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Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/13 07:03:53


Post by: Syro_


Hello Everyone,

I have quite of backlog of projects I'll try to start uploading to this blog. I haven't had much hobby time lately, but I hope to change that soon. What time I have had, I've spend on the League of Extraordinary Riveters terrain competition:


I'll start with one of my more recent projects. Making dollar store dinosaurs into ork squiggoths.


I thought these stegosaurus I found at dollar tree had a really good shape for a big squiggoth in the body and legs. I constantly get stuff from the dollar store for projects and kitbashing.


Partway through surgery. I then removed the tail and shortened the neck more. (forgot to take a pic without tail)


Using "Apoxie Sculpt", I made a head and a tail for the big squiggoth. I then made molds using "Amazing Mold Putty". I go through so much mold putty in my projects.


head from a different angle


Shot of the tail


Proof of the molds, 2 heads and 2 tails


An unfinished big squiggoth

I've gotten to the unfinished stage of the last photo with five big squiggoths. I still need to make the armor and howdah for each. I got a little stumped how to make the armor plates look best, and then got distracted by other projects. I plan to get back to these guys soon.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/13 21:56:54


Post by: Scarper


Beautiful sculpting and a really characterful head. Looking forward to seeing him painted up!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/14 21:51:50


Post by: Syro_


Scarper, thanks for checking out the beginning of my hobby blog and for the kind comments. I do hope to get back to working on these guys soon.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/15 03:27:47


Post by: kestral


I like that squiggoth! Really effective conversion.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/15 21:56:42


Post by: Wirecat


Not bad! Wondering how this will end - subscribed!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/15 23:03:52


Post by: craggy


Looking good! A huge transformation with only a couple of changes. Looking forward to more.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/16 00:21:00


Post by: Syro_


Everyone, thank you for the support and interest. It makes me happy that you find my projects interesting. I haven't had any real time to work on projects including my squiggoths, but I can at least continue uploading my other projects. I started making this guy back in April of this year, and consider him done except for needing painting. I like making things a lot more than painting them, so I always have a huge backlog of things waiting for paint. I love they way they look once I paint them, but it's still hard to get myself to do it.

I've been working on a Nurgle daemon army, that I want to be completely scratch built and sculpted (except for plague bearers). I think the Daemon Prince Mamon from the siege of Vraks is a cool model, so I wanted to make one for my army. I've finished a total of four daemons of Nurgle so far, the other three are greater daemons. I feel this sculpt is the best looking of all of them.


I really like to get moving on things when I feel inspired, so I often forget to stop and take pictures at important steps. This is the earliest pic of my Mamon sculpt It still shows a little of the armature. The right arm is already finished. I super glued sand to three thick plastic tubes to hopefully mimic heavy rust on the barrels.




Next time I stopped for photos the body was mostly finished



parts of the head/face built


Basically finished


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/22 16:28:38


Post by: jabbakahut


Inspired looking work, I love taking random toys and converting them into 40K stuff. The last thing I bought was a couple plastic eagles. I cut off the heads to make a two-headed eagle sculpture for an Imperial building.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/22 22:14:44


Post by: Syro_


@jabbakahut, thank you. I love to convert toys for 40k also. I constantly dismantling stuff from the dollar store as raw materials. The the eagle sculpture is a cool idea.

I'd also like to say thank you to everyone who has shown interest in my squiggoth project. It's been shelved for at least 6 months, but I started working on it again this weekend because of all of you.


This is the very basic shape of the howdah, at the time it was just a rectangular box. This pic was more to show that 10 orks fit in the howdah. I like all my ork scratchbuilds and conversions to actually fit the amount of orks that their carrying capacity says they can.


side view


Today's progress of the howdah. I think it's looking a lot more like it should, now.


front view


The whole family.

When making ork stuff, I like to do my builds in true ork fashion. After the first rectangle of foamcore for the base of the howdah, I haven't measured anything. I find making ork stuff very relaxing because of this. Whenever I'm making imperial stuff I usually end up with a headache from staring at a ruler so much. Also true to ork lore, I try to make every piece unique and different from each other. So I'll be making each howdah different from the other squiggoths. I'm thinking of making one to look mostly made of wood, since Squiggoths are mostly used by snakebites. I'm also open to suggestions.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/24 12:11:36


Post by: boundless08


Gotta agree on the Ork building being relaxing, I love how you can just sit down, through some glue into some stuff and see what sticks, so to speak

I'm liking the squiggoths, can't wait to see them all completed


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/25 11:58:21


Post by: Syro_


@ boundless I love the play on words and so true. I'm looking forward to getting further on the squiggoths, no new progress yet.

I'm doing this post to talk about the LoER terrain competition that just finished. It was a lot of fun participating, and the finished piece is something I'm proud of. I was cleaning and organizing over the weekend, and pulled out all the 40k terrain that I've made over the last 2-3 years. I realized that I've never completely finished a single piece, except the one I made for the LoER comp. Any regualr viewers of this blog are going to learn that I love making, building, and sculpting stuff, but I'm not great about getting around to painting. I'm going to try to be better about that.


My main terrain. 4 imperial hab buildings, 6 spikey chaos fences, a huge ork fortress gate plus 4 wall sections, 3 ork towers, a small mek shop, a super small ork hovel, an ork storage tanker, large rocks and rock piles from playing homebrew GorkaMorka, 3 debris barricades, 2 ruined buildings, with 3 parital ruins. a feww other things, and then my fully painted LoER comp piece in front.


I've been working on making a lot of craters also.


These are some of the earliest pieces I've made. Made from cheap Christmas village trees on thick poster board. I've always planned to get rid of the white and the trees and finish basing them, but I always hope to play a Christmas themed battle before I do, so I keep putting it off.


Trees I made from sticks and craft moss. Others are trimmings from arborvitae trees. Covering the arborvitae in a thin layer of PVA has really kept the color better than I expected. They are at least 10 months old. They are getting very brittle now though.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/10/28 14:03:21


Post by: Syro_


I realized I should really post the stuff I made for the LoER terrain comp on my own blog, not just the competition one. So sorry for the huge pic dump.


This was my starting point. The theme was something having to do with children. My original idea, which i later changed, was to have a little girl hiding behind some barrels with stuffed animals around her, Some of the stuffed animals would be armed with pretend weapons to protect her. I made a barrel based off of a tutorial I found somewhere on here (I need to find it again so i can give proper credit) and made a mold of it some time ago. I cast two high quality barrels with apoxie sculpt and a junky one with used scraps of hot glue melted into the mold with some fresh. I cut the hot glue barrel in half to simulate two barrels partially buried under sand. The white blog is a piece of foam core with cheap spackle/filler on top. I didn't end up using that Mage Knight figure, but I had planned to use pieces of her for the little girl model.


Here I have glued the barrels in place and based in in sand.


Here I have finished sculpting the stuffed rabbit, and most of the part of a teddybear.


A finished shot of the bear on my hand.


The bear and rabbit completely finished with a quarter for scale. If anyone recognizes what the rabbit was made to look like, I'll be impressed. I also realized that these stuffed animals were way too big for 28mm scale


So I made an even smaller bear for the final entry. I had decided to simplify by this point, I realized that I don't like having figures who are attached to a piece of terrain and can't ever move (plus I was having a lot of trouble making the girl). And I had originally made three stuffed animals, but that made the small base they would be on too busy.


I simplified down to a single forgotten stuffed animal and some abandoned rusting guns in the sand.

There are even more pics of this project in my gallery


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/11 14:57:57


Post by: Syro_


I've been very busy with work and sick a lot lately, so I haven't gotten much done hobby wise. My first Big Squiggoth is mostly done being built. I'm going to go over mold lines one more time, green stuff the seams, and build the gun for it. Then it should be ready to paint.




As a little aside. I thought it was so thoughtful that two of my students made tanks for me as gifts. They know how much I love 40k, and have gotten very interested in it too, because of me.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/11 21:24:54


Post by: Scarper


Great stuff Syro! Particularly impressed by your sculpting and painting on those tiny stuffed toys.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/12 01:05:04


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Scarper, it's great to see you back on this thread.

Hobby wise, I had a pretty productive day, though not much to show. I built a ladder and attached it coming off the big squiggoth howdah, but didn't like it and took it back off. I also drilled a hole in the butt of a plastic horse who's tail broke off in preparation to make a new tail. Most of my hobby time was spent cleaning and organizing my work space, to hopefully gain more room to work and be able to work more efficiently. I slapped together my own version of a WIP aegis defense line. I had a pile of arch shaped pieces of foamcore from cutting out all the windows in my imperial buildings way back when. I always thought they would look nice and more Gothic in a defensive wall than the current aegis defense line. Still a lot of work to do.


New aegis defense line


Since the arms had broken off, I offered to drill and add magnets to my god son's terminator. I decided to give him some arm options also (magnetized too).


I'm guessing more Dakka users already do this, but I always glue in magnets in the same dirrection. Any right arm can be swapped for any other right arm, any left for any left, etc. This allows shenanigans like attaching terminator arms to a home made dreadnought like in the above picture which I find entertaining.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/16 02:12:46


Post by: Syro_


The next League of Extraordinary Riveters terrain competition is upon us, and I really like the topic. We are updating old card terrain into full 3D models. Click below to see the competition:


I'm going to be remaking the furniture from Hero Quest. What I'm starting with:

I think the bookcases and fireplace will benefit most from being turned 3D.


I decided to start with the sorcerer's table, even though it is mostly 3D already. I just wanted to try making the tome/book.


The glue is still wet, making it hard to see details, but this is my progress so far.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/17 03:12:35


Post by: Syro_


I started making two more book for the league competition, but it wasn't really picture worthy. I've also kind of stalled out on the squiggoths again, since I'm having trouble deciding the best way to scratch build the guns, plus it's been to cold to spray prime the one that's basically done. Any suggestions on a good way to scratch build the body of a small ork kannon would be appreciated.

I figured this would be a good time to upload another of my nurgle daemons. I made this great unclean one around the same time and my Mamon. It started as a block of heavy duty styrofoam that I built up in parts with apoxie sculpt. I try to make my nurgle daemons look happy like the lore says they are, and I feel this one turned out looking quite cute:










Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/17 14:08:21


Post by: boundless08


For some reason that great unclean one looks very Studio Ghibli to me. Creepy but kind of cute at the same time

For the Ork guns plasticard tubes are very good. Just get a few different sizes, one for the barrel and a larger one that you can cut into smaller pieces to go over the main barrel. That explanation isn't great so google image search to the rescue! the image below has two examples of just different sizes of tubing, but it's very effective.
Spoiler:




Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/17 22:03:31


Post by: Syro_


@boundless, heh heh heh, I never thought of the similarity to some studio ghibli stuff, but now I totally see it. Maybe a diseased Totoro because of his cubbiness?

Also thanks for the gun suggestion, the pic is really helping with planning out the construction.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/20 00:33:02


Post by: Syro_


A special thank you to boundless. Even though I have looked at many pictures for reference before this, the one you found a shared with me was by far the most helpful. I was sick all weekend so I didn't get much done, but I did work on making the beginnings of a kannon for my big squiggoth.


beginnings of a kannon for my big squiggoth. Note: the green styrofoam underneath is just to hold it while glue dries.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/20 05:04:19


Post by: bunnygurl


Great stuff. Really love those tiny stuffed teddies. You're quite skilled. Thanks for sharing.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/21 02:25:10


Post by: Syro_


Thank you bunnygirl, that means a lot to me. It's funny, I just started reading your blog a day or two ago. I'm on page 6 or 7 so far. I was very impressed with how you painted your minotaurs, and your khorne berserkers.

Some interesting news on the sculpting front. If anyone is curious why my most recent work is a really pale green, it's because I mixed 1 part green stuff with 2 to 3 parts apoxie sculpt. I just started yesterday, and so far I'm liking how it works. One of the only things I don't like about apoxie sculpt is that it doesn't really stick to what I'm working on, occasionally I'll be working on a piece and the newest part will slough off. The little bit of green stuff makes it just sticky enough for easy working without fighting me the entire time, while I find it still has the easier clay like properties of apoxie sculpt for sculpting.


I did some gap filling and working in the wrinkled skin pattern to make the new head and tail look more continuous with the body, I also filled in the mid-line of the body which had an obvious seam from how the toy was made. Once I finish the gun carriage, add a grot gunner, and probably a driver, the first of my big squiggoths should be ready for for painting. The blue fellow in the back, is from a triceratops toy. I don't like the look as much, but a student of mine wants to make a snakebite ork clan army, and came up with what he calls a "long tailed squiggoth", which is a big squiggoth with a long clubbed tail. I checked with him if he liked the triceratops since I'm out of stegosaurus (haven't seen any in stores for about a year), and whipped the beginnings of a long tailed squiggoth for him to work on.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/22 05:04:08


Post by: bunnygurl


Aw thanks for reading my blog, much appreciated. I can't sculpt worth a damn but I like to think I'm alright with a brush.
Squiggoths lookin' real good. My largest army is my Orks so this is really neat for me.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/23 12:27:53


Post by: Syro_


Everyone has their strengths. I'm a better sculptor and kitbasher than painter, so most of my stuff sits around primed and unpainted. I'd always rather move on to make something new. I'm glad we're enjoying each other's blogs, orks are my favorite and my largest army too. I only paint to tabletop quality, but if you have tips for me down the road, don't hesitate.

For a fellow ork fan, here's the last full army shot I took on my orks back in February 2016. I actually had made a stompa already, but it didn't fit in the display area. Sadly, I still haven't painted most of the stuff that needs paint in this picture.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/23 22:25:41


Post by: bunnygurl


Nice. When I get some time I will screw together my new gaming table and try to put all my Orks down and take a pic for you in my blog. I don't have nearly that many or any monstrous units like you do. o_O

Edit: Stupid me. I can just take a pic of them on their designated shelf on my wall of shelves (the #1 reason I bought the house was for the wall mounted shelving unit).


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/26 01:37:40


Post by: Syro_


@ bunnygurl: I enjoyed checking out your orks on your blog, thanks. Most of the stuff in my ork army is homemade or scratch built, so it's easy to make it bigger when I want to devote the time. I'm thinking of bringing out and photographing each of my armies in its entirety, right before or right after New Years. You might want to do the same.

I had hoped to get lots of hobby time over Thanksgiving break, but I haven't felt well and have done very little. I was thinking back to last Thanksgiving where in honor of "Tanksgiving" I tried to scratch build an Emperor's fist tank company. I still have a long way to go, and I haven't touched or worked on them since last Thanksgiving (Except doing the scale shot about 10 minutes ago). But I really put in a lot of work over a short period of time on these.


The turrets.


The sides plus top of the hull which the turret mounts into.


Track assemblies


I realized with nothing but white foamcore in a lot of these shots, it was hard to tell much about them. I threw in a Dark Angels Tactical marine for scale


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/26 21:31:28


Post by: bunnygurl


Holy smokes how many tanks were you building? Three? I do love me some tanks though. Tanks for sharing!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/26 22:58:39


Post by: Syro_


Heh heh, thanks bunnygurl. I was trying to build ten tanks, for an apocalypse formation. But yeah, in the last picture I only have out the treads for three tanks like you guessed.

Finally got a little bit done on the hobby front.


I attached some glyphs to the "chains" to hide imperfections. I used a mesh that came around a Christmas tree a few years ago, since it looked like miniature chains, but it's a pain to work with. After making this guy, I found out how cheap jewelry chain is and bought some. The rest of the squiggoths will have better chain.



It was finally just barely warm enough to spray prime today. This is the first model I have every primed white. I'm planning on trying out some new painting techniques. Wish me luck.



Tried sculpting wood grain for the first time today, and I'm really proud of how it came out. I can't say the same for the pictures though.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/29 02:20:40


Post by: Syro_



Sculpted some more wood to use in the Hero Quest furniture that I'm making for the League terrain competition. Also near the bottom right, what looks kind of like half a barrel is the beginnings of another treasure chest that I'm trying to make from scratch rather than having a mold of the sides.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/29 17:42:26


Post by: bunnygurl


Wood grain looks great. Are you going to paint the Hero Quest furniture you've sculpted as well?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/11/29 22:45:32


Post by: Syro_


Definitely


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/02 01:03:18


Post by: Syro_


I'm happy to see I finally got to the second page of my blog. I didn't realize how long it would take


I've continued my slow work on the current league contest, where I'm making Hero Quest furniture.
Here's a link for those interested in seeing the whole contest:


I'm also posting the rest of the nurgle daemons I made last year. This guy is the last of the daemons sculpted with apoxie putty, and i think the least impressive. I consider him done, but there's really a lot of extra detail i could add. Maybe I should go back on work on him some more.


My favorite part about this guy is the nurgling and worms bursting out of his stomach.






I found some of these disgusting guys crawling out of bird seed, They are Indian meal moth larva. They like to get into cereal and dry pasta. I like insects, spiders, really most arthropods, but the whitish maggot like body that were partially see through with some pink highlights of these caterpillars grossed me out. So I wondered if I could use that as inspiration for nurgle daemons. It gave me the idea of making wire armatures and making the bodies with layers of hot glue. It would give the bodies an appearance of tissue sloughing off and let light pass through if painting is kept to a minimum.


These are really fun, easy, and quick to make. If you want some nurgle daemons and you aren't a perfectionist I would suggest making these.






These two are unfinished, hence the lack of a head, and pure wire legs. I made the one on the left as a demonstration for my students when they were so interested in the first hot glue daemon I made. I made it based on their suggestions. The one on the right is also using weapons that they designed.




I hope you enjoyed





Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/02 12:06:11


Post by: boundless08


Wow those hot glue plaguebearers are really good man, have not seen that before. I like the big slug dude too but he does look a bit bare and flat.I think you should green stuff on some pustles and sores on him, or you could have a trail of little maggots coming out of that hole in the front crawling around his body? Nurgling on the head is great though, gives it such character


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/07 03:05:42


Post by: jabbakahut


@Syro_

I totally feel you with the modeling/painting thing. I tend to do things in batches so I have mostly primed stuff. Painting is great but it's a whole other skill set.

The wood sculpt looks great, and thanks for reminding me of HeroQuest, that started it all for me in 92'.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/08 01:27:31


Post by: Syro_


Boundless, thanks for the kind comments, I'm glad you're enjoying my nurgle daemons. I'm going to take your advice and fancy up all the bare patches on the skin, hopefully I find time soon. I love your idea of the trail of maggots wandering around the body after getting out of the hole in the front. I'm definitely going to do that now. That will be fun to sculpt and paint.

jabbakaht, thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one, I feel like I have to get into a whole different mind set when I'm going to paint my stuff than when I'm building/sculpting. I'm glad you like my wood sculpts, and also that I found another fan of Hero Quest

Not much new progress, but I started working on the tables more for the Hero Quest project. With some research, I feel the tables most remind of me trestle tables:

Inspiration I've been working from


So this is my attempt at sculpting a beefier shorter side to that kind of table for Hero Quest. It's still wet in this pic, I'm hoping to get it looking even better


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/08 08:43:49


Post by: bunnygurl


I remember playing Hero Quest all the time as a kid. It's the only game I ever wanted to play. I have no idea what happened to it when I grew up though....kinda making me want to see if I can find one somewhere...if I had such a blast with it as a kid, maybe mine will too.
Sculpts are lookin' good btw, as always!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/08 11:47:30


Post by: Syro_


Thanks bunnygurl! I think it probably would be worth looking into getting a copy to share this great old game with your kids. This Hero Quest game I'm working on, I got off of ebay last year. All my great memories playing this game, were actually my older brother's Hero Quest. I decided I wanted to have a copy of my own.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/08 23:22:24


Post by: jabbakahut


 bunnygurl wrote:
I remember playing Hero Quest all the time as a kid. It's the only game I ever wanted to play. I have no idea what happened to it when I grew up though....kinda making me want to see if I can find one somewhere...if I had such a blast with it as a kid, maybe mine will too.
Sculpts are lookin' good btw, as always!

