So yes, pics at some point. ...Woe to anyone who's been expecting me to update either of my two other blog threads recently.
'Nother non update. Middle Eastern buildings will be finished tonight, I'll probably throw up an image of them here for the sake of it. I'm currently painting up the Tang Mo, plus the ruined building, and a few other mercenaries (the next lot seem to be Imperials). Following this Tuesday and that ruin being finished I should be moving onto more Hlallu buildings, particularly I have my eye on a guard tower at the moment.
...So yes, bide your time dealing with this waffle. I'll do my best to have something actually painted tonight. =P
I had the notion to upload these pictures before work today (even if it did keep me up till two this morning), so here, have a cheeky wee update.
The last of the current batch of ruins now that I've used up all that cork board making other buildings (hmn, actually all the cork was supposed to go entirely towards those, I just happened to blag some for myself...). I left off any graffiti this time so that any town that I make doesn't look like its been overrun by taggers. ...Perhaps they had something better to do (like running away from a Dreugh) when they happened by this building.
Plus here's that Tang Mo mercenary as well. I doubt I'll do much more with this particular race, but it could be a part of a set of random mercenaries (or even an Akaviri force of Asian style warriors and snake people...)
Right, beyond that there's not much else to say as far as progress goes. I have some Imperials being painted, a Treasure Hunter and Expeditionary Force soldier in Newt Scale armour. What's actually going to be finished however is another matter. =P
Weekend terrain bash out. Some bits to fill out the gaps between buildings. This is the first lot of market stalls I've slapped together, though I have a few more unpainted and could make some collapsed ones.
Just balsa as ever. Not sure if I'd make ones with cloth as they wouldn't hold up as well as wooden ones. Which is to say a ruined stall which had a cloth cover would just be a couple of sticks standing in the ground in a ruined marketplace (which don't hold up too well being shoved in a terrain box). Oh, there's some street signs in there too, not that anyone cares.
Some of them are taken from the Elder Scrolls Online actually. So aye they're to go with the Hlaalu terrain as line of sight blockers for the streets and open spaces.
I need to find some 28mm books actually. They're so expensive and I don't want to just make some out of paper. Hirst Arts do a mold for some along with other little bits, which would be useful, but I'm not sure I want to dump £30 just on that. :(
I managed the Telvanni mushroom house over the weekend there. In order to merge it with the Hlaalu ruins I'd perhaps stick it in the middle of some ruined walls (along with loose giant mushrooms / roots) as though its been grown over the foundations.
More on that can be found earlier in the thread. Suffice to says its a polystyrene ball covered in milliput.
Besides that, here's a WIP of the next of the Hlaalu ruins (still sans milliput). A guard tower. I'll make another which is the mirror of this and ruined at some point. Design liberties were taken with this as the in-game one is just a solid block with a door at the bottom and a trap door at the roof, the exposed upper section is enclosed, which doesn't seem so interesting for playing with. I cut those bits open and added a signal fire, whilst still hopefully retaining the original look.
Its like one in the morning, so that means nobody'll ever read this till many many years after my death (after Yakface has stuck his head into a jar and turned Dakka into a dancing puppy .gif website). Whatever, deal with it, I can't be arsed typing this up at work tomorrow. =P
I've been super lazy lately, but got through with building and painting this this weekend. The guard tower would have been painted as well, but I ran out of brown paint. ...I really should buy more than one pot of that particular colour at a time considering that all this Hlaalu stuff uses that as a primer as do all my bases. Whatever, here, have a stairway to nowhere.
Its a Silt Strider port, but seeing as the guys I play with seemingly haven't played any Bethesda games, it'll just be a random set of stairs to them. I just kind of thought that I needed something tall for archers to be dicks to everyone off of.
The original design is from a piece of concept art from DeviantArt. That one's in the Indoril style, but who cares? I left off the canopies from this picture as they'd just be asking to be broken.
And image spam. I'll probably go back to this thing and add some Elder Scrolls themed posters which I've picked up off of DeviantArt as well ...once I buy some more printer ink that is. Gotta love that poster/ graffiti spam .
Aye, so this week it'll be that guard tower that's painted then planning to make another ruin. We'll see if I can get all this stuff finished and played with by the end of the year, but well, Fallout 4. ...Not just taking up my life through playing it. No, that's the same problem everyone'll be dealing with. No, (most of) you lot won't be bloody making models from that game too.
How on earth do you paint those buildings? They look great! Very realistic. Do you use stippling, washes, sponges, dry brushing?
Also, for your Frostgrave games, do you use any house rules to modify the game to better suit the Elder Scrolls universe? As I understand it, in Frostgrave it's all about the Wizards. They're the ones who grow in power, gaining new abilities and equipment whereas the non-Wizard henchmen are just there as back ground characters to support the Wizards, and don't have the same degree of progression and customization. That doesn't seem very suitable for Elder Scrolls, where Wizards, Fighters and Rogues are all on a equal footing (Player Character wise).
Um, hmn. Base coat black. Smother in Baneblade brown. Give it an Agrax Earthshade wash. Drybrush Baneblade Brown. Bit of Khemri Brown, then random stippling of browns/ greys/ green.
The magic factor is laziness. Seriously I use the same method for all my terrain. - Black - Main colour - wash - main colour - highlight - random colours - oh, and can't forget the black outline over everything.
As for the rules Frostgrave is pretty generic. It even says that the names for things are just stand ins. For the most part the rules suite for the setting. I mean soldiers are soldiers and bandits are bandits. Sure the rules have Wizards being overpowered, but I'd hope to see non-Wizard leaders coming in later down the line. Though that brings me back to the rules being generic. You don't have to have your leader as a wizard. Those spells could equally be proxied for commanders - "bone dart" could be "throwing knife / hand crossbow", the wall of smoke a smoke bomb, possessing a soldier instead being spurring them on with a courageous speech.
I'd also note that the games I've played of Frostgrave have involved a fair bit of rules lawyering. ...So maybe adding in House rules at this stage might not be the best idea. Least if we actually want to finish a game. I could get away with writing up my own rules a lot with 7Tv as I was the only the one who really played it, the other guys just turned up for games for the setting/ models. Though not to derail this tangent, which may be for the best at this point, that does remind me to go and pick up the This is Not a Test rules.
Speaking of This Is Not A Test, I've started assembling the first of my Brother Vinni Miniatures. A BOS Paladin, Commander Shepard and Hilda, the Swashbuckler Rogue/Fighter with sword and dagger/shield. The latter may see use as a Rogue or Fighter in D&D 5e.
May have had this painted last week, but I wanted to stick some posters onto it, but ran out of ink. Crap came up, so that didn't happen, so here's there's the guard tower anyway.
Oddly the series has had little in the way of graffiti and posters. =/
All that Hlaalu stuff is made from cut up cork tiles with a bit of balsa wood for stability. Party because I don't have to tidy up the edges like foam so much. That and it has a sort of porous texture which is nice for this style of building.
Did I say that I was going to make anything last time? Hmn, may have mentioned this in my Fallout thread. Anyhow, this is what I've been up to for this Elder Scrolls stuff.
Despite being set in Morrowind, this is the Skyrim version of Dwemer armour rather than the Morrowind one. Perhaps in part because the later's a bit low poly (though saying that, here's an updated version of it). Hope he looks all right. =P
The shield's not attached as its still curing. Though he's on a 30mm base right now I'll cut him down to a regular sized one to paint. The larger base was just for ease with the sculpting. For the unaware, here's what he's based on.
Hmn, I aught to probably cast him up, then hack off bits of the armour to use as loot. Unfortunately I want to paint him, so I'm not sure if I should be putting that off. Saying that, there's always more things which could be sculpted. =P
Current (early) WIPs which are flying about. I've ordered some instant mold stuff, so I'll make molds of the Dwemer / Enclave suits first before painting them, in case I need spare bits later (better than having to sculpt little bits from scratch).
Left to right: Alit, Kwama Warrior, warrior in Dwemer Armour, Shields: Light Imperial (missing the boss), Netch round shield, Bonemold tower shield, Netch tower shield. Random armature.
And the Dwemer warrior complete, for the sake of it. =P
Its a Reaper Miniatures insect warrior. I think its called an Ice Terror/ Demon/ Horror, something along those lines. I'm just going to swap out its upper torso and arms, and extend its nethers a bit. Beyond that it has a decent enough resemblance to the Online version of the Kwama Warrior for me.
Though I am sitting here with the of a Kwama Forager. If I'm going to be making molds I should be able to copy a few of these if I need enough for a hive. =P
I slapped this thing together last night too. Its a warrior in Light Dwemer Armour from the Online game. I'll probably give her an axe and maybe a sword.
Life got in the way of pictures last night. Will probably pain up a test Kwama Forager tonight. I say test as it was made during my lunch break, but I guess given that its a horde type critter it doesn't have to look fabulous. In other news I've been trying out making some molds, but so far the results haven't been amazing. I'm not sure if they take to greenstuff well as opposed to plastics (greenstuff's softer, so the edges aren't as defined). I'll persevere I suppose ...though I'm not sure if the current results are worth showing (they're pretty bad. The Dwemer Shield I was practicing comes out looking like its sculpted from chocolate).
I'm painting up the two Dwemer Warriors right now, but didn't have the time to finish those today. Instead have something which I threw together this morning instead.
In Frostgrave this would count as a Necromage, but Morrowind players will probably know it better as an Ascended Sleeper. Its mounted on a 25mm base right now, but I'll boost it up to a 30mm one before its done to give it more of a presence. Its all greenstuff bar a pair of Mantic Ghoul arms, and aye, the tentacles aren't finished.