I do regret that I got rid of mine, in fact I got screwed in the trade financially, I traded my painted (gakky by me) HeroQuest set and two or three of the expansions for the Metallica Black album. It’s a great record and probably marks one of my changes from being a child, and getting and EXPLICIT CD as a 13 year old in 1992 was a bit difficult. I’m sure you could find one on eBay.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/09 00:16:48


Post by: Ruglud


re-imaging HQ - ahh the nostalgia of it. I still have some of the figures and my Adv HQ - no idea though what happened to all the components or boards, a great entry though into the hobby (Battle Masters and Space Crusade were the other ones !!)


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/09 01:50:35


Post by: Syro_


Ruglud, that's a great collection of nostalgia encouraging games. I just bought myself Battle Masters last year around the same time as Hero Quest to collect my favorite childhood board games. I've unfortunately never played Space crusade or Advanced Hero Quest. I'm sorry to hear that your boards are missing. I wonder if they're available in PDF?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/10 12:39:01


Post by: Syro_


@Jabbakahut: I'm sorry to hear that you don't have yours anymore, and regret it. It's so hard to know what old stuff we'll value as we age and what won't mean as much to us. Do you remember which expansions you had? (doesn't have to be by name)

I've made a base for the Hero Quest fireplace, and I'm hoping the readers here along with the participants and readers of the League's contest blag will help me decide which side of the fireplace's base would look better as the front. Thanks




Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/10 19:04:16


Post by: Wirecat


 Syro_ wrote:
I've made a base for the Hero Quest fireplace, and I'm hoping the readers here along with the participants and readers of the League's contest blag will help me decide which side of the fireplace's base would look better as the front. Thanks


IMHO the upper photo looks better with larger stones going in the front.

Great progress on these disgusting things, Syro! Really like them (and even that meal moth larvae, since it is behind the screen (otherwise my rage would not be contained).


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/10 23:13:26


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Wirecat! I'm glad you like the stuff I'm making. And believe me, I feel the same way about meal moth larvae.
Thanks for your opinion on the fireplace too, I'm leaning in the direction of bigger pieces in front (even more now), but wanted to see what other people thought.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/13 00:35:17


Post by: jabbakahut


 Syro_ wrote:
@Jabbakahut: Do you remember which expansions you had? (doesn't have to be by name?


I had to do a little research, (found some good videos on YouTube), it was Keller’s Keep, and Return of the Wich Lord.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/14 23:11:05


Post by: Syro_


Cool! Those are two of the expansions I played with my brother back in the day, he also had the Elf Quest expansion. Jabbakahut, thanks for taking the time to research which expansions you had. There's a lot more expansions that I realized there were. If you or anyone else reading this is missing any rules books, or stuff like that, or just want to get back into it, there's a Website called HeroQuest by Phoenix (which is what can be google searched to find it). The site has scans of all the old quest books for the original and something like 7 expansions, plus fan made stuff.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/27 15:29:01


Post by: Syro_


Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been very busy at work and sick a lot. I'm hoping to get back to my projects soon, but I also just recently got a new computer game.....

I wanted to share my Warhammer 40k relates gifts that I got for the holidays:

This stuff should be fun


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2017/12/31 22:54:19


Post by: Syro_


Like I talked about with bunnygurl, I took full army shots with some close ups or different parts, to share with everyone at the end of this year. This is the accumulation of I think four years of crafting, sculpting, shopping, and not nearly enough painting
Here's hoping I get a lot more done with this armies in 2018.


Here's the fully painted portion of my Dark Angels made from Dark Vengeance and some extras, plus the scratch built dread.


I plan to kitbash a Beliel for my army, and to have a large Death Wing force, so I slapped some extra termies together from molds, one as a banner bearer to carry the banner of fortitude. There's also a new sarge made from the pieces of three different space marines and green stuff molded pieces.


My kitbashed black templars, made mostly from dark vengeance sarges


My custom Imperial guard force from the planet Sanctus Glaciem Caminus. I made them to be IG but visually similar to Mechanicus forces (this is before the codex came out). I wanted them to kind of be a cross between the two, like those half forge world half Imperial worlds. There are also 3 unfinished valkaries, so that they could act as Elysian drop troops when I wanted to try out Imperial Armour 8 Raid on Kastorel-Novem. There is 100 bodies in the rhombus shape the infantry is arranged in so that I can play the Emperor's shield formation in Apoc.


My chaos space marines made up of dark vengeance, plus homemade termies and bikes.


Chaos cultists and two homemade obliterators.


Dark mechanicum section of my chaos forces. Three scratch-built vindicators, a scratch-built 4-claw arm defiler (slaughter fiend), 2 vehicles made with the vehicle design rules, and the purple globe walker is the warp-smith inspired by Votheer Tark and his forces from Graham McNeill's Iron Warriors series, especially the audio drama "Eye of Vengeance".


Nurgle greater daemons and Mamon the daemon prince. Also the little guy primed in black is my own sculpt of the Herald of Nurlge from "Siege of Vrakks".


Homemade chaos spawn in white and mutants primed in black. Both were a lot of fun to make, I plan to go into more detail about them some time in the future.


My two scratch built heldrakes, forgot about these until the other pictures were long done.


The whole chaos force (except heldrakes) with the Imperium in the background

Now to begin on my favorite- ORKS!

My three scratch-built stompas


All the ork vehicles. Everything except the one dakka jet are scratch built, and the squiggoths which are converted from dinosaur toys.
Total: 3 stompas, 2 dakka jets, 5 big squiggoths, a gorkanaught, 4 trukks, 1 deff dread, 6 killa kans, and 10 war buggies.


My entire ork army,


Ork army lower perspective

And that's everything. I hope you enjoyed me sharing all of these with you. Hopefully I can start getting more of these painted, I just love the making them so much more.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/06 02:33:23


Post by: Syro_


I'm back to work on the Hero Quest furniture project for the league contest.


The fireplace so far, not just a base anymore.


One of the three sorceror's tables I'm planning to make, this one is meant to have a geomancer (earth wizard) theme, made of large chunks and slabs of rock.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/06 12:07:19


Post by: Wirecat


Good progress on the furniture, Syro. Reading stand is excellent, as is a book on it!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/06 23:40:40


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Wirecat! I appreciate the kind words, and also not feeling like I'm just talking to myself during these posts.

A little more progress (sorry all the white materials makes everything hard to see):

Started on the second sorceror's table, the one that is supposed to look most like the original. I carved a similar pattern to the original sorceror's table top out of foamcore. I added some new top pages to the flattest of my homemade books, and then will add it to the top with some candles. I also added a candle to the wizard podium.


From the top molded piece I built a brick lower half of the tomb, still quite WIP, I will be trying to recreate a similar sword and skull design on the new one.


Finished the brickwork for the fireplace, now to try to make a mini treasure chest, a dagger, a fire, and add a candle.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/13 02:01:31


Post by: jabbakahut


 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Wirecat! I appreciate the kind words, and also not feeling like I'm just talking to myself during these posts.



Blogs can feel that way sometimes. Pieces are looking good though. Seeing your Ork Hoards make me want to start an army.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/13 19:36:28


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Jabba, I'm glad my orks put you in the mood for an ork hoard of your own. I personally think anyone who plays 40k should make an ork force, no matter what faction they play as. Orks happily fight anyone, so it seems like a good secondary force to have. If you do decide to make your own ork hoard, make sure you let me know, so i can check them out.

With the LoER competition ending Feb 1st, most of my hobby time is going into working on stuff for that (along with trying to finish some Christmas Presents that I haven't gotten to give yet )
I built the third and final version of the sorceror's table for Hero Quest. This one is my favorite of the three.

The Sorceror's table: Necromancer edition


3/4 view of the front


3/4 view of the back


The whole family, all four sorceror's tables, the original and the three new ones I made.

I am wondering if I should cut the skeleton arm holding the scythe off of the table and try to attach it to one of the skeletons that make up the base. Any opinions?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/14 14:18:47


Post by: Syro_


I continued working last night after posting and a bit this morning too.


Two new trestle tables. I wanted them to be bigger than the original Hero Quest tables, but I may have gone a little too far. The mismatched trestle table is made from sections of the very first wood pattern I sculpted when starting out on this project with the larger second being one I sculpted more recently for the tops of the bookcases. The other, you already guessed is popsicle sticks.


A shot showing the bracing underneath. I cut down popsicle sticks to have a tongue section for construction


A side view of the tables. I drilled out square-ish holes in the castings of the side pieces so I could slip the tongue of the center brace through.


I added two swords on the side of thesarcophagus. The blade is a lengthened version of the sword from the top of the sarcophagus, and the handle is cut apart candle sticks like the one on the Necromancer's table.

If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/15 02:43:41


Post by: Syro_


Did a little bit more this afternoon and evening. I finished making some books. I hope to make molds of these and mass produce them.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/15 03:21:45


Post by: kestral


I love that heroquest stuff - brings back great memories. The furniture was the best part. Keep up the great work!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/15 15:48:17


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Kestral! And thansk for stopping by. I've been feeling so much nostalgia for heroquest while I've been making this stuff.

Along with the furniture I've been very tempted to make the pieces I would need to play some of the expansions. First up would be "Return of the Witch Lord" since it used only increased numbers of pieces from the base game (skeletons, zombies, and mummies).

It was emotionally painful to chop apart a 30 year old miniature, even if I was only cutting the feet off the base, but hopefully it will prove worthwhile. Here I am showing the molds I made of the base after sanding it smooth and the now baseless skeleton.


I have been working on this in the background of my terrain project for over a week, that's about 5 days of making bases, since I have to wait for the putty to cure.


The skeletons I made from the mold in all their flash filled glory.


Showing the progression of the skeletons. After extensive clean up with an exacto knife I think they look pretty good. I'm not used to working with such thin fragile models and have broken the left leg off of about a third of them. Lots of pinning and gluing followed


I needed a break from all the terrain a few days ago, so I decided to make additional mummies for Hero Quest. You don't need that many, and I doubt other games would use them, so rather than make a mold of one, I decided to make them from scratch. Here you can see the wire armatures for 4 of the 5 mummies I made, I then used hotglue to bulk out the bodies in a more humanoid shape. I plan to soak narrow strips of paper in water then cover them in PVA glue. I'll then wrap these strips around the mummy bodies and let them dry.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/18 13:13:27


Post by: Syro_



The mummies wrapped in thin strips of paper, I think somewhere between 1/8 and 1/16 of an inch, so around 2-3mm in width. I soaked the paper strips in water (for too long since I got busy) and then applied watered down PVA glue to them before wrapping them up. They don't look great, but I think they look acceptable. I also like the poses I chose. They were a combination for fun and frustrating to make.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/18 15:20:26


Post by: Skinflint Games


What an amazing idea for the mummies! I'm going to have to try that :-) Loving the Heroquest stuff, that takes me baaaaaaaack..


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/18 16:29:04


Post by: amazingturtles


Everything you've done here is amazing. I do love the hero quest stuff a lot, for nostalgia's sake of course. i had actually forgotten about some of the furniture pieces, like the tomb and the sorcerers table.

The skeletons look perfect!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/18 22:32:38


Post by: Syro_


@amazingturtles, Thanks so much! I'm glad you're enjoying the stuff I do, I'll trying to keep interesting stuff coming. I didn't remember all the pieces when I picked this project and unpacked the game either. For me, I didn't remember the cabinet/cubbord, stretching rack, and weapons rack.
@Skinflint Games, Thanks! I'm glad you like the idea for the mummies, and I hope you do get the opportunity to try it out. I started the first mummy with thin strips of dry paper, then covered them with PVA before trying to wrap them, I don't think it worked great (The arms of the mummy of the far right that looks like it's dancing to "thriller"). Soaking the paper in water then adding the glue made the paper much easier to wrap around the pieces, but also made the paper tear very easily. I'm hoping the paper only tore so easily because I got so busy with work that I left the paper soaking for 3 days before getting back to it.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/21 18:31:24


Post by: Briancj


No, the mummies are AMAZING, and only need to be washed with a light tan inkwash.

GREAT job on all of this. I'd be proud to face any of your armies across the table.

--B.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/21 20:21:18


Post by: boundless08


The mummies look great but the casted skeletons are brilliant! Also you blog made the front page, well done man


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/21 23:21:28


Post by: Syro_


@Briancj: Thanks, it's flattering to see such a big name on Dakka visiting my blog. It would be cool if we got to battle sometime. I wish I had gotten your post before I started painting the mummies, so I wont get to try out your idea unless I make more. I painted the bandages with watered down Ushabti bone, and painted any skin showing through with Bugman's glow to give it that heavily tanned/pickled look that mummy skin has. I'm planning on using a brown wash on the bandages (I have game color umber shade and army painter strong tone) and a black wash on the face. Does this sound like a good plan? I might also add a few more bandages in places too.

@Thanks boundless! I was surprised and excited when I stumbled upon my first blog entry on the homepage. I took a screen shot of it
Thanks for your comments on the mummies and skeletons. The skeletons were a huge pin to clean all the flash off of, but I do love how they turned out. I'm hoping the mummies still look good with the beginnings of painting them.


The mummies with some paint on them, still WIP.


Stretching racks. The second hand Hero Quest I bought off of Ebay is missing most of the small pieces like: every skull, rat, candle, and the arms to the stretching rack. While I was building a new one I made arms for the old one too. I'm planning to paint the arms on the old one brown to match better. Maybe use some oil, stain, or a wash on the new one. The stretching rack I made, you can actually turn the handles to rotate the wood pole that the ropes for stretching will be attached to.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/22 16:40:13


Post by: Shiro-chan


I owned Hero Quest as a child, and I would to have a fully sculpted version of the terrain alongside improved miniatures. So I applaud you for the effort, it looks really nice.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/22 21:30:19


Post by: Wirecat


I envy Your attention to detail - and terrain, Syro. A fully 3D tabletop, be it a boardgame or an RPG, makes wonders at immersing players, not mentioning huge possibilities of practicing world-building crafts.

Regarding mummies - they look very nice, well, for mummies. Another recipe is to cut the closest available tabloid - they are printed on a very absorbing paper and drench strips directly in vinyl emulsion. Take an equal parts of thick PVA and hot water. Mix thoroughly and let it stand while cooling, then shake vigorously and pour into a shallow pool of goo. Quick to soak in, perfect for paper-mache.

And all these candlesticks have given me an idea about lighting stuff up. Need to ponder further!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/23 03:05:07


Post by: Syro_


@Shiro-chan: Thanks! I missed playing Hero Quest from when I was a child, so I recently bought a new set. I'm glad you like what I have been making. I hope to play with them soon.

@Wirecat: Thank you! I feel like I don't always pay such close attention to detail, but both being on Dakka and the "League of Extraordinary Riveters" has helped push me to make better and more detailed miniatures and terrain. I'll have to try out your paper-mache recipe, recently I've been lazy and just use a 50-50 mix of PVA glue and Water. The paper I used was scrap I peeled off of the cheap foamcore I used in the furniture project


A tiny bit more progress on the furniture. I built a 3rd smaller table to accompany the other two. Both of my other tables were much bigger than the original, so i made that one. I admit it looks a little like a bench. I also used some oil on the wood top of a table and the stretching rack to try to give it a better color and make the wood grain more clear (popsicle stick is in there for comparison).


Also you may remember that larger teddy bear that I ended up not using for the last LoER terrain contest. I made him a twin that I'm turning into a necklace for my niece.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/23 23:47:16


Post by: Syro_



I made this fire yesterday and forgot to photograph it and add it to my post. I made the fire from hot glue attached to little bits of craft sticks and big tooth picks.


The fire from different angles.



Except for paint, I consider the stretching rack now finished. You can still turn the handles to pull up the shackles more.



The beginnings of the throne carved out of high density styrofoam


It's hard to tell in the picture, but I have been mass producing the spines of books for my book shelves. Hopefully they will look good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I decided to keep pushing. Another 2 maybe 2.5 hours of working on building bookcases and preparing books. With the deadline for this contest looming close I'm trying to get it done:


The beginnings of the first


Starting the second, making the back of the first.


This is where I stopped for the night, showing a scale shot, and basically how they will have books (still needs shelves).


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/24 14:30:30


Post by: Camkierhi


Just had a really great read through the blog, fantastic and inspiring work going on. Definitely missing Hero Quest right now. Squiggoths are looking brilliant, did similar myself. Those mummies turned out great bud, nice outside the box thinking.

For guns start with a box section and add tubes, makes it easier to mount.
For the armour plates card is good, cereal box has a nice pitted texture on the inside surface which takes paint well.
Experiment with the mixing of all the putty products. Miilliput and Greenstuff work very well together, there is also another type, used by tradesmen, more a metal putty, sets very fast, good for the impetuous artist.
Bulk out your shapes for sculpts with crushed tin foil, compact it as much as possible, it is way cheaper than using just putty.

Above all.......Have faith in your self, you are an artist bud, and you have a good head on your shoulders, you could easily manage silicone molds and resin, your scuplts are quite brilliant, really looking forward to following you.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/25 00:15:37


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for reading my blog Cam, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Also thank you for the advice. It really is amazing how different the feel is when sculpting different combinations of apoxie putties. I can't believe I haven't tried bulking out with tin foil, I spent most of my life sculpting stuff out of tin foil. I remember your squiggoth with the howdah made of bones, it was really cool!

As for project updates, I continue to plug along on my Hero Quest furniture with more work on the bookcases.


I made scrolls from strips of paper rolled up and tied with thin wire.


All the shelves are now in the bookcases. The bookcases are mostly done, except I'll be adding a small facade of wood on the left and right when all the contents are in place,


All of the contents that will be going in the bookcases. They need priming, painting, and gluing in place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I finally got back to working on the treasure chest that I'm completely sculpting from scratch. I also started on the cupboard, I've been putting it off because it seemed like it was going to be a pain. In the back I've started trying to make a fancy iron hinge to attach where needed on the cupboard and treasure chests.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/26 01:35:39


Post by: Syro_



I made the front of the cupboard today, The putty fought me more than I'm used to when making the wood grain, I think I had too much greenstuff in the mix. I'm happy with how it came out in the end. I still need to finish the back and side when it's dry, and then add the "hardware" that I've been working on sculpting.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/27 15:10:28


Post by: Syro_


Recent progress:


I continued the work on the cupboard. Almost done with the wood parts of it, except one side. This is the back.

Here's the front


I've been making the mini pieces that sit on the mantle of the fireplace, like in the original picture. Mini-treasure chest isn't done yet.


And "upholstered" the chair


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I spent nearly the whole day priming and painting, with a little more crafting. I only took pictures of the finished fire for the fireplace, but I've also been painting all three sorceror's tables, all three regular tables, scrolls for the book cases, a single book so far.


I'm extremely proud of this paint job, especially that I thought to paint on the wood charring and turning to ash.


The fire, but lit from behind to show that some light can pass through it. It would be cool if I could eventually install a flickering LED light behind the fire.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/28 20:44:30


Post by: Wirecat


 Syro_ wrote:
I think I had too much greenstuff in the mix.


Which putty are You mixing greenstuff with? I am lately using milliput which mixes fairly well - especially with more yellow greenstuff component than blue one. 1 part yellow to two-three parts of already mixed milliput feels about right for pressing and texturing. Probably You could try something similar with other putty kinds.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/29 04:24:48


Post by: Syro_


Hey Wirecat, I use Apoxie sculpt mixed with greenstuff lately. Usually a very small ratio of greenstuff, I'd say probably 1 part greenstuff to 5 or 6 parts apoxie sculpt. More recently I had been sculpting fur which required a much higher mix, close to 50:50. It was a long sculpting project and I got into the habit of having a higher ratio of greenstuff. That's probably what made it harder to sculpt than usual. Strangely, it seems like if I quickly wipe a little water on it when it starts to get hard to work it softens up a ridiculous amount.

I worked all weekend on my Hero Quest furniture for the LoER terrain competition. I'm mostly done now, check out the results


Treasure chests. From left to right: the original Hero Quest Treasure chest, the two in the middle I molded the side pieces and sculpted the wood texture, key hole, etc, and the chest furthest to the right I completely sculpted from scratch.


Thrones


Three different styles of trestle tables. One mostly made from craft sticks, the other two from various wood grain patterns I sculpted.


Tombs: Original on the left, the one I made from a mold on the right. I'll share side views later that show #D renditions of what was printed on the original.


Three, new, 3D versions of of the sorceror's table. The green and purple one is made to look similar to the original, the second made to look like it's a stone podium, and the last in the necromancer version. These pieces are some that I'm most proud of, but the next two I'm even more proud of.



The new bookcases. I love how these turned out. Looking at the pictures I realize I forgot to do something I had planned to, but they may not need it.


The fireplace. I can't believe how great this turned out. I didn't think there would be anything I was more proud of than the bookcases, but when I finished putting this together I was blown away. I hope all of you like it too.




Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/29 04:52:02


Post by: Camkierhi


You have done an amazing job, excellent work, end results are nothing short of spectacular. Well done bud, good luck in the competition, but have to say win or lose, you have a fantastic set of scenery for your gaming, you can be very proud of.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/30 01:52:57


Post by: Syro_


Thanks so much Cam, your kind words and encouragement really mean a lot to me. I will be very happy with all my pieces and proud of what I made whether I win or loose the comp.

I've been working on my last two pieces of Hero Quest furniture:

I glued on all the hinges today, and made the handles. It's a shame that there isn't enough time to have cast all of my hinges in greenstuff, but the hotglue ones seem to have turned out fine. I just need to wait for the greenstuff to dry on the handles before I can paint. I'm having trouble deciding what color I want all the hardware on this to be. I haven't had any metal pieces be the original cast iron color, so probably the usual lead belcher silver, but I do like the look of that copper wire....


This whole time I thought I would be making a writing desk for the last piece, but with some recent research it's actually an "alchemy bench". I had forgotten after all these years, and my set didn't come with the set of scales or bottles, which gave it most of its character. It doesn't look like much now, but I'm hoping this will look good when I'm done. I'm planning on filling the area with alchemy equipment inspired by Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, rather than the letters, ink well, quill pen, etc. The copper wire rings will be acting like chemistry ring stands.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/30 04:33:23


Post by: DarkSoldier


If I knew back when I got it that HeroQuest would be so integral to my love of heroic fantasy and RPGs, I would have taken better care of it.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/31 01:06:44


Post by: Syro_


@DarkSoldier: So true, it's so hard to know what will leave a long lasting impression on us and what wont. Thanks for stopping by.

I am relieved to announce that I just finished the last piece of Hero Quest furniture for my entry in the -=]_=- League of Extraordinary Riveters terrain competition #24. All 102 pictures I have taken of my progress and finished pieces can be found in my gallery in a sub-gallery called "Hero Quest Furniture".

Here's a picture of my last two finished pieces

The cupboard and the alchiment's bench


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/01/31 06:42:23


Post by: Camkierhi


Brilliant work, alchemist bench is the icing on the cake, superb.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/01 00:03:21


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Cam! I'm glad you like the alchemist bench, I changed it quite a bit from the original. I feels weird to have a little down time. It was such a push making sure I could finish in time.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/01 13:23:52


Post by: Briancj


"Big Name". *snrk* Maybe 5 years ago.

The work with hot glue is amazing. I never really thought about it as a crafting medium, aside from 'nid terrain! Bravo.

The fireplace is striking, but it is the library bookshelves that captured my heart. SCROLLS! TINY LITTLE SCROLLS.

Beautiful work.

--B.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/01 19:35:54


Post by: Apollinaire


The Heroquest stuff is just brilliant - I know I've said this before on the LoER thread, but I've really enjoyed watching this develop, brings back some great memories of playing HQ as a kid. Looking forward to seeing more!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/02 21:07:50


Post by: boundless08


Well done on getting all the hero quest stuff finished man. I know you've posted a lot of pics in the Loser thread but would love to see a post of everything together in one picture, you could probably get a really good diorama or set piece with all the stuff you've managed to make


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/02 22:56:07


Post by: Syro_


@Brian: Thanks, I'm glad you like my work with hot glue. I've spent a lot of time working with hot glue like with my homemade chaos spawn and mutants. Heck half my ork mob is hot glue squirted into molds. I like the way the LoER contest caused me to really push myself, I didn't realize I could make things as nice as the books shelves and fireplace. I like that the scrolls turned out looking good when they were the easiest part to make. The painting part felt weird. I started with junk paper cut into strips and wrapped them with red wire. I then primed them white. The primer stayed very sticky, so I painted them white, and then painted the wire red. It felt like a lot of work to keep them basically the same

@Apollinaire: Thanks! This project has been making me want to play hero quest again so badly, hopefully I'll get to play.

@Boundless: Thanks, it was quite a push. That's a good idea about having group shots. Luckily Fango suggested that too, so I already have them ready. Enjoy!














Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/03 22:23:26


Post by: Apollinaire


That looks as awesome on the table as I expected it would! Congrats mate.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/04 02:55:44


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Apollinaire!

I've been a little burnt out, so I haven't done much hobby stuff since the LoER comp finished. But, it's time to start planning out what I'll be working on hobby-wise in the near future (and then probably doing something completely different than I decide on).

After reading about Sedition Wars (I think in one of Camkierhi's blogs), and it's conversion opportunities, I decided to buy myself a copy back in November. I was so busy with work and the LoER comp that I only opened most of the minis today.


Most of these basic strain "zombies" will work great as plague zombies. The one with the beefy arm might look a little out of place, but maybe a zombie servitor?


I think these guys will look great as plague bearers in the Nurgle army I've been working on.


They're a little small but these strain "quasimodo" with the cannons growing out of their back, would work well for converting into Obliterators for Chaos. (Terminator just for scale)


Some of the more advanced strain monsters have a real Tyranid flavor to me. I have some of their pieces with Carnafex and Genestealer bits for comparison.

I didn't take their picture, but another strain monster called the scythe witch looks like it could be converted into Calidus assassins. A bonus is I think all the high tech human soldiers in this game would make a pretty sweet high tech imperial guard force like Elysian drop troops. What do all of you think? Any suggestions?

Other projects I should be getting back to making: remake my ork warboss, my commisars, Sevlar Chem dogs Imperial guard force, Nurgle daemons, Death Wing force, homemade old style necron tomb spider.
I should be painting: Chaos space marines, chaos cultists, mutants, all of my chaos and ork vehicles ( about 25 total I think 0_o)

Before anything I'm going to try to put together a tutorial on my to make my simple scratch built dreadnoughts. One of my students asked me to, so he can try.

This guy




Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/04 05:47:51


Post by: Mad..


So have just finished reading this from page one as hadn't notice it before.

I really like this blog and what you have been doing in here, squiggoths are cool, nurgle daemons are suitably disgusting and...

I'm a Hero Quest fan boy... played it loads when younger and still have a mint copy of it and a "playing" copy of it currently which gets good use.

Loving the work you are doing on the furniture etc... really really cool stuff! Will keep an eye on this blog for sure!

Righto, I'm off to get my Hero Quest out and get my brother to come over for a game haha. Or maybe I teach my 7 year old?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/04 09:40:03


Post by: Camkierhi


Agree completely with the Sedition Wars stuff, lots of potential, and much of it requires very little conversion for Nurgle etc.

The human element could go for a Necromunda gang, IG troops and many other things.

Really like the dread has a very imperial guard feel to it, maybe a good proxy for sentinels. Obviously works well as a Marine dread also, good scale and looks the business, look forward to seeing your tut.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/04 23:44:10


Post by: Syro_


@Mad..: Thanks for going through the whole blog, and I'm glad you like it. That's really cool that you have both a mint copy and one for playing. I grew up playing my older brother's, I only bought my own about a year ago off ebay. It's missing so many little pieces, but it's nice to have my own to play whenever I want. I'm jealous that you're getting to play it so often , and I'd definitely say your daughter is old enough to start learning the game.

@Cam: Thanks Cam, it's great seeing you here. The dread is a little over sized at about 2 1/2 inches/ 7cm at the shoulder not including the base. But I like it the way it is, and it has pretty easy measurements when building (in inches unfortunately for most of the world). I've been working on the dread tut, but I'm waiting to post anything until I can do it all in one post.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/12 18:38:54


Post by: Syro_


I haven't had much time or energy lately, so I haven't gotten too far on the scratch built dreadnought tutorial. Today, I decided to build a storage container out of foamcore to protect my Hero Quest furniture. It's been sitting and taking up a section of my work space because I've been afraid to store it in case I damage it.


The storage "case"


With my furniture in place. (I plan to store the tables upside down to make them much easier to get out, but have them that way for the picture).


Whole contents of the game, new and old furniture side by side.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/12 18:55:52


Post by: Camkierhi


Excellent.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/12 23:55:28


Post by: Ruglud


Any plans to remake the doors? Could even have them hinged (similar to the old Advanced HQ plastic versions...


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/13 02:53:33


Post by: Syro_


I've been thinking about remaking the doors too, especially since they look pretty sad next to the new furniture. I didn't know that the old Advanced Hero Quest had hinged plastic doors, thanks for the info and thanks for visiting.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/15 21:48:07


Post by: Syro_


I've been getting antsy to post this. I may add more to it later). Finally my" "How to scratch build a dreadnought" tutorial

You can either do this directly on foamcore, or make a single template for each of the two repeating sections like I did, and then trace.
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You want to start with three 1.5 inch by 1.5 inch squares for the center hull of the dread (wrote the wrong number when taking pictures, so I edited it). Closest metric looks like 37mm x 37mm. You also need four 1.25 inch by 1.25 inch squares for what I refer to as the shoulder hull sections. That's a 32mm square in metric. The shoulder hull has one simple cut, removing a 1 inch by 1/4 of an inch triangle from the side (see picture) (looks like 25mm by 5mm). The center hull is more complicated, checking the picture will be helpful. First, Starting with your center hull squares/template: you will remove a 1/4 inch wide and 1 inch tall triangular section from the upper right corner, that's 1/6 of the width and 2/3 of the height cut away, that's about 5-6mm by 24-25 mm. Second, you will cut away from the lower right a 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch triangle, this 1/3 of the width and 1/3 of the height of the original square, that's about 7-8mm on each side. Third, the final triangular section is cut from the lower left corner. It is 1/4 of an inch wide (5-6mm) (1/6 of original width) by 1/2 an inch high (11-12mm) (1/3 of original height).



You will then glue together the three center hull sections to get the correct width. Glue two shoulder hull sections together for the right shoulder, and two together for the left shoulder. So center hull is three layers of foamcore thick, and each shoulder hull section is two layers of foamcore thick. The foamcore I'm using is 3/16 of an inch thick. When gluing the shoulder hull sections to the center hull, you want the bottoms of the shoulder hull to line up with where the center hull narrows at the bottom (see photos).




Using strips of thin plastic or card cover up all the edges.

For the top of the center hull, it looks nice to have this little patterned piece.


Next you will add the hip joints. I have included several options to show you different things you can try. Starting from the left is wheels from dollar store mini monster trucks. These are my favorite to use, but I'm running out, and they aren't exactly widely available for following this tutorial. The wheels are 3/4 of an inch in diameter (about 20mm). Second is the twist tops from kids' applesauce packets. I use the upper section in this, they are 1/2 of an inch in diameter (12mm). Third is the tops to tiny squeeze bottom contact lens cleaner. They are a little to big, but still work, they are a little over 3/4 of an inch and wider than the wheels. Lastly, you can just cut 1/4 of an inch (6mm) section off an old fat crayola style marker. The marker I used is 5/8 of an inch in diameter (15mm).

You only need the small upper section of the applesauce twists, I clipped off the "wings", and then trimmed off close to 2/3 of the height of the center section. I also trimmed off the cap section and the dropper tip of the contact lens cleaner tops.

I covered up obvious openings with things plastic sheets (as usual I'm using cut up water jugs).


Glue these hip joints in the low part of the center hulls (see photo). It isn't necessary, but I find it looks nice to attach some small bits of wire of plastic thread from the hip joints into the bottom of the center hull.



Next you attach the legs. I used 1/4 of an inch (6mm) sections of thin markers and mechanical pencils, you can of course also use styrene tube. The largest I used was 3/8 of an inch (10mm), slightly bigger than 1/4 of an inch (exact is 5/16 of an inch/ 8mm) works better.


Next (or before the legs if you want) we will attach the visor. I have retaining clips from inside some broken electronics that I love to use for this (black plastic bits), you can also easily cut a rectangle to use from plastic or card. If you want to make your dread unique you can add something else. On the right is a piece from a hydrogen peroxide based contact lens cleaner called "Clear Care", I love the look of these, and use them for chaos dreads.


Next we can use our beloved sprue for the feet. Find sections without all the pointy bits sticking off, or clean them up. You will need four pieces for each foot that are 3/8 of an inch and four smaller pieces at 1/4 of an inch. That's a total of 16 pieces, 8 big (3/8") and 8 smaller (1/4"). Metric is 10-11mm for big, and 7mm for small. Feel free to make extras, you'll use 4 more of each size if you make a dreadnought powerfist. Like you can see in the photo, you will flip the larger piece upside down so that their trapezoid shape fits into each other nicely.

Next we need a base. You can cut out a circle the correct size for a dread base, use a real base, etc. If you want to go super cheap like I used to (and have contact lenses) The bottoms of most contact lens cleaning bottles are extremely similar is size to a dreadnought base. These bases do end up quite a bit taller than official bases.


You are now ready to glue your dread's legs to the base and glue the parts of its feet on too. Glue the 4 foot sections equal distance apart around the round leg pointing in the four cardinal directions. The the picture you can also see all the visors on the dread now.


Now is a good time to glue on exhaust pipes. I cut four, 1 inch long (12-23mm) pieces of drinking straw and glued them in two pairs sticking up from the back (see photo). Then cut two pieces of plastic/cardboard sheet 3/4 inch by 1/2 inch (17mm by 12mm). I then bent them into a curved shape. For the plastic, I heated it on the tip of my glue gun, bent them and let them cool. IF YOU DO THIS BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO BURN YOUSELF


The legs should be made to look better. I cut plastic tooth picks the length of the leg 4 times for the back of the leg to look like pistons. Along with spacer to hold it off the surface of the leg, I repeated the bending trick from the exhaust pipe covers for leg armor. They were about 3/8 inch high by 3/4 inch wide (about 10mm by 19mm).



They aren't necessary, but they add to the look if you have some bits to attach to it, I have molds of some cameras, the crux teminatus, and an imperial eagle, which I made quick hot glue casts to decorate this. You can paint on details that look great also. Finally all that's left to make is the arms, so you can see why I've had these strange oval dental floss containers lurking in my pictures. They are my favorite bits to make dreadnought arms out of. Everyone probably doesn't have access to these, but dread arms are open to a lot of interpretation. I can add more ways to make arms to the tutorial if any of you would like.

The multi-melta is easy, just glue two tubes/straws next to each other coming out of the main part of the arm. I've never bothered drilling out the air holes, but it's up to you. Next is the dreadnought close combat weapon arm. These can be pretty complicated or really simple. My first dread I made the Dark Angles dread has an arm made from a whole marker cap glued onto a piece of styrofoam for the shoulder, and random strip of plastic to break up the shape, and some pieces of sprue that looked like claws. It doesn't look very good, but you can tell what it is. For this one we'll get more complicated. I used the other half of the dental floss container to match the upper arms. I used a cast of the front of a storm shield to look like a huge crus terminatus (terminator symbol) For the powerfist I glued half an inch (12-13mm) of the thicker marker around 3/4 inch (19-20mm) of a thinner marker. Then used the same technique for making the dreadnought's feet to make its "fingers"




Please let me know what you think. If you have any questions, want clarification, have suggestions, etc. Thanks for stopping by, and I'll post more pics of this guy once he's painted (and do a scale shot)


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/16 01:41:22


Post by: Camkierhi


Looking forward to the paint and the scale shot, but looking good so far, very promising, quick by the look of it too.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/16 13:29:00


Post by: boundless08


Wow, great looking dreads. Definitely some of the best scratch built ones I've seen around


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/16 13:58:29


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Cam, thanks Boundless! Here's a size comparison shot before painting.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/16 15:21:01


Post by: Skinflint Games


Fantastic tutorial, thanks for posting - going to have to try my hand at those dreads


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/17 00:30:26


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Skinflint Games! It's awesome that you want to try out the tutorial. If you do, please let me know/see


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/17 23:59:25


Post by: Syro_


A special thank you to Boundless, who researched and found the perfect picture for me when I was having trouble planning out how to make the guns for my squiggoths. I just finished putting together a kannon with grot gunner, so except for painting it, my first big squiggoth is officially done.





Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/18 02:02:29


Post by: Camkierhi


That is looking spotty dog bud, brilliant work.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/18 05:42:13


Post by: Mad..


I love the storage option to protect your hero quest furniture, looks safe and sound to me!

The scratch built tutorial and build on the dreadnoughts is great, they have come out nicely.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/18 20:09:21


Post by: boundless08


Great cannon Syro! Love the grot though, he is certainly a character!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/18 23:11:46


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Cam, I've never heard that slang before, but I'm glad you like it.