...Yes I am aware that the Sixth House ended after the fall of Dagoth Ur, but whatever, that's no excuse to pass on making a cool model. =P
I'd mean to have the Ascended Sleeper painted, but binging on Hell on Wheels and Justified got in the way. Next time I guess.
Damn, and I still have that Enclave Hellfire Trooper to paint. ...OK, will get that done before the new game is out. Promise! *lies*
Anyway, pictures. Sorry if anything's out of focus, doing this quick before I go out so its not Sunday when I post this. =P
Both Dwemer Warriors, the Skyrim Heavy Armour version and the Online Light Armour one are done. I guess they'd just be regular party members. That or I make some Dwemer constructs and have a whole warband of these types.
And the quickie Kwama Forager.
Or rather a maggot from the Binding of Isaac.
Plus a Dark Brotherhood Assassin painted up in the Skyrim colours. Its an anonymous succubus model with the wings lopped off which I happened to have sitting spare.
And done. So on the books is the Ascended Sleeper and that Enclave Hellfire Trooper. I aught to make some more ruins really, but bah, laziness!
So from front left to rear left. Chitin armoured warrior, Bonemold Armoured Telvanni mage (an upgrade to my existing Apprentice maybe), Redoran Watchman, Bonemold Armoured Ancestor Skeleton and an armoured Ordinator (shield needs straps).
Plus terrain. ...Because I really need more buildings to actually play a game on properly =P
The Royal Guard Armour is perhaps a bit too specific a set given the setting, but hey that's being picky. I have an Ordinator decades after the Temple was devolved, so who's to care? =P
Which version though?
The Original:
An Oblivion remake:
Or Skyrim's:
Or another one from Skyrim:
I prefer the last one as its less Imperial looking, well at least having more Dunmer leanings.
I had a game yesterday, so rushed through painting these overnight. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the actual board. =/
Another Telvanni wizard. As I'm playing a Frostgrave campaign this one may wind up replacing the existing apprentice wearing a Molecrab Helmet at some point.
An Ancestor Skeleton construct (made by taking a regular skeleton and adding some extra bones to it - the cloth bits cover up the joins). They guard Dunmer tombs along with other necromatic creatures (which never made it into the actual game, for instance Nix Hound exo-skeletons with priest's skulls for heads).
Another Chitin Armoured warrior. I avoided using as much white this time around, which I think looks better.
A Bonemold armoured Redoran Watchman.
And an Indoril Ordinator. The leg's pose is crap. =P
Oh yeah, and I'm not sure I posted these on the other page, but what I based some of the models on.
Tangentially I've been asked to make some models for the Numenera RPG setting. I could start a new thread for those, but seeing as I already have three ongoing ones I think I'll just stick them in here. ...Even if the first model I made is a mage in a space suit.
I've been asked to make some models for the Numenera RPG setting by someone at my club. My knowledge of that particular game isn't very deep, but I know its broad enough that I can get away with a lot.
As a test run I've had a go at making models for each of the game's three major classes: Glaive , Jack and Nano (Warrior, Rogue and Mage). Here's the greens of each, I'll be painting them throughout the week hopefully.
I'll have to see what she thinks when I give her the models. I'm not sure if they're too heavily armoured for a generic adventuring party (hey Rogues can wear plate armour). Trial and error I suppose. Expect the Glaive to be painted in brown/ orange, Jack to be red/white and Nano in a grey/blue.
And yes, all that ruffled cloth was a real pain in the arse.
Here's a Nord Bandit as well. Thirs was originally for the Numenera stuff, but decided it was looking too low-fantasy like for that setting. He still needs a bit of touching up, but he'll do for posting at the moment.
I'll need those first three painted for next week. On top of those I have a couple of portacabins and sheds for my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stuff, though, well, that's for another thread.
I've not been in much mood for painting, or taking pictures of what I have finished lately, but well, here's what I've managed since last year.
A Kwama Warrior (originally starting out as a Reaper Miniatures Ice Horror - or whatever its called -, then resculpted).
Its based on the Elder Scrolls Online version, as oposed to the original. The big difference is that rather than being a symbiote of a Kwama Worker and worm like Forager, they're just straight soldier ants.
An Ascended Sleeper.
The Ash Priestess from yonks ago...
A wee Argonian bandit, made from a Achtung Cthulhu Deep One. All I did was give it some weapons and a snout (thus the fish eyes).
Random Chitin Armoured bandit.
Plus a pair of WIPs. A Redoran Guardsman and a Skyrim style Chitin armoured warrior.
Besides from Morrowind, here's the Numemera stuff painted up as well. In future I think I'll go for more of a sci-fi look with these, and probably tone down the amount of armour too. We'll see.