Thanks Mad.. I can breath easier knowing that furniture I worked so hard on is safe

Thanks boundless, the head cracked me up, I thought it would be fun for a kannon gunner. The head was originally from the Dakka Jet kit I think, and the body was a grot that hangs off the back of an ork warbike.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/20 03:19:23


Post by: Syro_


I am very excited to announce that I won the most recent League of Extraordinary Riveters terrain contest with my Hero Quest furniture. That also means I am the judge for the newest LoER contest. I would love to see any viewers of this blog taking part if possible, it really is a fun experience. Plus, I've stopped by the P&M blogs of most people who comment here, and have been impressed.

The newest contest is called: "For the War Effort" Check it out:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/751255.page#9843787


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/20 05:18:12


Post by: Mad..


Congratulations on the win!

Good luck with the judging gig, it will be a hard choice to pick a winner I reckon


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/23 23:23:50


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Mad, I'm still really psyched about the win. And thanks again, I think the judging will be hard too, that what I always hear. At the same time, I also hope it's hard, because that means I have a lot of people creating really great stuff in the contest. Except for the lots of people part, it's already looking that way


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/27 02:36:37


Post by: Syro_


Sorry for the lack of life on my blog, been very tired and busy as usual, and not really feeling it for crafting.

This isn't quite in line with what this blog is about, but it's still painting models of animals so hopefully it's okay. Plus this at least shows I haven't been completely lazy recently.
Every year my mom takes a several month section of the school year to focus on teaching her students about all different countries around the world, focusing on one continent at a time.

A year or two ago I painted a dollar store giraffe to make it look better as a display for her students (I also painted a lion, but I can't find any pics of it).

This how it looked when she bought it. (Though actually I had already painted the other side, before realizing I hadn't documented it)


This is its new paint job

This year I decided to paint her a zebra.

This is its original paint job straight from the store.


Primed and ready


WIP


Finished zebra


Finished zebra

I finished the whole thing in about 3 hours including pausing to wait for sections to dry so I could handle it.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/02/27 02:53:01


Post by: Camkierhi


That is actually really impressive bud, and the old saying practice makes perfect is true, that is excellent practice for doing camo or any detailed paint work. You certainly did a brilliant job on these.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/03 23:10:00


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Cam, also it turns out I actually did take a pic before priming the zebra, so I jsut updated my last post with that pic


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/04 20:00:44


Post by: Wirecat


Organizing stuff is right and proper. Saves time on repairs too. Thumbs up!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/05 00:06:07


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Wirecat!

I think viewers of my blog know that I have trouble focusing on a single project, and tend to jump around a lot. I will try to get back to the squiggoths soon, and paint that dread and a warbuggie. But I'll do a quick proof of life post of something I just started working on. I bought myself the starter set for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition for Christmas, with plans to maybe start playing. Some of the boys I play with are really chomping at the bit to both get in some games of 40k and start playing D&D, so I've started collecting and making miniatures for our D&D game now too.

So far, I've been making goblins. I'm using the three that come in the expansion of the Magic the Gathering board game (in red), plus grots from 40k since I like their look for goblins more than other sculpts (plus I already own them ) I've been making and converting them for a fantasy realm.

Sorry the photo is so rough, I quickly snapped it with my phone. I really like the guy I made pulling back the bow.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/05 19:24:15


Post by: Camkierhi


By far the best models available today. Grots rule!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/09 23:22:23


Post by: Syro_


I'm glad to hear you like the look of grots too Cam

I've done some more work on homemade/converted D&D miniatures


All 10 of the goblins I was planning to make have more of their body parts and weapons assembled now, and are all glued on bases. Many still need some gab filling, and some need an entire arm sculpted over wire frame.


I also made 6 wolves, which is the maximum number that can appear at one time in the D&D 5e starter campaign. I'm not sure if it will look good, but I thought it could be a cool unique look for them to mostly follow the features of the little grey guy in the front. Anyone recognize him by the way? It really take me back. I used lion and tiger bodies from the "Battat terra wild animals tube" that i got off of Amazon with the little grey wolf's head and tail to make most of the wolves. One is just a long haired dog from a cheap dollar store farm animal pouch. I'm planning on making a 1 inch by 2 inch cavalry style base for these wolves since I think traditional cavalry bases are too big, I'll need to check to be sure.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/10 16:51:56


Post by: boundless08


Gobbos look great Syro. You casting those now?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/10 18:32:08


Post by: Syro_


Thanks boundless! I do cast some grots occasionally, it all started with not liking have left over pieces in the model, like how they'll give you more heads than bodies, etc. So I made a mold of the body. Then I liked a few of the heads more than others, you know how these things snowball Now if I need a few grots to round out a project I just cast them rather than buy them, since I have enough mold for one unique body, 3 different heads, and two different options of arms on each side.

Progress:

I've finished the gap filling and making sections of arms on the goblins, so I should be able to prime and paint these guys pretty soon. I planned to make the stickbombs look more like clubs and maces, but drilling a hole and adding a piece of wire didn't work so well. I might try to greenstuff on some spikes, but I don't know how well that will work out. I'm open to suggestions.


I want to have an actual model of the oxen drawn supply cart for the first session of D&D "Lost mines of Phandelver", but I don't have any in my collection of animal figurines I've amassed in preparation, and I can't find any sets that look good or don't have terrible models included. So I've decided to Frankenstein up some oxen. On a foam core base, I've glued the lower half of the legs of giraffe that aren't to scale and I'll probably never use. The tails of the tails of the two lions that I chopped the heads and tails off of to make some of the wolves in my last post. I have also started to sculpt the heads.


The oxen's muzzles are the only detail I've sculpted in so far.


And here's a shot of the dismembered pieces of these models I've leaving in my wake as I craft stuff. Hopefully I'll find a use for all of it eventually. I'm thinking maybe cat people like the Kajeet in Elder Scrolls could be a good use for the cat heads. The giraffe will be harder, maybe I could convert them to passable donkeys?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/10 19:59:55


Post by: boundless08


I know the feeling! You start off casting a single grot body then by the end of the week you've employed several people to work in your plastic moulding factory you've set up in your shed

As for the spikes, I've had no luck with greenstuff, it's too floppy. Something like milliput might have a better density for that stuff? I've seen some people around here combine milliput and greenstuff but I've no idea about that. Thick plasticard trimmed down, actually even some leftover sprue would work in a pinch as well


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/11 13:07:15


Post by: Camkierhi


Just cut the tips off cocktail sticks/toothpicks and superglue them on.

You can combine milliput and greenstuff quite easily, mix the two parts seperately then mix them together. You can also mix in metal epoxy putty, that stuff thats sold as plumbers fix. But that stuff sets very very quick so be warned. The milliput /GS mix is a favourite of mine, gives a very strong ridged and smooth finished product.

I occasionally will cast a part, but try to not cast whole models, too close to the wind for me, would rather sculpt a quick body or something myself. Strange were we draw the lines sometimes.

All looking brilliant bud, keep it up.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/11 14:56:53


Post by: The Brave


Catoplebas for the giraffe


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/12 00:33:40


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Cam, and I hope I haven't disappointed you with my fondness for making molds of things. Also thanks, for the tips Cam, I'll have to try some of them out, and see how they work.

@The Brave: I never would have thought of that, but Catoplebas is a really good idea. Looking up art of them, some pics look a great deal like the proportions of a giraffe, though my giraffes are so shrimpy they may need to be juveniles, and I'd make a bigger adult. Thanks

A little progress towards new models:

A monster from the "True Heroes Mythical Warriors Bucket" I bought from Amazon (though it apparently used to come from Toys R Us), had a monster that I thought would work very well as bugbears. I Cut a few weapon hands off other models and swapped them for some variety. I've also continued working on my Oxen. I just need to define the upper legs a bit more and then sculpt the details of the heads and they should be done.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/13 15:36:52


Post by: Syro_


Using the tips of cocktail sticks worked a lot better than I expected, thanks Cam. I didn't think they would be that different from the similarly sized snips of wire. All my goblins that had stickbombs now have small clubs with a single spike sticking out. (I don't have a pic though).

More D&D mini progress:

A lot of little things going on in this pic. I've sculpted some mildly creepy eyes on the oxen I'm making. Also added some thick triangular fur tufts on two of the wolves following the basic pattern of the molded heads to cover up damage from clipping of the lions' manes. Gave the baby wolf floppy ears to replace the horns I cut off. I made the main body of a wooden barrel I'll be sculpting detail into soon. And what I'm most happy about, is I made five crowbars/pry bars out of thick aluminum florist wire, and began making a wagon wheel.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/13 23:03:09


Post by: Skalk Bloodaxe


Here's my most recent moment- Syro_ is everywhere on other people's threads, just won the last LoER contest and running the current one... maybe, just maybe, he has a WIP thread?

Late to the party but glad to have made it. Your sculpting skills are excellent. The Squiggoths are awesome and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do to finish up that massive collection of terrain you posted.

Subbed and paying attention now.

and yay, I flipped page 5!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/14 01:29:03


Post by: Syro_


I'm glad you made it too, thanks for visiting my blog. I've been late finding peoples blogs many times, so no worries
Thank you for the compliments, I strive to be a great sculptor and warhammer 40k has been a great way to focus my efforts, but I'm so blown away by the skill of so many people on here that I don't know if I can every catch up. I'm hoping to get back to working on the squiggoths soon, but the terrain is mostly in storage, so who knows when I'll get back to working on it. Hopefully soon, and you and everyone else knows it's really hard to budget enough hobby time.

Thanks for getting me blog to page 5


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/14 05:40:22


Post by: Camkierhi


 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Cam, and I hope I haven't disappointed you with my fondness for making molds of things. Also thanks, for the tips Cam, I'll have to try some of them out, and see how they work.


Hey bud , no judgment or disappointment here. I know how it is. Have been doing some recently myself, bits of bits stuff mainly. Please don't worry, I ain't no Saint to be sitting on no high horse. Was a general remark, not any statement.

You have been showing some brilliant skills so far here, and I look forward to seeing your development, I love that you are trying lots of different things, like myself, enjoying all the challenges and enjoying sharing the experience. Keep at it, your brilliant.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/16 00:51:39


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Cam, I hope it doesn't feel like I was calling you out. I just knew from reading your own blog that you prefer not to mold figures made by other people or companies. That you prefer showing them support. Thank you for the kind comments, the things you say always help keep me energized to tackle the next project.

I took this pic a day ago, but forgot to upload it. Other than priming some figures I don't really have any progress to show today.

I made ears for my oxen. I think the ears are a little weird, but kind of cute. I could put more effort into these, but they are used for such a short time in the campaign, that it feels weird that I've spent this much time on them already. I also made a second much smoother custom 1 inch by two inch round base for 4 legged creatures/animals that will take up two squares in the game. (like the oxen and wolves). I am very happy with how the wagon wheel I made turned out. I made the spokes from bamboo skewers glued lightly together. The central section is made from Apoxie Sculpt, with the raised up section actually from pressing the cap of a super glue tube into it and smoothing down the other sections. Lastly the wheel, which I'm most impressed with was made of many layers of paper covered in PVA glue and carefully wound around. I'm always convinced that I'm going to be making lots of copies of things that i make, so i made a mold of the wagon wheel.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/16 01:04:20


Post by: Camkierhi


Wagon wheel is excellent work. I am afraid the oxen are a bit cute. Have to say though, you can never spend too much time on a project, what is most important is that it is what your happy with. They look great, can easily be identified and do the job, from here on its up to you how wonderful they may be.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/18 22:54:50


Post by: Wirecat


Cool! Good luck and steady hands with them, I'm looking closely!

Regarding tentacles-tails-spikes: it may be too late but in a week or two, if nothing changes on the outside (and inside too) I'll try to put a little report on making a transpanther/displacer beast. Maybe it will one day be useful...


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/19 01:07:22


Post by: Syro_


@Cam: Thanks Cam, I get so impatient wanting to play with the stuff I make, I often rush things too much.

@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat, unfortunately steady hands is something I don't have.

I've started putting a little paint on some of the D&D minis and on my big squiggoth. I didn't get that far, and only snapped these quick pics with my phone:

I've begun painting the goblins and bugbears. I have trouble adjusting to goblins being brown when I've always known them as green skins. I'm trying a mix of brown and green for their skin, with brown highlights. They've ended up with olive drab skin, so far. I'm also planning on nearly all their clothes being browns and blacks with their preference for hiding. I'm starting with a light brown basic coat on the bugbear's fur. I'm planning to use a dark brown wash and then some reddish highlights on the fur. So far I've only used my Apple Barrel acrylics, which has a different consistency from the citadel paint in th background of the pics.


The very beginnings of painting the squiggoth finally too. Once again Apple Barrel acrylics so far, but will be using a wider range soon, especial;ly since I love metallic paints.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/25 02:05:59


Post by: Syro_


Hey everyone, it's been a while. I've been busy, and the progress I made earlier in the week wasn't enough to get me to dig out my camera. But with (I think) a week of progress it's time for a small picture dump. I'm DMing my first D&D game this Monday with the 5th edition starter set quest, Lost Mines of Phandelver. So I'm hurrying to finish everything I need, and not making or painting things to as high a standard as usual.


The goblins are basically done now, though I forgot to paint the horns on that one goblin's helmet.


Bugbears are done too


I'm using/converting Lord of the Rings Heroclix as the PC heroes. This orc is becoming a human hero who uses a bow and great sword. I cut off his weird axe, and made him a bow from wire. The great sword is a space marine power sword with the circuits, and eagle cross guard removed. He still needs a repaint.


I slapped this wagon together, since the heroes will be guarding a wagon of supplies. Now my oxen have something to pull. Speaking of which...



Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed my post.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/26 01:14:55


Post by: Syro_


First D&D game is tomorrow. Here's my latest progress preparing for the game.


There's still so much I could do, but I'm considering the supply wagon done, for now. I really like how it came out.

This angle shows the crate of tools better, I should really spread them out for a pic. They were super easy and fast to make, but look presentable.

Front view.


These are the minis I'm using to represent the 5 heroes in Lost Mine of Phandelver, All started as Lord of the Rings Heroclix, which I believe I mentioned above. Bilbo Baggins is used for the Halfling rogue, Legolas for the short sword wielding Elf wizard, In the middle a guard is the minor noble wanting some adventure, 4th the dwarf mercenary cleric who has two war axes, and lastly the folk hero who specializes in the longbow and greatsword. I gave the dwarf a full head of hair, and did a lot of work on the folk hero. The folk hero started as a LoTR orc with oddly revealing armor and a weird axe. I also gave him a more normal hairline. I'll have to see if I have another copy of the orc for a side by side comparison.


This is the quickly slapped together general wilderness encounter board I made. It's made from one of those corrugated plastic signs that get left in a peoples yards as advertising by companies who do renovations. I covered with green paint, a layer of PVA glue, and then the contents of a bunch of tea bags of chamomile tea. I drink a cup every night, and save each bag. I let the used bag dry for a few days and then cut them open and dump them into a tube to collect the free flock. It doesn't look too bad.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/26 01:23:29


Post by: Briancj


Congrats, you just re-made some GW flocking from the 80's. That's one of the old techniques.

Looks great!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/26 06:33:04


Post by: Camkierhi


The cart and oxen came out brilliant bud, excellent. And great work on the adventurers, looking the part. Good luck with the game.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/27 00:28:30


Post by: Syro_


@Brian: Thanks, I'm glad you like it. That's funny, I didn't realize flocking with tea has been around so long, but I can see why it is. It's not amazing, but for how easy it is, it looks surprisingly good.

@Cam: Thanks Cam, I am very fond of the cart. It's my favorite piece that i made for the game so far, which is funny being that it's used for the first 40 minutes and then will never be seen again in the campaign. My players had trouble settling down, and we were trying to figure out the rules together. We didn't get much actual play time in, but they seemed to have fun, and that's what's msot important.

Thank you both for stopping by


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/29 00:41:30


Post by: Meer_Cat


Way to go, Syro! I unique and characterful adventuring party- complete with transpo- well done!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/29 02:58:24


Post by: bunnygurl


Love the cart!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/29 20:29:51


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat, Thanks bunnygurl! It's not much to look at, but his a pic of the actual game:



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/29 21:13:49


Post by: Apollinaire


Lovely work Syro, as always - and looking great on the table!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/29 23:31:49


Post by: Briancj


 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Meer_Cat, Thanks bunnygurl! It's not much to look at, but his a pic of the actual game:



No, this is everything to look at. Snacks, dice, drinks, character sheets, minis, and some nice, fast terrain. This is people having fun.

And that's important.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/03/30 00:08:06


Post by: Camkierhi


 Briancj wrote:


No, this is everything to look at. Snacks, dice, drinks, character sheets, minis, and some nice, fast terrain. This is people having fun.

And that's important.


^^This exactly. This is perfect. This is what it is all about. Friends together having fun.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/01 13:07:24


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Brian, Thanks Cam! I was a little worried about the sloppiness of the pic since I took it to keep track of where everyone was when we had to stop. I was tempted to crop it, but now I'm glad I didn't because you are both so right.

Completely unrelated, but I wanted to show all of you what just arrived from Russia:


My new non-GW Emperor of Mankind mini. I want to try to sculpt and kitbash every single primarch, but I couldn't see being able to make the Emperor well enough to do him justice. Hopefully I'll get good enough that I can prove myself wrong. This was the cheapest Emperor of Mankind mini I could find that I still liked the look of, and I still spent far more on this than I ever have on a single mini before. It looks like it was 3D printed, but in surprisingly good detail.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/01 22:24:08


Post by: Wirecat


 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Meer_Cat, Thanks bunnygurl! It's not much to look at, but his a pic of the actual game:



Just for this quick moment - it was worth it! A pretty baggage train and a very nice touch to gaming. This stirs some good memories of both gaming and DMing. Thanks and congratulations on Your work! Good luck with Emperor!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As promised, I've made a little tutorial on tentacles, spikes and tail making.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/04 01:18:40


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Wirecat! I hope you can get back to gaming and DMing sometime. The supply wagon was quite a hit with my group, one guy was so taken with the oxen that he said his character wants to keep one ox as a pet.

I haven't been accomplishing too much the last few days, been tired and very distracted by video games. I decided I should really try to get a bit further on the craters, so I painted a base coat of several, and touched up one, that I already applied sand to, but had a lot of white showing.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/07 12:43:23


Post by: Syro_


I started making a room from a cave system the goblin bandits are using in the starter campaign, but I forgot to upload it last night . Even using quick, cheaper materials in the style of DM Scotty this is much slower than I would like (of course I always feel that way). This is 2 hours of work with cardboard and hotglue, Legolas in there for scale for scale:



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/07 13:54:53


Post by: Briancj


When I'm doing this sort of thing, I cheat.

I have a sheet of 1/16th inch thick plasticard that I drew out the one inch grid upon. I made sure I wasn't putting the grid right to the edges. Then, at the grid intersections, I made holes.

Now, I can lay that sheet down, and just put sharpie-dots on ANYTHING. And, if the piece is larger than my sheet, it is easy to re-position over the now-convenient guide marks.