To plan then with this stuff is ...um. Wells there's more WIPs laying about, but whether I finish any of those is up in the air. As for terrain though I'm making some sets of scaffolding. The idea's so as to make the boards look more ruinous/ enable 3D movement. Bitch to paint though.
I should just start another thread in the RPG subforum for that stuff. If you read through my other three threads you'll see I start each new setting by posting in the previous thread and going "yeah, this might take off, but I CBA starting a new thread right now".
...Though the same goes for those settings that I didn't bother with. Looking at you The Walking Dead, The Last of Us and that random 40K stuff I found in a box.
I think a separate project log would be a good idea actually. Add it to your signature. I frequently get confused when you bounce back and forth between settings in a single thread. I follow all of your project logs because your models and terrain are so damn cool and characterful.
And speaking of The Last of Us...I recently got the Joel and Ellie miniatures from Hasslefree miniatures. TLOU would be a great setting for a game. With it being a modern setting, you have a huge range of miniatures to choose from. A couple guys at my club have the entire range of Zombicide board games between them, so we'd have a huge supply of zombie stand in's. I might pick up Warlord Game's new zombie wargame for that.
The Last of Us would be easy enough to do as a game. Two issues though:
Scale - would it be just the two main characters against a load of enemies, or more generic group on group.
Terrain: A lot of the game takes place in a central urban setting. So lots of tenement blocks and multi-stories would be required as apposed to the regular one floor ruins most people have.
I made a few models for it, but they never went anywhere as I'm not too invested in the setting (who have guess. RPG games where I have hundreds of hours hold my interest more than first person shooters). For an actual The Last of Us thread check out this one.
Well not necessarily. Who says you have to focus on Joel and Ellie? You could focus on the multiplayer setting instead.
You could do Fireflies vs Military. Survivors vs Scavengers and Cannibals. Infected as an environmental hazard. Joel and Ellie might be a sort of special character mercenaries who can be taken as allies for certain groups (Fireflies and Scavengers).
I believe the new Mantic Games board game for The Walking Dead and Warlord games' zombie wargame are doing something similar, focusing on groups of competing survivors with the zombies as environmental hazards.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
For an actual The Last of Us thread check out this one.
Oh cheers. I have those exact Joel and Ellie miniatures.
Setting wise it'd also depend on the style of game. It could be a generic action style game, or one based around survival and looting. Scavenge Skirmish Survive is a game where two groups face off against each other attempting to secure as much loot as possible and give the enemy a bloody nose. However that game's more about the former, and there's enough environmental hazards + animals (and if you so chose, zombies) to give everybody a hard time without bullets flying.
I guess I aught to update this on what I've worked on since the last update.
Don't get your hopes up, I've been really lazy...
Right, greens:
An Orc Warrior. Aye his arms are too long. Luckily one's being covered with a shield!
A Redoran Archer in stripped down Bonemold armour:
Random dude in Bonemold/ crappy picture:
Hlaalu Guardsman:
Not a green, but a neat mini I found. A Vigilant of Stendarr?
As for terrain..
Another mushroom house:
And a tower for my Hlaalu stuff:
Plus, something actually painted, some roads:
At the moment I'm playing the Frostgrave Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign with a friend. Anything being made will wind up being influenced by the needs of that.
The third scenario involves a treasure cart being ambushed. Thus the roads, and the tower with the road running beneath (as the ambush point). Along with the Bonemold armoured models which are replacements for my existing warband models - having upgraded them.
Oh, and as for Frostgrave, at odds with my terrain, I played a game using actual winter terrain...
Followed by this.
Aye, the second shot's table looks crap, though it was limited by the scenario. We needed something to simulate an empty river with a ship in the middle see.
What? That's totally a ship.
Aww screw you guys!
Aye I'll see what I can paint. The priority's the tower, the archer, a couple of unpictured barricades then whatever else I can be arsed with. Then its a case of sticking my hand into my bag of holding and picking out whatever unpainted crap looks shiny.
Maybe not the update which was planned (damn, I would have liked to have had that tower finished), but blame that on my "ooh shiny" tendencies.
With Into the Breeding Pits coming out, and my love for dungeon crawlers, I thought it'd be cool to get into that setting. The plan was just to use my club's stuff. However we have a tiny bit of the Dwarven Forge stuff, and a load of Heroclix style copy and paste bits. Neither really usable for a decent board.
So I thought I'd try my hand at some. ...And start yet another bloody project.
Early days, but here's what I managed overnight.
They smallest pieces are 4'' by 4'', with everything else being a multiplication of that. The 8'' by 8'' will be the main mass of the table, but I'm sticking in the weirder pieces for gap filling.
The plan's to start out with the generic bits and then start adding in details like tombs in the walls, ores/ geodes, etc. From there may then I'd start adding Dwemer bits. I'd considered including a mine or Dunmer ancestral tomb, but the Dwemer stuff would look cooler.
How does the rock texture look? I was going for something like sandstone.
I've tried modular dungeon sets before, but never made it further than the test pieces. Any advise for making these things? I'm already banging my head and tidying up the edges so there isn't massive gaps. :(
Hmn, and now I'm wondering just how much of this stuff an Into the Breeding Pits game would require? A 1 by 1 board? 2 by 2? ...3 by 3? 0.o
I just sorta skimmed the thread, sweet models BTW. If your still looking for Argonians. The Warlord Reptus by Reaper may work for you, specifically the Clutchlings as they arent super buff.
I actually have an Argonian sitting mostly painted right now. ...But as it'd be mercenary, and its equipment don't fit in with my current warband, its seen no use.
If Frostgrave had rules for bandit NPCs though I'd have plenty of use out of my random minis. A future expansion perhaps.
Game tonight, maybe pictures if the board doesn't look too shoddy. Also should bother my arse to take pictures of some of the newer stuff afterwards.
I'll post crap tonight once I'm home. My opponent was late to the game, so I didn't manage many pictures, but I'll see what I can filch out.
As for the cave system. At this moment I have the basic tiles there for all of the initial round of bits. ...They're just missing any detail. Already I'm looking at what I have and noticing I'm short some duplicates, for ease of setting the table up in a different configuration. They're not a priority to add, but the plan's to finish off this first set then move onto making different types of tiles for larger boards.
With the caves, it looks like most people make there's just out of large tiles, not the smaller ones. Hmn, am I doing it wrong? Heh, or I guess that way's just easier to build and plan. The way that I'm doing it means I can swap in different sets easier, and have more variety in setups.
...Even if it'll be a right headache to have all the ends line up properly. I'll cough up a lung from all the sanding.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'll post crap tonight once I'm home. My opponent was late to the game, so I didn't manage many pictures, but I'll see what I can filch out.
As for the cave system. At this moment I have the basic tiles there for all of the initial round of bits. ...They're just missing any detail. Already I'm looking at what I have and noticing I'm short some duplicates, for ease of setting the table up in a different configuration. They're not a priority to add, but the plan's to finish off this first set then move onto making different types of tiles for larger boards.
With the caves, it looks like most people make there's just out of large tiles, not the smaller ones. Hmn, am I doing it wrong? Heh, or I guess that way's just easier to build and plan. The way that I'm doing it means I can swap in different sets easier, and have more variety in setups.
...Even if it'll be a right headache to have all the ends line up properly. I'll cough up a lung from all the sanding.
I need to make sure my middle son never sees this thread... Not only is he into Frostgrave, he LOVES TES particularly Morrowind, I'll never hear the end of it lmao
Beautiful stuff! what an awesome idea as well.
Plus I love your modular cave system - I'm trying to work out something similiar for just a general watery type board so I will follow with interest!
Right, here's some bits and bobs for y'all to gander at.
I'd forgotten to post these ruins, so here's more of the generic Hlaalu homes. These ones have posters and hanging moss for a bit of variety at least.
Still more of those to finish...
I rushed this so I could have it for a game. Here's that tower I'd posted. Functionally I don't even know what its supposed to be? A house? Toll booth? Small chapel? Uh...
And pictures of last night's board. I hadn't the time to take many in game pictures unfortunately as we started a bit later than we'd intended.
Specifically though, I did take a picture of the start of a scrum in the middle of the board. The scenario was that a cart with treasure had thrown a wheel in the middle of the board, and it was up to the players to murder everyone and steal the treasure.
Queue the cart's owners being murderilized over the first two turns then a dozen player models stabbing each other for the rest of the game.
...We were both cheeky enough to have thieves sneak in behind the combats and steal all the loot away though.
I lost a third of my warband. My opponent lost a dog. No biggee though, as dead guys mean I can replace them with new minis (notably I'll be sticking a Captain in I think).
Ah, and here's my forgetting, here's my warband going into the game. 3 Treasure Hunters, 3 Knights, 2 Rangers, 1 Rangifer (...the big bug), a Warhound, and my Wizard and their Apprentice.
The next game in the campaign will involve skeletons and some altars, so there's an excuse for me to finish painting those fellers and make some Reclamations shrines.
I've been skiving off this weekend, so other than the bits and bobs of sculpting on the train, it'll be later tonight when I work on anything.
Though I just noticed I have two weeks off from work coming up...
Well temple stuff could be mixed in with the existing cave terrain which I'm working on. It wouldn't be difficult to slot in some Velothi ancestral tombs there.
Though I need a focus for the caves. I could make quite a few addons - Kwama Mins/ Glass Mines/ Ancestral Tombs/ Dwemer Ruins/ Sewers, etc, but I don't have the time to make all of them.
I could get away with having one big tile and a couple of smaller ones for the Kwama/ Glass mines/ tomb stuff, but the Dwemer stuff would need a lot more work and sections.