Bon chance!

--Brian


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/07 15:35:37


Post by: Meer_Cat


Nicely done- even with rough material your cuts are very precise. My methods are to measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a crayon and cut it with an axe.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/07 20:05:38


Post by: Syro_


@Meer_Cat: That is hilarious! I really want to try to make something with that method now

@Brian: That's a great idea, I'll have to try making something like that. Making the grids is frustrating, and on that piece, all those grids I drew were just to get the size and shape as close to the book as possible, it'll all be covered up when I paint it, and I'll have to make a grid all over again...


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/07 20:41:10


Post by: Wirecat



Looks good for a start, thumbs up! But now I want to order some pizza just for a big sheet of cardboard.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/07 23:28:05


Post by: Syro_


@Wirecat: Go for it! Eating pizza is just one of the sacrifices we must make for our art
I often carry out the big shipping boxes from my school to the recycling dumpster, so I can help myself anytime I want some cardboard. This started life as a huge box of paper towels, I think.


A bit more progress, I didn't realize that the stairs that I carved into the styrofoam didn't really turn out in the picture until I uploaded it. I also finished adding the rest of the 1/4 inch walls to the room.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/08 21:29:31


Post by: Syro_


I've made some more.


The beginnings of a river/stream section and another room in the cave, with a collapsed area leading into a vertical shaft.


A third room of the cave, which connected to the room above on the left and to a passage way near the top of the pic.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/08 21:39:56


Post by: boundless08


The D&D stuff looks great Syro! The ox and cart are great, really old school vibe to it


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/09 01:07:38


Post by: Syro_


Thanks boundless! I'm glad you like them. Since my last post a few hours ago, I've made on more room for the cave system, though it honestly is hard to tell it's a different room from the last one I made, unless you take a good look at it.


Still the beginnings of these of course, I'll be adding sand, stones and paint some time soon. I'm almost done with all the rooms, now I just need to make all the corridors, the rest of the river, a thicket, and a bridge.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/09 01:28:01


Post by: kestral


Love the oxen and the squigoth. What the base model? I use alot of apple barrel myself. I like where you're going with the cave thing too!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/09 22:21:58


Post by: Syro_


Thanks kestral! I'm glad you're enjoying the stuff I'm making.

There isn't too much of a base model for the oxen. I bought the Battat Wild animal tube from Amazon to use in projects:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TYO5UKI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I cut the lower parts of the legs off of a giraffe and the tail from a lion and glued them to some foamcore.

The rest was just some lumps of hot glue to flesh out the bulk a bit, followed by epoxie putty for the outer layer and details. I painted them to look like Jersey Oxen.

The base model for the squiggoths are stegosaurus from the dollar store (dollar tree)

I clipped all the plates, and sawed off the head and tail. Looking at a picture from an Imperial Armour book, I sculpted the new head and tail from apoxie putty.

I hope I answered your question, if not don't hesitate to ask for clarification. And thanks for stopping by


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/12 01:30:58


Post by: Syro_


I've done a bit more work on the cave the adventure will be taking place in.


This is the simple cardboard base that I make stalagmites from.


Using layers of cheap hotglue, I bulked up the shape of the stalagmites. I then smoothed them into a more refined cone shape, and finally dragged the tip of the hot glue gun across the surface to texture them. They're still quite hard to see, but I'm happy with how the turned out, and once painted I hope they will be easier for all of you to see.


I also made one of the passageways between the rooms in the cave, still many still need to be made.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/15 02:53:01


Post by: Syro_


I've been doing a lot more work, and was able to dry fit the WIP goblin hideout in a cave complex. I give you Cragmaw Hideout:





Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/15 02:59:43


Post by: Briancj


I wish to be in your campaign.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/15 04:53:45


Post by: Camkierhi


That is spectacular. I am with Brian, wish I could join you. Fantastic effort.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/15 10:07:22


Post by: boundless08


That's class man. It really reminds me of Skyrim or Oblivion for some reason, it's giving me that same cavernous dungeon full of loot feel, which is great!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/15 14:39:13


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Brian, thanks Cam! I wish you could playing in this campaign too, that would be amazing!

Also thanks boundless, I'm glad you like it. It's very flattering to be compared to those two games.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/17 20:27:23


Post by: Wirecat


Add me to the company of wanting to join in. Great progress, Syro!

Just one more warm week - and I'll be digging out my terrain!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/17 22:24:29


Post by: Meer_Cat


Terrific gaming terrain!

If you need a Level 15 (old style DnD) Elven Ranger, let me know!



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/19 23:07:12


Post by: Syro_


@Wirecat: Thanks for the kind words Wirecat, it would be fun if you and the others could join me. I'm looking forward to when you dig out your terrain, will you be posting it on your blog?

@Meer_Cat: Thanks Meer_Cat! It would be great if you, me, and other dakka members could easily hang out in person whenever we wanted.

Unfortunately I've been too tired and busy to do any crafting all week.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/23 10:39:22


Post by: Da Boss


Loving the cave! I love that you've included the 3D elements of the design, it just looks awesome set up. Would love to see some more "actual play" shots of that cave system when you get to run it. Lost Mine is a really fun adventure, really looking forward to following along on your blog.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/04/24 11:21:41


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Da Boss! I'm glad you like it. It took a lot more to make than I expected, but I am happy how it's coming out. I'd like to do even more before I use it in the campaign, but I really don't think I'll have time. That's a really good idea you have of more pictures during the actual game, as long as I don't get too caught up, I'll try to remembered to do that


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/13 12:26:01


Post by: Syro_


Wow, it's been close to three weeks since my last post, and close to a month since my last post about my projects. Works been pretty crazy, stressful, and busy. I was feeling really inspired on Saturday, and other than several hours of yard work I spent most of the day crafting and painting.


After about 4 years sitting as bare cardboard and dollar store trees for a Christmas village, I've finally finished my 3 spruce tree scatter terrain pieces. I crushed off or painted over all the fake snow stuck in the branches, painted the base brown, and added little tufts of grass and rocks to act as the corners of 2 inch x 2 inch squares to make measuring easier. I flocked lightly with my usual chamomile tee, plus some finely cut jute twine (also what the grass tufts are).


Same trees, taken without the flash.


Some dungeon tiles painted grey, with black for the outside. I'm not crazy about the grey, but it's only only one I have without mixing it up custom, and I want them to all match in color no matter how many I make. The black comes out a dark grey, any suggestions on a cheap good black acrylic? I'm thinking of trying out what Cam uses.


Water features. There is a central river/stream that flows through the center of the goblin hideout. The river pieces were very simple to make, just hot glue on top of the cardboard bases. I then dragged the hot tip of the glue gun back and forth through the glue to make the water pattern. Without priming I painted blue directly on top of the glue hoping some of the clear of the glue would show through. There are also two dammed up pools of water at the farthest upstream point of the river, that is the two little rock circle pieces at the top of the picture.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/13 13:34:38


Post by: Da Boss


Nice! I dunno if it's the lighting but the grey has come out pretty white alright - maybe you could dirty it up with some wash like Earthshade or something? Scatter trees are always useful, too.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/13 14:08:36


Post by: Camkierhi


That lot is looking fantastic. Don't worry at the grey, as Da Boss say's a wash will do wonders for it.

Though I would say, try making up project batches of paint, a good jam jar full of a custom colour will do the trick, may one day you run out and need to try and match it, but look at the world it is not uniformly coloured, you are talking about stone flags here. If there is a subtle difference in colour it will not look out of place.

If I was you I would mix up a jam jar of a dark grey/brown wash. write the recipe down as you do it. It does not have to be deadly accurate. Add a tiny drop of dish soap in the wash and it will flow evenly over the surface and you will be really happy with the result.

To be honest though, it is all looking pretty fantastic as is bud.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/13 21:52:49


Post by: Wirecat


I would also suggest keeping a physical reference for rock and sand, both texture and colour. Nature is amazing in its variety!

I also add my voice for the Camkierhi suggestion of heavy wash. That should work.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/14 01:09:21


Post by: Syro_


@Da Boss: The grey was very white, and the black was a dark grey, unfortunately it wasn't the lighting. Thanks for the kind words and advice. I'm planning to try some washes on these, but haven't gotten to that stage yet with the other changes I'm trying.

@Cam: Thanks as always for the encouragement, I took your advice, and after digging up an old empty paint bottle left over from college, I made a custom gray like you suggested. I added brown liek so many of you suggested, and it did help with the color. I also wrote down the recipe in my little D&D journal.

@Thanks for the advice Wirecat, I should keep some physical reference and pictures nearby, I always do better art when I do. I guess I've been doing too much old school Minecraft and want all of the under ground to be a uniform gray.


Here is a "before and after" shot with the custom paint I made at Cam's suggestion. The ones on the left I didn't paint yet to show the change. I'm much happier with the darker gray.


Some small rooms and passageways. I'm wondering if there's something up with the new primer I've been using. My paint wants to ball up rather than adhere. Only the left most piece in this pic was primed, plus the ones in the above pic. The rest were not and seem to take the paint much more smoothly. Any suggestions?


I've been experimenting with different ways to preserve the grids on these pieces. Most, I dragged a small bead of hot glue over the entire grid. In this pic I'm trying two other ideas. On the left, I traced the grid in PVA glue and used sand, i still need to paint it. The other two, I cut into the piece using a hobby knife following the grid. I think I'm more of a fan or the cut pieces, with less obvious grid, though I may still trying a ark wash on them along with the others. Thoughts, suggestions?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/15 23:12:52


Post by: Syro_


I've been working on some more minis for the D&D game too.


One of my players is crazy about cats and really wants to play a Tabaxi, so I've started making a Tabaxi figure to his basic specifications. I've already thought of how to introduce him to the party.


Farther on the tabaxi, with a piece of the dungeon in the background. Still very basic rough skeleton. Head is from a tiger I chopped off when making wolves. I sculpted a crossbow by hand, which I made a mold of and produced the crossbow in the picture. Left arm also comes from a mold, but I plan to sculpt a lot of details on top.


There is a grick (a weird beaked tentacle worm), that the characters can encounter in this campaign. They can also encounter a maximum of 4 later in the campaign as wondering monsters, so I decided to make 4. When I looked in the Monster Manual to learn a little more about them and get a good look at the picture, I found out there's a big version called a grick prime. I figured "what the heck" I'm already making the other gricks, I'll make a grick prime at the same time. Gricks are mostly made from aluminum foil, with a layer of hot glue for the skin. The unfinished tentacles are apoxie putty (more foil and glue for the prime). I'll be adding the suction cups with green stuff, and also making the beaks.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/16 01:23:13


Post by: kestral


Those Grick are very nicely done. I should try your foil and hot glue technique - I used to to a lot with hot glue, back in the day.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/17 02:40:31


Post by: Syro_


Thanks kestral, I'm glad you like them. If you do make something out of foil and hot glue, let me know, I'd enjoy seeing it.

Tomorrow is the big day, we're finally having our second session of D&D. Everyone's schedules have finally aligned, and I've been working like a nut trying to finished the entire dungeon that they might get to. I think I did.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/18 00:09:55


Post by: JoshInJapan


Hey, I just finished look through your blog, and your scratchbuilding has totally floored me. I particularly like your cardboard dungeon--I may have to try that myself.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/18 01:09:55


Post by: Briancj


I HONESTLY thought, at first glance, you had acquired some of the Reaper mins Gricks.

SpecTACular work!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/18 02:16:10


Post by: Syro_


@JoshInJapan: Thank you so much, I appreciate the visit and especially that you like my stuff. The cardboard dungeon takes a lot longer to make than I expected, but it is rewarding. I hope you do try it some time, and if you do please let me know. I hope to post a picture with the entire dungeon fully painted and set up soon.

@Brian: You don't know how much your comment means to me. I'm always trying to improve my sculpts and figures I make, so be mistaken for a commercial product is extremely flattering. Thanks so much. I hope they still look good, when they have enough paint on them to be seen clearly.

I just had my second session of D&D as a DM today. It went well, and my players got a lot more done than last session. I'm still surprised how long everything takes, with them constantly debating with each other what to do next. They managed to avoid all the traps, but got caught in every ambush they came upon. It was a busy session so I only remembered to take a single picture, but here it is. This is near the end of the session where they just finished following a trail that the goblins have been using, which led to a cave mouth. I'm glad you get to see my scatter trees in use. My players were surprised and impressed both by how they look, and that each rock and tuft of grass on them secretly follows a grid, so they can be eyeball measured during D&D but also look natural enough to use in gridless wargames.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/18 13:12:28


Post by: Meer_Cat


Excellent sitrep- and I agree- there is no better feeling than to see one's creations (figures, vehicles, terrain) actually in use on the board.

Whilst stationed in Yorkshire, the locally gaming club asked to borrow some of my British Napoleonic battalions I'd painted, especially the Scottish battalions (42nd, 92nd, 77th) for a big wargaming event they were going to in Leeds. They brought me back a copy of the local paper that had carried an article on the vent afterwards, and in the big picture in the middle was all their stuff- to include all _my_ stuff- set up on the table ready to play. Great feeling.

Keep it up, man- you'll have me gaming again Rikki-tik!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/19 02:09:59


Post by: Syro_


Meer_Cat, that is so cool about your army in the paper! From the time I've spent on your blog, I can understand why they would want to borrow your stuff for a big display. I agree with what you said about it being a great feeling seeing the stuff you make in use, That's probably why my craft time has been leaning so heavily towards D&D, I haven't played 40k in over a year, and even before that not often. I still love it and the lore, but it's harder to feel motivated to finish projects.

I hope I do manage to get you gaming again. I'm try my best!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/19 19:29:38


Post by: Red Harvest


 Syro_ wrote:
... I'm still surprised how long everything takes, with them constantly debating with each other what to do next...
You can speed things along by assuming that players debating = PCs debating. A group of adventurers standing around, debating, making noise etc will attract something unpleasant. Use wandering monsters. This is one of the original reasons for wandering monsters. The other use was to deplete party resources.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/20 01:27:57


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for the suggestion Red Harvest. It's funny, I actually decided to create a wandering monsters chart after last session specifically for people/creatures hearing them arguing. I didn't realize this was already a common thing.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/20 04:42:55


Post by: Red Harvest


It was part of the original game, but I believe it fell out of favor with with the advent of 3e. Those of us who played the original game remember.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/20 08:22:47


Post by: monkeytroll


Nice blog! Lots of fun stuff in here. Always good to see inventive recycling.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/20 14:24:46


Post by: Briancj


5th Edition D&D DMG, page 85. Enjoy!

--B.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/20 15:07:28


Post by: Wirecat


World really needs more tabaxi. Cheers!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/21 02:35:50


Post by: Syro_


@ Red Harvest: It's good to have access to veterans of the game who know a lot more about it than I do, thanks.

@Monkeytroll: Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

@Briancj: Thanks for doing some research for me. Unfortunately, I don't have the Dungeon Master's Guide yet. I have the Player's Handbook, and Monster Manual so far, along with the starter set. I just couldn't bring myself to drop $150 all at once when I was buying the other two, and had figured I needed that the least. I'll be sure to check that page out when I get the DMG tho.

Wirecat
World really needs more tabaxi. Cheers!

I agree I'm happy to tell you that I started on a second Tabaxi mini this weekend.

I devoted a lot of Sunday to modeling, and although my back hurts it was quite enjoyable.


A bit more progress on the Tabaxi rogue that I'm making for one of my players. Still a long way to go.


I started on a second Tabaxi. I'm not crazy about how either Tabaxi's feet turned out, but I think this one is a bit better. This Tabaxi will be a random encounter NPC who is a wandering trader. He is based off of a Kajeet chacrater I made in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.


These will be three wild boars, which are also a part of the extra random encounter table I made. (for extra info see my conversation with Red Harvest on page 6 of this blog). I was bothered that the beginning of this adventure takes place on and around a road called "Triboar trail", yet there are no wild boar anywhere in the adventure. So I decided that they will be a new random encounter, and that they always travel in groups of three in this area, hence the trail name. It's funny how quickly I am abandoning only getting/working on the minis I need for the adventure, and trying to play the starter set as close to intended as possible. If anyone is curious those are potion bottles for heads on the boar, the ones I used for my Hero Quest alchemy table. I wanted something to build the heads on top of, and they were the right size.

Speaking of not being very good about only working on what I need for the current adventure, I was really inspired by a recent "Black Magic Craft" video on youtube about building an earth elemental/rock golem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1AKrIN1U3Q

I wanted to see if I could make it using mostly really cheap expanded polystyrene (mostly since I'm low on the good stuff), and used my hot wire cutter for every cut on the white foam.

Very beginning


Here is when I finished the white expanded polystyrene part. I made the eyes and mouth by shoving the hot tip of the glue gun into the head.


This is how it looked when I stopped for the night. With Legolas in there for scale. I used the better gray extruded polystyrene for the accent rocks at the joints, and also glued actual little pebbles from my pebble bin. Like the guy from black magic craft, I also wanted to add weight to keep this guy standing. I hollowed out a section of the foot that's flat on the ground and filled it with pebbles and hot glue. I also carved some "toes" from the grey foam for more stability.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/21 04:23:56


Post by: Red Harvest


Nice start on the golem. encrusting actual rocks, gravel actually, might make for a neat effect. It would certainly increase its weight. If a few fall off, so what. Battle damage, call it. I've done it before with terrain pieces, encrusting rocks into such foam.

If you want to read more about random encounters, advice for DMs, etc, here is a nice resource of free pdf rulesets based in part on older versions of D&D. http://www.tenkarstavern.com/p/f.html Some of them are worth a read for ideas, inspiration what have you. One thing to always remember is that random encounters are not always creatures who attack immediately.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/21 23:06:28


Post by: Meer_Cat


I can attest to the wandering monster gambit that Red Harvest mentioned. Back in the late 70's when we were figuring out how to play and what everything was all about (in the school library resources room during Library Sciences class, of all things- how cool is that?) we would take too long trying to decide what to do and our DM would just make something up on the spot (we didn't have a monster manual yet, or any plotline beyond 'go in dungeon (ie: a maze) and kill everything that pops out and goes 'boo'!). Next thing you know you're up to your azz in stegasuaruses.

Unless the exploring party are all practitioners of American Sign Language (we tried this dodge), in which case the DM sicced a bunch of psychic brainsuckers on us, claiming they were attracted by all the thinking going on.

Keep on keepin' on, man!



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/22 00:13:58


Post by: Syro_


@Red Harvest: thanks for the resource, I'll check it out. I'll keep plugging away at the giant golem/elemental as time allows. I definately want to encrust it more, but I'm worried about it getting top heavy again if I do too many real rocks up high, so I'll probably stick to using real rock on the legs, and making foam rocks up high. And thank you, I love the idea about delaying the danger of random encounters, like someone asking for help, and then betraying the party down the line. I'll have to add some of that kind of stuff to my random encounter table.