An actual Dunmer temple ruin could be a possibility, though how it would be built is what's put me off. It'd have a large floor space, but also be multi-level. I could get away with remove most of the upper level I suppose, though it'd still need to keep the look somehow. Doable, but a ways away.
Also, I'd have to keep something that large in a box of its own for transport...
Anyway, I'm off to burn through a couple of dozen milliput sticks.
There was an English football game today =/= I had 2 hours free at work so:
Finished this one. Well, mostly; still need to do the shoes/tidy that quiver.
She's a ranger, so bow, hand weapon and leather armour (or stripped down Bonemold).
Whilst that dried, a quickie. A mockup for a Dwemer Sphere.
I did that as a test for making more. I could probably get away with doing most of the sculpting in one pass, but the details aught to have been done on top of mostly set clay.
Besides that, I found some Malifaux Void Wretches on the cheap.
I have a chronic lack of updates here unfortunately, but I've another game this week, so more crap's been finished.
Firstly, I painted the Bonemold wearing Ranger.
Whom I rather like, but well you'll say that about whatever's the latest thing you made; then hate it in a year's time.
Now I need to make a captain model...
(and finish all the other greens I have laying about)
This week's scenario involves pillars marking out an area of the table. There's four in the game, but only three of these shrines in the games, but I'll find something workable.
Those represent the 3 central Dunmer deities (post Red Year) - Azura, Boethiah and Mephala. I could make shrines in a different style to the Saints, but these will do for furniture/ objectives for now.
Oh, and they're just a 30mm lipped base, with a two triangles of plasticard mounted on top, then a wad of shaped milliput on that. Bugger all effort - bar the milliput being a bit naff quality.
Besides that stuff, I painted up some more loose bits.
The odd smaller ruin to fill in gaps.
And a go at scaffolding (which I made ages ago, but never got around to painting), which goes along with the ruins for easier access to the more intact buildings.
Depending on how things go I might make another few of the smaller pieces. Though I'm short of pretty much everything terrain wise.
So, I've made it a bit further towards filling out my terrain set, though'm still short of the enclosed alley system I want my Hlaalu board to look like.
I need more less ruined buildings I guess. ...Or just larger ruins with higher walls. Ack, I'll soon by having to take two boxes of stuff with my in order to play on 3x3 tables. :(
A Hlaalu Guardsman, or a Knight for the purposes of Frostgrave.
What kind of silly guard walks about with a tower shield and Gladius instead of just a shield/sword? Ah, video games...
He'll perhaps stand in as a Captain in my next game (I just made an armature for a captain and a new Wizard tonight), but ultimately is there to replace the Ordinator I'm using right now (which looks crap).
Rules: in the middle of the table is an open area surrounded by four pillars (we choose to assume they were the remains of a temple). At the end of turn 3 the skeletons within this area come to life.
In reality - the usual "run up, steal the treasure, trade some blows/ run away" affair. By the time the skeletons had arisen we'd already taken the treasure and retreated. =/
(Personally I'd have it so the skeletons rise as you enter the area, rather than at a random point later in the game)
Not amazing pictures, but here's the warbands involved. My own Summoner group, and the opposing Witch led lot.
No, that bear isn't cute at all. Its ferocious!
...And like the fifth one which the witch has taken from an animal sanctuary (on the promise of best intents to its owners), only to have it stabbed to death by yet another of my (4) knights. :(
Sorry if the game pics are a bit dull (and sparring - we tend to be short on time).
Taking things forward the push right now's to finish my Captain model. The cave work will continue obviously, though I could also do with more intact buildings (I've too many ruined ones, whereas I want a alleyway looK) and perhaps scatter terrain like crate piles.
Another 2 weeks off from work yet, so I'll see where things go.
The walls will be the cave texture. The rear one though may be have a Tribunal temple fresco (painted separately then stuck on later). The central triangle platform will be left as it is, but with the side areas having cobbles.
The central circle will be an ash pit with loose bones. Aye, and I'll replace the Christian crosses on the coffins in the alcoves, and replace them with Tribunal marks (or just scratch build some new ones from balsa).
I'm waffling a bit, but aye, there's where the caves are right now. The rest of the pieces are being worked on too slowly, but they're a struggle. Every time I lay down all the pieces I come up short on different shapes and push myself back. I could limit myself to certain setups, though that'll just cause headaches later when trying to actually build a table.
All clayed up and ready to paint, well bar sanding down the clay a bit.
* the rectangle of plasticard at the back isn't glued down yet, thus the weird angle its sitting at.
Looking at it, it looks like it aught to represent an ancestral tomb, rather than a shrine or temple. Which I guess fits the cave system terrain. I'll maybe add some coffins to some of the smaller pieces to fit this.
Thoughts on any changes I should make before painting it?