@Meer_Cat: That's is such a cool way to have gotten your start in D&D! Thanks for the additional support for random encounters. Though if my players were clever enough to have all their characters learn some non-verbal communication and remember to say that they're all communicating that way, I think I'd let them get away with it.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/22 00:42:24


Post by: Red Harvest


The betrayal trope is over-used. Be careful with it.

There is something called talus that model railroaders use to simulate rocks. You may want to give that a look. It's lightweight.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/23 00:54:54


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for the advice Red Harvest

A little more progress with modeling:


A very tiny bit more progress on the Tabaxi rogue for one of my players. I worked on the torso and shoulders.


I got a lot further on the robed Tabaxi trader.


bulked out the heads on the wild boar. Still a long way to go.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/23 03:23:45


Post by: Camkierhi


That robe work is top notch bud, excellent work. The other items are really coming on too.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/23 11:47:05


Post by: boundless08


You've been knocking these out since I last checked!!! Agree with Cam, the robed dude is looking great, so much character in him


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/23 20:20:31


Post by: Da Boss


I meant to comment before, must have gotten distracted. Gricks are looking awesome, and tabaxi are amazingly cool given the simplicity of the build.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/24 00:29:26


Post by: Syro_


@Cam: Thanks Cam! I'm really happy with how the robe came out, I haven't tried anything like that before so I had no idea if it would look like anything.

@boundless: Thanks! Now that I'm playing again, I'm feeling really inspired and have been pushing to get stuff done. I'll often squeeze in half an hour before leaving for work in the morning, and then work more when I get home. I'm glad the robed Tabaxi has a lot of character, I was trying for that.

@Da Boss: Thanks! I am surprised that the Tabaxi are coming out as well as they are, since I'm uses cut offs from another project as the heads, and trying to freehand most everything else. I'm glad you like the gricks too, I really need to get back and finish them.

Speaking of which... I didn't finish them (or even work on them lately)
.
I did get a lot further on the wild boar. I was worried they weren't going to turn out looking like much, but I'm really happy with how they're shaping up with the latest additions to the head area.


Also completely unnecessary for the current campaign, but I wanted my robed Tabaxi to have an overloaded pack horse, so I threw this together. I took the smallest horse from a pack of cheap plastic horses I bought from the dollar store, and glued some castings of backpacks onto a piece of paper. The backpacks are altered ork packs one is from a mek/big mek and the other was the big shoota backpack with the grot sitting inside with the ammo.


These are Red Brand Ruffians for the starter set campaign. A local bandit gang. I actually only need 4, but they're easy to make so when I decided they would also be a new random encounter, I more than double the number that would be available to use. The body and most of the capes come from a mini I am crazy about. The Mirkwood guard Lord of the Rings Heroclix mini. I think it looks really bad ass. I then did a head swap for a 40k Dark Angels hooded head, since all these bandits wear red cloaks.

Tomorrow is our next game of D&D, I'm looking forward to it


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/24 01:17:48


Post by: Meer_Cat


Love the overloaded pack horse- very clever and good use of dollar store materials- one of my favorite places to scout for 'treasures'!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/25 02:01:42


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat, it's one of my favorite places to pick up stuff for projects too.

We had our third D&D session of Playing the Starter Set campaign today. We didn't get very far, but they accomplished some cool stuff. Our cleric used Thaumaturgy to bellow into the cave something about how the goblins had displeased his god and would be punished, followed up by causing earth tremors with the same spell. It was such a cool idea I allowed the range to be farther than the 30 feet it's allowed. The goblins reacted by springing one of their "tidal wave" traps, which rumbled down the cave and exploded out the entrance, missing them as they were hiding outside. Even more entertaining, was when they got to the first room. This was a goblin kennel with three chained wolves. They really liked the wolves for whatever reason and went beyond what most players would. With a successful string of animal handling roles, all 5 in a row were rolled higher than 15, they calmed the wolves, encouraged friendliness, released the wolves, coaxed the wolves to follow them out of the cave, and got the wolves to allow themselves to be tied to nearby trees just out of reach of the supply wagon to retrieve at the end of the dungeon. When they finally got far enough in to be seen by a goblin sentry who causes the tidal wave traps, they recognized the rumble of the approaching torrent and booked it to safety easily.

My favorite event in today's game was during the wolf rescue. When the players were desperately trying to figure out how to release the wolves from being chained to a metal spike driven into a stalagmite. Our cleric brought up that he was carrying stone cutting tools. He planned to try to sever the chains, which was then changed to trying to break the stalagemite. I warned how noisy all of this would be, since they had already suffered 1 random encounter from all the shouting and waiting with the thaumaturgy. So the cleric asked the wizard if he had a spell that could cut the chains like a laser. The wizard didn't, but considered using an electric spell on the chains. I pointed out that, with the chains being metal he would electrocute the wolves they were trying to save. They then devised using ray of frost to make everything brittle for when they try to sever it with the stone cutting tools. It was at this point the player who plays a fighter (who had been waiting quietly through all of this) said "Can't we just take off their collars?" I looked over the description of the room, and couldn't find anything saying they were locked to these chains, so I said yes.


Here is how far they have gotten into their first dungeon. Sorry for the sloppiness, one of my players kept bumping the river, and I removed the cave mouth and outside so everyone could see better.


My players also asked me to take a picture recording their three new pet wolves.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/25 15:41:54


Post by: Briancj


Heh. In theory, if they were goblin-owned wolves, they would NOT be locked to the chains, much like we don't lock dogs to their leads.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/26 05:05:36


Post by: Scarper


That's really going above and beyond making a 3d map of that whole cave system - serious kudos to you as a DM! I loved the tidal wave concept in the book. 3 sessions to get just past the entrance of the first dungeon is slow going though - can see that your group likes to explore all possible options

Really love how the boars are shaping up - you be got a real talent for getting the shape of animals down. Sounds silly, but little things like the curve on a leg or arch on a neck can really make or break whether you accept an animal as realistic or not. Keep up be great work!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/27 01:38:26


Post by: Syro_


@Briancj: That's a good point Brian. I enjoy that you can follow stuff to their logical conclusion more in D&D than in many games. I should feel more comfortable to just rolling with stuff in this campaign, rather than constantly checking if I'm following exactly the way it was written.

@Scarper: Thanks! I've talked to my group about theater of the mind, and paper maps and such. But for as long as I have the time and energy, we'd all like to try to stick with minis and nice looking real terrain, etc. I also liked the tidal wave, it's a much more original and interesting trap than you often come across. Our D&D sessions only last 2 hours, so it is a little hard to accomplish too much, but still you're right about my group being slow and exploring all possible options I'm also very flattered by your kind words about the boars. I was trying to get the shapes and proportions correct by examining a toy pig model, I'm glad it's paying off. I'm also having trouble deciding now if I want to continue making them into boars, or to make them domestic pigs.
It sounds like you have either played or run the Starter Set campaign, Scarper? I'm hoping these updates are especially fun for you, if you have.

First up, I have finished painting the Red Brand Ruffians

In this first pic, I'm already noticing so many needed touch ups, and this is before I added the wash to the faces.


After the wash on the faces and hands


Paint's still a bit wet, and that white spot is a glob of PVA glue to fill in a hole in the casting. But, painting is almost done on the overloaded pack horse. (Even though it isn't actually in the campaign.


In the Red Brand hideout there is a crypt with 3 tombs, each sarcophagi depicts a different person. These will be them. Still very WIP and oh boy am I getting a lot of use out of mold I made of the HeroQuest sarcophagus top. I may need to make some undead heavy quest sometime to use all this stuff again. I head swapped the one sarcophagus with the same hooded Dark Angel head that I used for the Red Brand Ruffians. The used one of the cool oversized ladies from the Mythic Heroes bucket that I got off of Amazon a while back. I clipped off her staff, then cut both her arms around the elbow to reposition them into the "resting pose" that she's in now. I finally poked and dabbed some very hot glue into the basic outline of her body in some very soft and light expanded polystyrene. The indentation sunk down way too far. I'm now filling it in all the huge gaps with PVA glue and sand.








Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/27 19:11:14


Post by: Wirecat


That's some solid progress, Syro! You are really setting the mark with this robed tabaxi! Considering I am about to get into loose clothing myself, that is quite high example for my inspiration. And what a cute little piglets You've made - wonderful! The only thing for a grumpy wirecat to grump about is the REALLY overladen pack horse. I mean, really, who uses such a noble and true-bred riding horse for a beast of burden. Adventurers, my tail... Meh! :^)


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/27 21:01:24


Post by: Syro_


Thanks so much Wirecat. I'm constantly marveling at your beautiful scuplts, so it means a lot that you like how mine are looking. And no worries about the pack horse, I specifically made the horse to feel a little wrong when you look at it, like it is being treated wrong through being worked and used wrong. I should do a size comparison picture also, it's much smaller than my other horse models.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/27 23:01:49


Post by: Meer_Cat


That is freaking hilarious- "can't we just take their collars off?" And so true- we get blinded by our preconceptions and oftentimes make the problem harder than it really is. A story I hear from the early days of the space race was about the US (and proud American am I, so no holds barred) invested a tidy sum inventing a pen with a pressurized ink cell that could write in zero gravity. The Soviets used pencils.

Terrific game you've got going and thanks for the reports- it's like D&D on the radio! (Pipe down kids- I got the game on!)


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/28 03:13:05


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat, I'm glad you're enjoyng hearing about the game I always got a chuckle out of that story about over complicating things with a million dollar pen rather than using pencil. At the same time, I was relieved to hear a more recent clarification that the graphite dust from using pencils was floating everywhere in zero G and damaging electronics (probably wasn't great for the astronauts lungs either. We'll loose a funny story, but I hope the clarification is true.

I promised some size comparison shots of my poor over-loaded pack horse, and I'll share my other progress as well.


My pack horse is the exact same model as the little red horse on the right. I hope everyone can see the size differences clearly in the angle of the pic. These are all dollar store horses, so they're mostly pretty bad, but I hope i can find good use for them. I'm not sure what to do with the three huge ones in the back, maybe they should be draft horses. I was annoyed how useless the two horse on the bottom left who are scratching at themselves were until I came up with a great idea for them. (some of you may have already noticed them in use.


The campaign starts with the heroes finding two dead horses lying in the road, I think they work very well for that.


Here's one more size comparison with the zebras that I'm planning to repaint as donkeys. The smuggie one is from a dolalr store pack of animals, the rest are from the Battat Terra Wild animals tube on Amazon. I got the idea to repaint zebra from "Miniature Mashup" on Youtube, if my memory serves.


He's a little to epic for how I'm using him, but this Thranduil LoTR Heroclix mini will be serving and Sildar Halwinter in the Starter Campaign.


I'm converting one of my many Thorin Oakenshield minis from LoTR Heroclix, into the evil mage "Glass Staff" I like getting to alter and add onto thus mini, rather than just using it as is. I cut all the sword and scabbards or the piece. Two swords and an empty scabbard in total.I replaced his sword arm with an arm holding a staff. I also cut his other arm in two places. He was originally using his hand as a visor over his eyes as he looked into the distance. I've tried to make it look like he's ready to fire a spell out of his hand.


After being broken off the big bulky Heroclix bases, the PCs had very small bases to stand on. They were finally starting to have a little trouble balancing on terrain, but mostly I was just bothered that they had such different bases from the rest of the models. I made some mostly hollow bases, and with a little clipping, was able to press them into the middle with hot glue. They needed quite a bit of cleaning up.


Once they are painted black, I think the custom bases look pretty good.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/28 13:07:33


Post by: Briancj


Believe it or not, the larger horses are just right for war horses. Also, Clydesdales.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/28 13:48:23


Post by: Syro_


That's good to hear, thanks Brian. I typically don't see many horses (none of them war horses), and when I do, it's usually with kids, so I was having a mental block of how big they should look.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/29 02:11:23


Post by: Syro_



I've made some black bears from small bears in the Battat Terra Wild animals tube. They're too small to be any other type of bear anyone in a fantasy setting would encounter, and they're not actually in the game, but I wanted them for random encounters.


I've begun working on the nothic, a weird cyclopean mind reading abberation. I made the head from a skeleton's head, and carved out everything above the nose to fit the giant eye. The eye itself is a small plastic sphere, they're from some kind of art thing where you have a bunch of colored plastic spheres that you can get to stick together into a pattern or picture if you cook them lightly or something. I cut off and am altering the arms and legs of a scythe witch from the Sedition wars board game.

A Nothic looks like this in the Monster Manual:
https://goo.gl/images/ESyc5g


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/29 04:36:59


Post by: Briancj


One of those bears would also be good for a druid in 'bear form'.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/29 20:35:15


Post by: Syro_


That's a really good point! Thanks Brian! I can't believe I forgot about my favorite ability of my one my favorite classes


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/29 20:40:50


Post by: Da Boss


Wow you're really making great progress. I love how much mileage you're getting out of all the different mini sources you are using. Thorin Glass-staff looks pretty neat, I would not have expected that to work out.

On your game report, my players always want to recruit everyone they can as well. It's a bit of an issue!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/30 23:05:29


Post by: Scarper


 Syro_ wrote:

@Scarper: Thanks! I've talked to my group about theater of the mind, and paper maps and such. But for as long as I have the time and energy, we'd all like to try to stick with minis and nice looking real terrain, etc. I also liked the tidal wave, it's a much more original and interesting trap than you often come across. Our D&D sessions only last 2 hours, so it is a little hard to accomplish too much, but still you're right about my group being slow and exploring all possible options I'm also very flattered by your kind words about the boars. I was trying to get the shapes and proportions correct by examining a toy pig model, I'm glad it's paying off. I'm also having trouble deciding now if I want to continue making them into boars, or to make them domestic pigs.
It sounds like you have either played or run the Starter Set campaign, Scarper? I'm hoping these updates are especially fun for you, if you have.


Nothing wrong with some visual aids - I'm sure your players really appreciate it! There's something to be said for a good map or layout - it's all very well describing a room in an interesting, exciting way, but dimensions are important too when it comes to movement and combat. There's only so many ways you can describe exactly how many feet apart the three brigands are, and how far off that rocky outcrop is, without sounding a little tedious!
I've not actually played the campaign, but I've read it through - one of my friends bought me the starter set to try and encourage me to get into D&D, and credit to the bastard, it worked. I've stolen a bunch of ideas from the first few dungeons - they're well made, with some interesting traps, layouts and characters. I hope you're enjoying it!

Nothic is taking shape really well - can really picture how it's going to turn out! The giant eye is always a creepy look... I'm impressed with your dedication to this - what if they get through the whole basement and miss the perception check to even encounter the thing? I'd be heartbroken if I'd made and painted a model for it.
You didn't back the Sedition Wars Kickstarter, did you? Taught me a lesson or two that did...


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/31 00:35:07


Post by: Syro_


@Scarper: I've always felt that way too about the benefit of a grid and visual aids. I prefer more tactical combat, I absolutely love another roleplaying group I'm a part of, and the GM is amazing, the best I've ever played with. The one thing that bothers me a little bit, is not fully knowing where everyone is in relation to each other and the distance to enemies, like you said.

I am enjoying the starter campaign, and each session we get more in the groove and understand what we're doing more. Each session has been more fun than the last as well. What may be my players absolute favorite part from last session after taming the wolves is when the last goblin in the group they were fighting failed its hide roll. So after I found that every hero rolled higher than the goblins stealth roll, I explained that as it ran and hid behind a tree its butt was obviously sticking out, and as they looked closer they could see the goblin giggling to itself thinking it had tricked them. The goblin then got shot in the butt by some magic missiles from the wizard.

Thanks, I'm glad you like the nothic. I hope I'm able to bring all the separate pieces together in a good looking way. That will be heart breaking if the Nothic hides the whole game and I never use it, but part of the mind set of making all this was, as a starter campaign it's likely it will be used several times, so maybe next time. I've been making the maximum number of anything they can meet including from the random encounter tables, so there's plenty them may never see unfortunately. And I'm sorry, it sounds like Sedition Wars didn't treat you right. I picked it up off Ebay for cheap some time after the Kickstarter was over. I've never even tried the game, just wanted the minis.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/05/31 22:21:00


Post by: Syro_


@Da Boss: Sorry for missing your comment. And thanks, I've been pushing myself hard to get a lot ready for our game sessions. I always enjoying finding new ways to use buts that I mold. I never would have expected Thorin Oakenshield as dwarf swordsman king to be a good wizard either. I had several other minis picked out, but as I read the description again saying he is short with a black beard, I started to wonder. I'm glad you like how it's turning out, I am too (plus surprised that it looks good).

That's funny about your PCs recruiting everything they can, I'm glad my group isn't the only one.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/01 15:56:46


Post by: Da Boss


I am excited to find out what happens when your players get to some of the later parts of the adventure like Wave Echo Cave. I've run the Starter Adventure, but only two of the dungeons/locations actually showed up.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/04 01:54:06


Post by: Syro_


@Da Boss: Thanks for the page turn, and yeah I'm excited to see what my players do later in the starter campaign as well. Unfortunately it'll be a while, we won't be playing again until September. All of us are bummed.

Speaking of which, here is how far my players have gotten into the first dungeon, Cragmaw Hideout:

Even though the mini isn't done, I decided to introduce the Tabaxi character so my one player could use him before before our long break. We're up to 6 PCs now. I invited a guy I know who is super knowledgeable about D&D, but hasn't played any 5th edition yet, and wants to learn. So he took over the dwarf who was vacated by the player who is playing the Tabaxi now. My group stayed consistently slow to accomplish things. In the actual game, very little got done other than introducing the Tabaxi. While investigating the next room (the one with the two pools of water), the Tabaxi rogue was ambushed by goblins. He fell back to warn the group. A few more moved up with him to try and help find the goblins, but the goblins were rolling super high with their stealth, so no one could find them. After several attempts at that, with the goblins taking pot shots at them, our dwarf cleric enchanted a rock to glow with light, threw it like a grenade into the room. Then organized all the highest AC players to form a shield wall and storm the goblin position. Before reaching them, but finally (mostly) passing their perception check, is where we had to end the session.


I've added the basic torso shape to the nothic, to which I'll be adding details and appendages. I've also been working on the gricks, but nothing photo worthy. The grick prime is ready to to prime and paint.

On an unrelated note, tonight I felt the very strong urge to make beholders. Lots of them. I felt the urge too late at night to start making any, and realistically I don't know why I would even need them. It will be a very long time before my players can take on a single beholder, much less a whole bunch. I don't know if this urge will subside soon, or if some beholders will start gracing my blog.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/04 10:24:21


Post by: Da Boss


That's a bummer about the campaign being postponed alright. I'm at a bit of a burnout phase with my campaign, though I hope it is only temporary. Just feel like playing some video games and chilling out.

The Nothic is looking cool - I like the huge eye you've given him.I was thinking of converting a plaguebearer to represent it, but I felt the eye was not enough of a centre point.