1. I LOVE morrowind. So i'll be following this closely. (I still like the other elder scrolls but they're nowhere near as great imo)
2. I really wanted to get into frostgrave and this is some wonderful inspiration.
Consider me subbed, i can't wait to see more
And have an exalt!
I'm thinking of doing a Morrowind based skirmish game as well. Have you done any tweaks to frostgrave mechanics for the ES races? I was debating between FG and mordheim, building around a group of those trollforged dunmer minis, supplementing with reaper or some such. Hm.
@ Kennizard (who’s post doesn’t seem to be appearing on my end properly. Weird)
Frostgrave works on a D20 system, so there’s not enough variance to justify dedicated stats for each race (+1 defence or agility can make a big difference). Besides that, in the base game there’s little variation between regular humans, its their equipment which sets them apart (a 6.5 body builder thug has the same stags as a 5.2 guy).
The Trollforge minis are quite nice, you’d just have to add in some fantasy minis wearing bone armour or Asian looking ones with head swaps to make Dunmer quite easily.
I’m posting nout right now, as I’ve wound up making too many things at once, but finishing none of it. Of the top of my head I have:
Another Dwemer warrior (with a 2 handed hammer)
An Imperial Villa
Another Hlaalu house
Treasure Tokens
Magical Rune Tokens
The caves. The bloody caves…
And uh, other stuff, but the above lot is what’s 60%+ finished.
If it matters I have some WWII crap sitting there right now (and intend to buy some more at the game’s show at the start next month) for Konflikt ’47.
I've a pile of in progress stuff which seems to sit in that state forever, but as I've been sanding down the odd bit of this crap tonight, here's a 16'' by 16'' section of caves (or rather the particular set of tiles which I could be arsed to set up).
There's a major amount of sanding and gap filling to do in the hope of keeping the sections flush with one another. That'll never happen though as I don't have a belt sander (oh god how I wish I had a belt sander), but I'm hardly a perfectionist.
The current plan's to have a smattering of grey exposed rock, with the odd bit of greenery in the form of moss covered sections dotted about. Small mushrooms can be added (made from greenstuff, scew paying £5 for a handful of tiny resin ones), though I seem to have a real thing for random urns laying about (where else does one find potions?). These are supposed to be the generic sections which can be used for anything, so nothing too outlandish yet.
There's a load of other ongoing bits and bobs of all sorts, but nothing really in a state to post (I have an Imperial townhouse sitting there, but its been used to store unfinished minis, and I keep knocking chunks off of it). I've also started two WWII projects, that'll never go anywhere, on the side.
...But seeing as Into the Breeding Pits has just came out, and the Ghoul King's Lair scenario is up next in a campaign I'm part of, having the caves finished is becomming a priority.
Checking this again because it's glorious. A couple of points: Dunmer seem to cremate rather than bury, remember those ash pits in the middle of the Tribunal Temples, and the bonemeal in all the urns?
Also if you need four pillars and want to assign Morrowind shrines to them, just use one of the saints, or the shrine to Almsivi as a whole. They're like Catholics where they have a shrine to each aspect as well as to the whole thing together, and ones for individual saints as well. Nerevar would be the obvious choice if you go for a saint, but the Tribunal looks cooler.
Just wanted to say that I love this blog. As someone who's probably racked up about 500 hours playing Morrowind, I've fallen in love with its lore and aesthetics and your minis have captured that essence perfectly.
Particularly love the terrain - shrine/ancestral cave looks fantastic.
Hmn, did I actually finish anything since I posted those caves? They're finished now, but need some repainting after being chipped during games. There's a guy in Morrowind style Dwarven armour too somewhere. ...Its been a while, and well, I have another project ongoing (I didn't post it here, as things tend to become swallowed up by all the 40K blogs). Tonight's my last game in the Lich Lord campaign for Frostgrave, so my Morrowind stuff is of low priority now compared to the Bolt Action army (alternative history Germans, there's pictures in my gallery) I have games lined up for. :/
This is, no word of a lie, the best thing I have seen on Dakka.
Morrowind was such a seminal thing in my childhood, opening up the world of fantasy and science fiction to me. It's one of my all-time favourite things.
To see it come to life in this way is nothing short of magical
Edit: I'm still waiting in vain for an Elder Scrolls RTS set during to forging of the Cyrodillic Empire. That's my personal gaming holy grail...
As for the IP. Companies have proposed licensing it, and other games they produce, but Bethesda aren't interested. I know a guy who had a whole Fallout dungeon crawler game made (with models and a Vault board), but Bethesda turned him down. :/
I played the last game in the 4 month (or was it 6, maybe 7...?) campaign I was running last night there. The problem with this thread that new models were being made to replace the existing warband members. Nobody was dying! I have the greens there for new models, but without a need to replace anything I kept going with my other projects.
My current plan though for Frostgrave is to start another campaign in a few months. I'm considering making it a home brew, merging the cave rules from Into the Breeding Pits and the Barbarians from Forbidden Pacts. That'll give me an excuse to start on more cave sections, and a Nords to serve to use for random enemies tables for overland locations. Also... I'll be ditching my Dark Elves for that and replacing them with Dwemer, or at least folks wearing Dwarven armour and toting about automaton (still need to work out how to make those without them breaking all the time; so spindly).
But aye, short term I'm working on some Germans. I'll settle with enough for a bit of variety in 1250-1500 pts games and then move onto something else (probably this again, if I can stir up the interest in players to run a proper campaign).
Hey Wyrmalla, have you ever made any Argonian miniatures? If so, could you recommend any Argonian/ lizard man type miniatures or head bits? I've been looking for a mini to represent my friends Dragonborn (like Argonians, but stocky and heavy built and no tail) Fighter in our Dungeons and Dragons campaign for a long time now.
Huh, I have more Argonians than it appears I posted in this thread. There's off in a cupboard somewhere, so I CBA finding them to take pictures (along with that finished cave system).
Whenever I go back and run another Frostgrave (or rather that other game they came out with) campaign I'll come back to my Morrowind stuff. Right now I've only just started a WWII force, so that's where my priorities are till I see something else shiny.
Oh, but to return to the original point. ...God I hate Argonians. The ones in the Elder Scrolls Online are just the worst (at least they'll be enslaved again the Vvradenfell expansion). :(
Well the whole thing about them being invading aliens (...literal aliens, from another world) which're mind controlled by giant sentient trees and've committed multiple genocides (both to the original human population of Blackmarsh and later the Dunmer) is secondary. ...I'm just not into animal-people in any setting.
Literal invading aliens?! Managed to miss that completely. Glad I did as well, although I do like the whole 'controlled by trees' thing as it makes them seem a lot more weird/unique than your standard lizard people.
I'm also a fan of them being pretty bloodthirsty too, as it brings a little bit of grimdark to the setting, like the whole Falmer/Dwemer relationship
Still, personal preferences and all. Them and the Khajiit are still my least favourite of the TES races. Love how they've treated the whole history of elves and humans in Tamriel personally, and Dunmer will always be my favourite
Tamriel's a plane of existence which was formed by Lorkhan snatching bits and bobs from other realities and mashing them together (the elves are particularly miffed by this as they were immortal within their realm). The Hist float through space, with a couple finding Tamriel at one point following its creation. So whilst most everything else was created by Lorkhan, not everything is (its rather like the D&D Planescape setting).
Argonians are largely independent from the Hist, either started as one of its creations, or a race it absorbed. The Hist however is linked to them , so can control them if need be. Hist are a bit like Tryanids, in that its implied they're parasitic and the gods are really unhappy about them influencing their plane (in the 9th era the elves are apparently fighting a space war against the Hist).
Iiinteresting. I'd got the various planes of existence thing, and Tamriel being basically the daedric realm of Lorkhan, but didn't know about the Hist being parasites.
TBH, I'd be perfectly happy if they kept it within the fantasy/magical trope of differing planes of existence, and the Hist are wanderers between the planes. If they're literally space aliens then that kinda breaks my suspension of disbelief slightly...
Well to go off on one (not like I don't do that often enough in my threads).
In the beginning there was Sithis, and it was the void. From the void came the Aedra/ Daedra, who created their own perfect realms.
Lorkhan was one of these gods. He tricked many of the gods into merging their realms with his, along other un-owned planes which were in the void (i.e. the Elve's plane).
As part of this the distinction of what an Aedra and a Daedra is was created. With the loss of their own realms the weakened gods were called Aedra. Daedra are functionally the same, but they have their own realms, so can draw on more power. The gods aren't good or bad, rather because the Daedra have more influence they can do what they want instead of having to appease mortals (the Aedra have committed genocides and other nasty stuff before, but are largely thought of as "good").
The Aedra, unhappy with Lorkhan killed him and split his body across Nirn. His essence spread across the planet, which is own creations - humanity, frequently drew upon. Reincarnations of Lorkhan are uncommon, but have appeared multiple times in history to general feth with reality (Shezaar leading the Nords to invade Morrowind to reclaim the Heart of Lorkhan, the player characters....).
Reality isn't a constant though. It comes in cycles of repeated events. There's always Sithis and Lorkhan, and Lorkhan always creates Tamriel, and then fights the time eater Alduin at the end of existence. Besides them, Mehrunes Dagon is always there too, a mortal who would hide parts of the previous cycle away from the gods.
...Apart from in the current rotation which the games are set in Akatosh killed Lorkhan and had Auriel shoot his heart into the Red Mountain. Mehrunes Dagon was a mortal yes, but he became the god of destruction rather than preservation.
I apologize if I was rude about the coffee thing, it was just a joke.
Love the graffiti, I didn't notice that the first time.