Would love to see your take on beholders.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/05 00:29:11


Post by: Syro_


@ Da Boss, I hope you feeling burnt out with the campaign is only temporary too. You said your players were a little shell shocked after how intense that final battle was, so it's understandable if you need a break too. I doubt you'll be allowed to rest for too long
I like your idea of using a plague bearer for a nothic, and I think it would work well. I also agree about the eye not standing out enough. You should probably do what I did, and drill out most of the upper face, then replace it with a sphere for the eye. The eye on my nothc is bugging out, but definitely grabs focus of the viewer. Thanks for your encouragement about the beholders, I'm still in the mood to make them, so i hope I find the time, I've bought some ping pong balls for their bodies.

I took a trip to the dollar store to buy art supplies to play with, followed up by a trip to the pet store to buy aquarium foliage. I hope to be starting on my stirges soon Da Boss.



I've also finally finished the beaks of the gricks, now I'm wondering if the tenticles are too small compared to the beaks...


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/05 00:45:04


Post by: JoshInJapan


Are those made of rolled-up aluminum foil? I will have to steal that idea.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/06 10:36:46


Post by: Syro_


Yes, they are made of rolled up aluminum foil. I'm glad you like the idea, please do use it. These particular pieces have a thin layer of hot glue on top of the foil.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/06 11:58:42


Post by: Da Boss


I saw a thing on youtube where someone used rolled up foil as a base for a Purple Worm scratchbuild. It's on my list of things to try, but I'm very encouraged after seeing your Grick scratchbuilds.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/06 19:26:28


Post by: Syro_


Nice Da Boss, I'm glad to hear it. I hope you try it, and I'll try it out too when I have time. Thanks for letting me know about it. I love DMScotty, but I don't have his fondness for wrapping wet toilet paper around stuff.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/06 20:44:55


Post by: Da Boss





That is the video I was talking about. A lot less tutorial like than DM scotty, but gives the basic idea.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/06 21:54:45


Post by: Syro_


Thanks, I'll check it out


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/07 15:51:12


Post by: Briancj


Now, mind you, I had money to spend, and I've also got a problem.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bdRAhWQdwsSKcC5WgcA-C3B6D9zBztxP/view?usp=sharing

BUT, you continue to plow the road for people who would like AFFORDABLE fun.

Great job!

--Brian



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/07 20:13:01


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Brian, I do like to keep things affordable, and I think part of the fun is making the stuff (tho it's mostly cheapness)

You should really warn me before showing a pic like that, I was afraid I was going to break my keyboard by drooling on it!
What an amazing collection, thanks for sharing!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 03:55:28


Post by: Syro_


I spent most of the day working on a project Da Boss and I have been discussing. I've made a D&D purple worm from a base of aluminum foil. I'm still considering adding some stuff, I want to add spikes to the face, and it still needs serious basing, but I'm also proud to say that the main model could be considered fully made start to finish in one day. I started at 2:00 PM today. And sorry in advance if the number of pictures is overwhelming, I wanted to document it well, to almost be like a tutorial.


Before we get to the good stuff, I realized today that I don't have a compass for making circles (the cheap one I had broke), so I didn't really have a good way to make large circular bases. I whipped this up, and it works surprisingly well.


Here's the starting 5 inch base cut out of carboard, with Gandalf standing nearby for size comparison.


Out of about 3 square feet of aluminum foil, I made this basic body shape for the purple worm. With the body being roughly triangular in shape in the official art, I wanted to change the jaws to also be three sections. I wanted a look somewhat similar to the sand worms of Dune, but blunter for going through rock rather than sand. I'm also planning to cover it with forward facing curved spikes.


Horse test. In the fluff, a purple worm can swallow a horse whole, this one looked too weedy when I put my biggest horse figures in its mouth.


I bulked it up some more, adding 3 more square feet of foil, for a total on 6 square feet. It looked a lot better to me this way.


I then bent the worm into a more interesting pose than "tree trunk". Hopefully it looks like it's bursting out of the ground and arching forward to attack.


I then carved a texture out of high density extruded polystyrene that I wanted to use for the armor plates and made a mold. The color/contrast has been adjusted to try to show the contours better.


I used cheap dollar store hot glue for the castings in the mold, and attached the plates using my far stickier Sure Bonder hot glue sticks and glue gun. I would attach the edge of a plate with good hot glue, wait for it to harden, then add more around the edges. I would then bend the plate around the body of the model and hold it in place like that until the glue "dried".


This is after close to 2 hours of casting and attaching plates. I felt the texture was really starting to look good and take form.


I wanted something thicker than the usual tooth picks for teeth, and luckily I have a lot of bamboo skewers. I would use my model clippers on a sharp angle, and clip a basic pencil point shape, then refine the point with a hobby knife. I then poked holes in the foil with a skewer, added a dot of hot glue and slotted the teeth into place.


For the stomach I wanted a more scaled appearance. Using the cheap hot glue that is more viscous, I made circular blobs along the body, leaving gaps between them. I tried not to have any fresh glue blobs touch for fear of them running together. When dry, I would going over an area again filling in some of the gaps following the same rules as before. After several passes, all the spaces were filled up.


Here is the more or less finished worm, if I don't add the spikes. If you zoom in on this pic, you can see the peddled texture of the stomach scales more clearly. The whole thing took about 7 hours to make from scratch, using about 6 square feet of aluminum foil, along with close to three full bags of dollar store glue sticks (20 mini sticks per bag). Minor materials include 2 bamboo skewers, less than one cubic inch of mold putty, some cardboard, and a piece of foam.





Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 04:22:23


Post by: Pneumo


After your kind words on my progress I saw that you had a blog of your own. I just finished going through all your pages and I have to say you got some great pieces in here!
I especially love that worm, the scales on the back are so simple to make, yet create an astonishing effect.
Keep up the good work!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 07:30:09


Post by: JoshInJapan


Seven hours? Was that all in one sitting?

Do you have an issue with your detailing sticking to the foil? I've never tried it myself, but I feel like that would be a PITA.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 08:22:49


Post by: Da Boss


Wow, I was not expecting you to tackle that so quickly! Amazing work. It is really useful to have your step by step pictures here, thank you! It's also really good to know how much foil you made, and scale was something I was also worried about.

The scales look excellent! I think it is much better looking than the cardboard scales in the DMScotty method, and I like how you have combined the two methods here - I was planning something similar for my worm (though I think I will use Milliput rather than hot glue just because I am more used to it now).

Looks fantastic! Can't wait to see it with paint on it.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 13:31:14


Post by: Syro_


@Pneumo: Thanks for taking the time to look through my blag, and I'm glad you like what I've been making. The back scales/plates for the worm came out better than I expected, and I'm quite happy with how it's turned out so far.

@JoshInJapan: Luckily it's wasn't all in one sitting, but was pretty close. I had about 2 hours and 40 minutes of various length breaks throughout. Usually worked for about 2 hours before needing a break. My back was still hurting by the end, anyway tho
As for the foil, it has its own "personality" when you work with it, like any other material. I may be biased, since aluminum foil was the first art material I got really good at when I was younger. It's soft and weak, so you want to cover it completely with an outer shell of what ever other materials you are using. And you have to be careful of seams and attachment points peeling away, so you can see in 8th (and a little in the 9th) picture that I glued down the edges of the foil and filled in any overly large depressions. In other ways, I find it the foil superior, with all the little ridges and crinkles in the foil, I find my putty doesn't slip around as much as on plain smooth wire. Plus it's easy to bulk up a core, possibly more than using foam inside which I often do. I'll have to get a bit more practice to be sure.

@Da Boss: Thanks, I wasn't expected to get through it so quickly either. I was just planning on doing a little bit, but got really into it, and wanted to keep going back to work on it. I'm glad you brought up about the purple worm stuff, and I'm glad the pictures and descriptions are useful. And thank you, it's high praise that you think my scales look better than DMScotty's. It looks like you can tell that I liked the look of DMScotty's armor plate like scales, but wanted to try to improve on them. I'm tempted to make another purple worm to try different techniques, but I don't know if I would have a use for so many (I started making one out of clay in a pottery class I'm taking before making this one ). I'm looking forward to seeing your purple worm, and milliput makes a lot of sense to use.

Do any of you three, or any other readers have a suggestion on if I should go ahead and paint this worm as is, or start adding spikes like I had originally planned? I could probably blue-tac on some spikes to give an idea.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 13:35:49


Post by: Pneumo


I'd try the blue tac and see how it'll look. Won't cost you that much time and might improve the model. If it looks better without them you lost nothing.
Personally I think a few spikes, or one backwards facing spike/plate on each part of the jaw would look good.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 13:59:21


Post by: Meer_Cat


So much win in this tutorial!

1) Congratulations on an overall excellent build! The techniques you've demonstrated aren't just for making purple worms (at least for me): I see ways to use your 'armoring up' plate method for actual tanks, ones using overlapping additional plates or sheets of steel to reinforce the original hull, for instance.

2) The posing is very dramatic- I think you've captured the 'erupting from the ground and lunging forward' look very well.

3) The 'blobs of hot glue' technique for the stomache/thorax/chesty-bit is genius- and again, with applications beyond just this project. I have a hot glue gun (an el cheapo, but it works reliably) but I'm learning that there is so much more that it can do than just stick part A to part B. The use of different properties glue sticks, for instance, would never have occurred to me.

4) Clever fix for the lack of a compass for drawing circles! You can also take a strong pin and a piece of string- especially if using cardboard for your sub-surface- and swing a line that way.

5) I'm not much into gross, D&D monsters- but you have my full attention with this project. And never apologize for the wealth of pictures: the ones that don't want 'em will scan past; those of us that do appreciate your adding extra detail to the instruction.

Yoicks and away! Let's see next steps!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/08 14:17:17


Post by: Briancj


 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Brian, I do like to keep things affordable, and I think part of the fun is making the stuff (tho it's mostly cheapness)

You should really warn me before showing a pic like that, I was afraid I was going to break my keyboard by drooling on it!
What an amazing collection, thanks for sharing!


I'll put them in a spoiler tag, next time.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/09 01:58:08


Post by: Syro_


@Pneumo: Thanks for the suggestion about the plates on the jaw, I'll try that out too. I've been working on preparing the spikes to blue-tac on, but I was having trouble concentrating on it and didn't get very far. Also the many spikes I prepared are looking like they are may be too small for coming out of the amor plates, but I'll still give it a try.

@Meer_Cat: Thanks for all the kind words, and I'm glad you are thinking up cool applications for stuff I show . I tend to use hot glue heavily and in many unusual ways, probably more often than I should, but I enjoy experimenting with it, and I liek how fast it is ready to continue working with. I'm glad you like my silly stand in compass, I always manage to mess up with I do the pin and string method, so i'm glad I have this now.

@Briancj:

I've switched gears and started working on my entry for the 26th League of Extraordinary Riveters terrain contest. The contest theme is "Hold the Line". I'm making a modular trench system for 40k. I imagine most of you already know about these contests, but just in case, I'll mention a little about it. The league has terrain contests with themes, and I have found them to be very fun to take part in. There is a great deal if sharing ideas during these, and encouragement. Also they are just plain exciting, to have a deadline (in this case a very far away one), and to try to impress and out do your peers. If anyone is interested in checking it out, you can click on the banner in my sig and it will take you right there.
Also @ Meer_Cat: I hope I am making this close enough to accurate to make you proud


Here are some of my raw materials (which I later doubled). I cut 8 inch by 4 inch strips of dollar store foam core, then peeled off the paper. I also then cut roughly 1 inch by 1 inch styrofoam prisms. These prisms were then cut diagonally to create right triangular prisms.


Here is a scale shot of a representative from each of my 40k armies. I am building this trench system in a modular manner, with each piece shaped like a hexagon with one side an inch shorter than the other.


Here the trench is set up in a way to protect from enfilade, so an enemy cannot fire down the entire length of the trench if the get in.


Here it is arranged in a curve.

I plan to make additional connectors to allow more configurations.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/10 02:02:34


Post by: Syro_


I've continued working on pieces for my LoER competition entry. I made more connectors as planned., I think I'm finally done making new parts and will start the many steps to finishing all the modules now. I believe I have made 22 modules for this modular trench.


I made two "T" intersections for the trenches, so they can branch along with 4 arcs to allow the trenches to angle more.


Here's one of the T-intersections in use to allow a communications trench to attach to the forward trench.


I then made some more of the arc pieces, another trench piece of a different size, and some end caps for the trenches. The extra arc pieces and trench piece allow em to construct this:


In the style of the Terrain Tutor, next it's on to slapping Spackle/Filler onto the outside parts of the pieces. I'll follow up with some inside details, panting a base coat, and then finish by adding sand with a protective layer of PVA glue.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/10 02:34:53


Post by: Pneumo


That's some pretty epic terrain you're building up there. Is there enough room to fit bigger models, say terminators, into the trench?
And one small suggestion, I think adding some explosion craters into the sections would give a bigger trench setup more life, just cut in a dent and throw some rubble in it. Maybe test it first on a small scrap piece, I'm just throwing in suggestions and can't be responsible for the result.
Otherwise just keep up the great work!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/10 13:26:49


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for the visit and the suggestions Pneumo. It may be short sighted, but I only built the trenches to fit one inch based models. I didn't want the width of how these are made to dominate the space on the board too much. With stuff shifting around and warping from construction, even the one inch models may start having trouble fitting as I add details, so I'll have to be careful. My official excuse is that no self respecting terminator would hide in a trench
Thanks for the suggestion about explosion craters in the trench wall, I'll try adding a few. I've made lots of craters as scatter terrain before so I can add lots to the no man land in front of the trench.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/10 15:46:52


Post by: Da Boss


I think it is reasonable enough to not have the trenches fit a Terminator. They'd be dug by normal troopers, and stopping giant monsters and power armoured attackers from getting in there with them would probably be a priority!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/10 19:38:14


Post by: Wirecat


Your trench system looks very good for a start. Good luck with this big endeavour! (It is like me getting a kick on the lower backside for never finishing mine...)

And Your experience with alu foil really shows. That worm is shaping up to bee properly intimidating when finished. My first inclination would be "no spikes", but then right now it has all the glitter from foil folds, so I'd say - "blue-tack them on and take a photo without a flash". Maybe they will make nasty thing even nastier.

Good luck!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/10 21:21:10


Post by: monkeytroll


Excellent work on that purple worm. I

Trenches coming on nicely too.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/11 01:46:47


Post by: Syro_


As I'm sure all of you can relate too, there's just not enough hobby time.

@Da Boss: That's a good pint, thanks.

@Wirecat: Thanks! I think the worm should be pretty intimidating when finished too. It's the same height as that giant earth elemental/rock golem I made, but looks a lot more dangerous. That's a good point about the flash, I should probably go back to using my real camera where I can control the flash, rather than all these quick shots with my cell phone.

@monkeytroll: Thanks for the kind words, I hope to get back to finishing the purple worm soon. there's always so much I want to do.

I started cutting away at the embankments I made for the trenches, to be able to add details to the inside while still being able to fit in figures. In some pictures I saw while researching, the walls of the trench were held up by corrugated metal sheets held in place rather than the more common wood planks. For a desert area in 40k metal seemed like the wisest choice to follow.


let me know what you think


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/11 03:53:20


Post by: JoshInJapan


That trench system is looking pretty sweet so far. Your idea for corrugated metal sheeting is nice. Is there something on the underside to keep the sections from sliding around on the tabletop?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/11 23:55:52


Post by: Syro_


@JoshInJapan: Thanks, I'm glad you like them. At the moment there's nothing on the underside, just bare foam core with the paper peeled off. Do you think I should give the bottoms a thin layer of hot glue to give them some traction?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/12 02:13:16


Post by: JoshInJapan


That depends on your playing surface. I imagine that bare foam would have enough friction to stay in place, unless you're using something slick like, I dunno, linoleum or something.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/12 16:08:01


Post by: boundless08


Wow, that worm is just crazy good man. Fair play. Your blog output and quality has just been on a crazy upward trajectory since when I stumbled across it!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/12 19:16:41


Post by: Syro_


@boundless08: Thanks boundless, I'm very glad to hear that. Seems like joining Dakka has been good for me, I've learned a lot and I push myself a lot harder for quality. The only downside is that everything takes a lot longer to get done now

@JoshInJapan: Okay, good to hear. My playing surface is currently an old bed sheet I paints in a camo pattern, but I hope to have the room to build a game table with PVA glue and sand in the same style as my terrain.

Speaking of the purple worm, I've mocked up a few different variations with blue-tac on where I could go with the design if I don't leave the head plain. A special thanks to Pneumo for suggesting some of the designed I'm trying out.



I hope the blue isn't too distracting, but I was trying out what smaller armor plates would look like on the head. There won't be huge gaps between the plates and the head if/when i attach them for real.


Here the plates plates on the head have a row of spikes along the edge of each armor plate.


Here there are a lot of spikes added to the last design. I originally envisioned having forward facing spikes to help the purple worm break up and tunnel through rock. If you do an image search for a Hades Breaching Drill from Warhammer 40k, you'll see some of my inspiration.


Another idea is having the entire head/mouth area covered in spikes, here I have them all forward facing, explained in the caption directly above this one.

So let me know what you think of the different ideas please.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/12 19:27:52


Post by: Da Boss


I think my favourite of the designs is the one with the spikes plus small plates, but I think the front plate needs some sort of smoothing or way to integrate it back into the texture of the rest of the worm. Maybe the rows of teeth could come right up to the plates, or it could have "lips"? Not sure but at the moment that front part looks a bit un natural.

I think I like more spikes rather than less as well, though a halfway point between the two might be cool.

Your worm is so awesome. Man. I really wish I had more time to do some work atm, but reports are due at the end of the week and I have to go on legal training since I am now a union rep...keep it up though, super inspiring stuff.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/12 22:09:18


Post by: Meer_Cat


Your trench systems look the bomb- and have the most important quality for most of us modelers: cheap materials! Flexible, solid work. If you're feeling ambitious you can add a dugout or redoubt for a heavy weapon team or even an artillery piece or mortar.


From what I've read of WWI in Mesopotamia (British and Turkish forces) corrugated iron was far more common than wood in many fortifications- even in France I think the soldiers preferred it when they could get it. The card pieces you've made look very good. Another method to making corrugated metal sections is to cut aluminum foil to the width you want, lay it on a piece of foam core (or anything a little bit soft) and run a hair comb over it. Prime it, rust it and bingo- corrugated iron. It crumples nice too, if you use it near where your shell hits occur.


All in all great stuff- still can't get over how good the 'cast' scales look ont he Purple Worm- all made from glue!


Always look forward!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/12 22:30:51


Post by: Pneumo


That worm is getting better and better! My favorite would be scales an many horns, but I agree with Da Boss, it does need some kind of lip in between horns/scales and teeth. Maybe you could run a thin line of hot glue around the mouth? I'm not sure how well you could blend it into the head though. Another idea might be to use tin foil again, roll a small sausage and hammer/push it in shape already so that one end is flat (hope this makes sense), that should be easier to blend in then.

All in all its looking more epic than before, so keep up the good work!

And I think Meer_Cat has a good point too, if you would want bigger models to fit into the trench system you could always make dugouts or sections where they could fit in. After all it is modular already, so adding sections shouldn't be to hard.

Edit:
I hope you forgive me for nagging you picture and defacing it with my paint skills. But have you considered adding triangular scales? The way I picture it then is that the front scale closest to the mouth could almost be used as a giant tooth to crush rock. Plus when the mouth would be closed the front of the worm would be completely sealed with scales.
Hope this picture helps to explain my idea.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/13 01:07:54


Post by: Syro_


Wow, it's very flattering how many of you and frequenting my blog so often. Thank you.

@Da Boss: Thanks, I'm glad you like my worm. I'm looking forward to seeing yours when you have time to start. Congratulations on being a union rep, I hope there are benefits and not just extra work for you because of it. Thanks for letting me know which worm designs you like and giving suggestions on improvements. I have a lot of thinking ahead of me.

@Meer_Cat: Thanks Merr_Cat, that's really interesting about the trenches in Mesopotamia. That's a cool trick with the comb on aluminum foil, even with all the work I do with aluminum foil, I wouldn't have thought to do that. I like your idea to add a dugout and/or redoubt, and I hope to eventually, but I'm not going to have time to make them before I try to finish what I've already started on it. Cam has given us pretty much the entire summer to work on this contest, but in less than a week I have to leave for some schooling close to 3,000 miles from home (and my crafting supplies). So I'm trying to bang this out and finish it before I leave.

@Pneumo: I appreciate the suggestions, and don't consider what you're doing nagging. Doing paint on a copy of the pic makes a lot of sense, really let's you show your idea clearly. Good thinking. I haven't decided what to do yet, but I really like your idea and may just go with it. Thanks for thinking of it.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/15 00:59:20


Post by: Syro_


I'm still mulling over what I want to do with the purple worm, while I work on the LoER terrain competition. Last night I finished making another purple worm in the pottery class I was taking. I started it before I made the purple worm out of foil and hot glue, but there's a huge backlog on stuff to be fired, so I wont be able to pick it (or any of my other pieces) up until mid-August since I wont be around. I also finished priming the 4 grick minis I made, plus the grick alpha, I hope to get those painted soon.

I've primed all the trench sections for my LoER piece, and have been base coating them before I apply the sand.


While walking on the beach today, I saw the weathered remains of the inside of a sweet gum seed pod. I think it looks kind of like an asteroid, so i was wondering if it would be any good for Battle Fleet Gothic. What do you guys think?



I unfortunately don't play BFG, but if the rumors are true that it might be re-released in the next two years, I'm definitely picking it up. In my usual craziness, I've also been tempted to try to sculpt all he parts for a fleet by hand, since it's so hard to get now.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/15 01:38:32


Post by: Meer_Cat


Trenches are coming along nicely! Interesting to hear about the pottery purple worm (P2W)- were you able to sculpt the same level of details into the scales as with your hot glue veersion?

"While walking on the beach today, I saw the weathered remains of the inside of a sweet gum seed pod. I think it looks kind of like an asteroid, so i was wondering if it would be any good for Battle Fleet Gothic."


That's no moon....



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/15 18:57:19


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat, I've posted some more progress on the trenches over on the contest blog, but i figured I get a big more progress and then post several of the updates on here. Thanks for your interest in the P2W, it definitely doesn't have the same level of detail as the hot glue purple worm, it's hard to keep lots of little fiddly bits attached with the clay (for me at least). The main body of the P2W is more like a hard edged earth worm with segments kind of like like that. I made some much smaller less detailed armor plates running up the back, but they only cover about 1/7 of the circumference of the worm (if that), where my hot glue purple worm's armor plates cover 2/3 of it. Lastly, the mouth area splits apart into 4 equal mouth parts unlike the three of the hot glue purple worm. I wish I had remembered to take a picture to show you, in 2 months I'll post it, if it didn't explode in the kiln.

All in all, I like the hot glue purple worm and think it's made in a superior way on all accounts, but I still like the P2W even if it did come out looking rather phallic


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/15 20:07:46


Post by: monkeytroll


Makes a great asteroid at BFG scale, or a Tyranid seed pod, or chaos warp egg in 28mm. Or even a small meteor.

For the purple worm I like the plates and spikes combo best.

Trenches are looking very good.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/23 20:03:59


Post by: Wirecat


Syro_ wrote:
Here there are a lot of spikes added to the last design. I originally envisioned having forward facing spikes to help the purple worm break up and tunnel through rock. If you do an image search for a Hades Breaching Drill from Warhammer 40k, you'll see some of my inspiration.

So let me know what you think of the different ideas please.


I'd say that in my HO this is best. And the worm in the grass is just aww-some! Plate-and-tooth combination is working, apparently, even if it is a bit questionable from evolutionari point of view. These armored fishes somehow did not succeed...

Syro_ wrote:While walking on the beach today, I saw the weathered remains of the inside of a sweet gum seed pod. I think it looks kind of like an asteroid, so i was wondering if it would be any good for Battle Fleet Gothic. What do you guys think?


I unfortunately don't play BFG, but if the rumors are true that it might be re-released in the next two years, I'm definitely picking it up. In my usual craziness, I've also been tempted to try to sculpt all he parts for a fleet by hand, since it's so hard to get now.


Spore pod. Definitely a spore pod. After all this is what it is. But as an eaten in and out by some mining asteroid it is good too. You may also try painting it in white and yellow-green and claim that it is a heart of a dead comet, evaporated after too many encounters with its star. Very porous...

And trenches are shaping up nicely too! Thumbs up!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/06/24 04:51:35


Post by: Syro_


Thanks monkeytroll, thanks Wirecat. I'm looking forward to when I can get back to those. Thank you both for suggesting which purple worm idea looks best, too.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/07/08 06:47:53


Post by: Camkierhi


You have been very busy. Wonderful work all round.

As to the worm, besides being truly brilliant, I think I like lots of spikes with the odd plate or two. But they all look good.

So great to see you pushing boundaries, trying new things, you are inspiring bud.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/07/08 16:10:52


Post by: Syro_


Thanks so much Cam! That especially means a lot coming from you. I appreciate knowing your preference for worm too, I'm looking forward to when I can go back home and get back to work on that stuff.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/07/09 01:27:10


Post by: Red Harvest


 Syro_ wrote:
...While walking on the beach today, I saw the weathered remains of the inside of a sweet gum seed pod. I think it looks kind of like an asteroid, so i was wondering if it would be any good for Battle Fleet Gothic. What do you guys think?
Spoiler:



Syro, you just triggered anyone with trypophobia.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/20 16:55:36


Post by: Syro_


Hi everyone! I am finally back home and am able to return to working on projects (though I still have very little time). It might not feel like I was gone, as i stayed active on DakkaDakka in other people's blogs, just not my own.

My pottery purple worm (or P2W) has long since been fired, and I was able to pick it up. Two answer Meer_Cat's question from close to two month ago, I don't feel there is the same level of detail from working with the clay, but you can judge for yourself from the pictures. I don't like it as much as the hotglue purple worm, but other than being a little phallic looking, I still like how it turned out:



I originally started compiling a list of all my unfinished/unpainted minis from talking with bunnygurl about it, but I lost the list before finishing (I swear my collection isn't that out of control ). Fango is working on getting all of his collection painted, to no longer have the huge backlog of minis that so many of us have. Fango has been making nice progress, and painting up cool looking games that I hadn't heard of. It's worth checking out if you don't already:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/180/491523.page#10117204

For my 40k stuff:
Things that need assembling:
"The Burning of Prospero" board game - 47 minis on sprue
"Sedition Wars" - 50 minis to use and convert for 40k
57 space marine minis
2 Dark vengeance helbrutes (one I am in the process of converting heavily)
8 chaos cultists on sprue
6 Tyranids
Ork Mek Gun kit
Defiler kit
Necron Warriors with Canoptek scarabs kit - 15 models

That really doesn't seem so bad, but below is my unfinished sculpts, conversions, scratch builds, etc.
36 nurglings ( 9 bases worth)
2 nurgle greater daemons
4 big squiggoths
4 ork planes
1 forge fiend
5 dreadnoughts
a vehicle design rules super heavy tank
the weapons for 4 scratch built ork warbuggies
3 Valkyries

Getting stuff painted is where I really fall behind. for 40k I need to paint:
My real GW dakkajet
scratch built dakka jet
3 scratch built stompas
1 scratch built gorkanaut
3 scratch built ork trukks
5 scratch built ork warbuggies
1 scratch built ork scorcha
6 scratch built ork killa kans
1 scratch built ork deff dread
3 scratch built deff koptas
1 big squiggoth
60 ork boyz in need of some amount of paint (including slugga boyz, shoota boyz, burna boyz, storm boyz, lootas, and nobz)

22 Space marines

20 Necron warriors

3 scratch built chaos vindicators
2 scratch built heldrakes
2 VDR chaos vehicles
A small chaos walker (counts as warpsmith)
2 converted obliterators
3 chaos marines
15 homemade chaos spawn/possessed
31 cultists
28 homemade mutants

If you take other games into consideration:
I have 16 unfinished models made or gotten specifically for D&D
I bought the three magic the gathering board games as a quick source of minis to sue for D&D - 63 unpainted models total
And because I'm not very good at reducing my unfinished mini collection, I recently bought myself "Wrath of Ashardalon" to use for D&D. - 42 minis


In honor of Fango's hard work, I said I would work on actively trying to finish more of this backlog. I'm very bad at staying focused on a single project to completion, and jump around to whatever interests me during my limited hobby time (something that happens to many of us). But I will try to devote half of my hobby time to competing things on this list.




Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/21 01:32:47


Post by: Meer_Cat


Welcome back, Syro! I like the pottery purple worm better than the hot glue one in the first photo- but in the second- phallic indeed! Regardless, they'll both paint up well, I'll betcha!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/21 02:14:36


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat, it's good to be back.

Today, I was too tired to do anything that I should be doing, so i spent much of it reading, playing computer games, and on hobby time. I've returned to working on my remaining helbrutes. As usual I am making things more complicated. I decided rather than just have one helbrute that is heavily converted, I should do that for both. Then I decided it would be even better to see if I could make three helbrutes with some sculpting and building from the part of the two. So I spent most of my hobby time dismembering helbrutes.



I used a razor saw to cut out the exposed spinal cord area of one and replaced if with chaos spikes from a vehicle sprue.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/22 02:20:56


Post by: Syro_


Some more progress on one of the helbrutes:


I want this dread charging forward, so I've built it with quite a forward learn, with wedges of foam in the basic style of the wedge of concrete that comes attached to its foot. I like the look of the chaos vehicle spikes on the dread's body.



With a collection of different colors and sizes of wires, I've built the upper arm to look like the helbrute is lunging forward to grab someone with its power fist. Any requests for what space marine chapter the trophy helmet should be from?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/25 13:09:40


Post by: Wirecat


A bit late with "welcome back" m but still - welcome back!

PPW (Pottery Purple Worm) looks not that bad in white to, just begging for wash or directional spray. Sometimes simple big monster is just as scary as a very elaborate big monster.

Good luck with these brutes, weird things they are... and that list of stuff... Painful. I know. The path is still chosen, isn't it?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/25 20:08:48


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Wirecat! I haven't really decided what direction to go with PPW, so thanks for the suggestions. I hope to really get creative with the brutes, and make them into some very original models. And I agree the list is painful. So many plans and ideas remaining not started for years, it really sneaks up on you how much stuff you can accumulate.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/25 23:05:15


Post by: Meer_Cat


I had a friend refer to their stash (and the concomitant decisions on what to work on) as: MTML- More than (I can finish in) My Lifetime. We all suffer from this dread syndrome to one degree or another. My wife wonders sometimes where all my 'junk' came from (she strongly supports my efforts, saving bottle caps and such- even keeps an eye out for interesting bits) and her eyes glaze over when I can recite from memory the story for every. single. thing.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/27 19:54:07


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat, and wow that you can remember the story behind where you got each crafting material. I'm not very good at this "finishing and painting up your current collection" mindset. I was watching Blandco on Youtube, and ended up buying a bunch of new miniatures

I have also finished the modular trench system that I was making for the 26th LoER terrain contest. Enjoy the highlights of it:











Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/27 23:01:33


Post by: Meer_Cat


Great trenches- realistic and game-able!

Don't get me wrong: I buy new stuff all the time- discovering Kickstarter is one of the great joys and downfalls of my life ( I now officially have more things than I can paint in my lifetime). So far, I'm pretty good at keeping myself to one project at a time though

Nice work all around!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/27 23:33:55


Post by: JoshInJapan


The trenches look like they'd be a lot of fun to play on. They look like they have been surfaced with sand-- is that right? Did you seal it down with something?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/28 12:51:26


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat, thanks Josh! I am happy with how they turned out, and setting up that little fake battle did make me really in the mood to play a game using them. Maybe I'll try to play through the siege of Vrakks sometime.
@Meer_Cat: That's good to hear, I should learn to focus on fewer projects at a time and see them through like you do. I'm currently returning to some stuff I haven't touched for 2-3 years. If I actually focused on painting and stopped buying and making more minis I do wonder how quickly I could paint up my collection.
@JoshInJapan: Good eyee, I did surface them with sand. I then went over the surface with a half PVA glue half water mixture, at least once, but maybe twice. Luckily they're pretty solid. I appreciate you checking to make sure they weren't going to fall apart and leave a huge mess. If you think it could use more, don't hesitate to tell me.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/28 21:42:23


Post by: KernelTerror


Looking excellent, should make for some proper WWI trench warfare action !
Experimenting with sealant could be interesting, but I guess you'll see how well they hold on the long run, PVA is still quite strong on its own...


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/29 00:01:03


Post by: Private Benjamin




That is fantastic work! As a military history enthusiast, it reminds me of the African Theatre during World War II ...


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/29 12:40:02


Post by: Syro_


@KernelTerror: Thanks for the visit. I unfortunately bought a big jug of washable PVA glue that I've been working my way through, so it probably isn't as strong as it could be, but so far it has been holding up on the basing I do. So fingers crossed.
@Private Benjamin: Thank you! I'm glad you like it. I find trench warfare fascinating, and researched for a while when starting this project (honestly read a lot more than I needed to ), so I tried to find a balance between some realism and making it modular and more playable.

Since I already had my painting station set up from finishing the trenches, I'm trying to stick to painting up things that have been waiting. I made these scratch built chaos vindicators about three years ago, and that is how long they have been sitting with just primer. They were in the end of the year group army shots back on page two of this blog.



I don't have any WIP pics of them, and I only even remembered to take finished shots of the first one before priming them. Joining DakkaDakka has made me much better to recording my progress. These vindicator tanks are made almost entirely from cut up water/milk jugs. The toothpick spears are self explanitory, and necessary for spikey chaos boyz, and the barrel of the cannon is made from the mouth of a contact lens cleaner bottle. A thin strip of paper glued around the threading gave it more of an appearance of nested barrels for recoil (I think). Two days ago, I removed the red coiled string and replaced it with jewelry chain.



Here they are from the end of the year group shot.

I'm planning on painting them mainly with the not so great craft smart red that I started the one in. Probably leaving other details in black, and having copper or bronze parts too. I'm guessing I'll have to do several coats of paint to get a smoother red. Suggestions welcome, and thanks for stopping by.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/30 00:01:08


Post by: Meer_Cat


Too cool- Vindicators from milk jugs! Really clever and totally best use of non-standard modeling supplies!

Is that a St Chammoud variant I see in the last pic? Pretty neat.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/30 00:36:19


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Meer_Cat! I use milk jugs constantly in most of my projects. It's basically poor man's plastic card

And wow, I have actually never heard of a Saint Chammoud tank or seen one. But the tank you are talking about is the spitting image of a St Chammond tank now that I looked it up. It's tank I made using the old vehicle design rules for a home made Dark Mechanicum army I was making. Thanks for pointing out that surprising resemblance. I want to graffiti it with the name of its historical counterpart now.... and have it get stuck on the trenches I just finished


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/30 00:56:19


Post by: JoshInJapan


Milk jugs? You made those with milk jugs? I have to ask: what sort of glue works on milk jug plastic?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/30 01:31:27


Post by: Meer_Cat


Too funny! I've always wanted to kitbash a St Chammond or build something similar from scratch, it's a neat looking vehicle. The whole arrangement of the gun in the nose makes it look all out attack mode- no surrender, no retreat!

I have to second Josh: what the heck kind of glue works on milk/water jug plastic?!?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/30 11:39:36


Post by: Syro_


Josh, Meer_Cat, The kind of glue I use is Surebonder dual temp hot glue sticks in a Surebonder high temp hot glue gun. Other glue guns and glue sticks haven't worked that well for me with water/milk jug plastic. Super glue can be short lived too. It also helps to apply the glue to what was originally the outside surface of the water jug, the inside surface is even smoother and more slick. Luckily being #2 HDPE plastic the water/milk jug plastic has no trouble with the high temperatures (unlike #1 PET plastic and drinking straws which shrivel up and contort under heat).

Pretty much every scratch build I do is a combination of dollar store foamcore and water/milk jug plastic, heh


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/30 19:50:57


Post by: Private Benjamin


 Syro_ wrote:
@Private Benjamin: Thank you! I'm glad you like it. I find trench warfare fascinating, and researched for a while when starting this project (honestly read a lot more than I needed to ), so I tried to find a balance between some realism and making it modular and more playable.


Fantastic! Any particular material you have read that you would like to share?

I'm working on a WWI-theme Steel Legion army myself, and using historical photographs from actual battlefields to work with: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/756076.page





This is a 120mm Trench Base for Flyers, cast by the fantastic folks at Models and Minis: https://www.modelsandminis.com/120mm_Oval_Trench_Base_Flying/p2965327_14550074.aspx



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/08/30 22:18:53


Post by: Syro_


Hi Private Benjamin, in all honesty as a military history enthusiast you are probably beyond the resources I used, but I'll still share them with you. I just did a google search for "trench warfare" and started reading through the links. In wikipedia I had about 10 tabs open as I would follow any link in the text that sounded like it would add to my knowledge about trench warfare. I especially enjoyed reading about the ways they built to avoid enfilade fire. I also did a google image search for "trench warfare in desert". I've linked some of the pics that I found most useful, below.

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=946&ei=EWiIW9yDG4GusAGp3avQDA&q=trench+warfare+in+desert&oq=tren&gs_l=img.1.0.35i39k1j0l9.1148.2569.0.5182.6.6.0.0.0.0.217.546.0j2j1.3.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.3.545.0...0.66yBV2jV9Zw#imgrc=lMmGMtSTEvnVkM:

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=946&ei=EWiIW9yDG4GusAGp3avQDA&q=trench+warfare+in+desert&oq=tren&gs_l=img.1.0.35i39k1j0l9.1148.2569.0.5182.6.6.0.0.0.0.217.546.0j2j1.3.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.3.545.0...0.66yBV2jV9Zw#imgrc=BeOrDt5sNnRH9M:

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=946&ei=EWiIW9yDG4GusAGp3avQDA&q=trench+warfare+in+desert&oq=tren&gs_l=img.1.0.35i39k1j0l9.1148.2569.0.5182.6.6.0.0.0.0.217.546.0j2j1.3.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.3.545.0...0.66yBV2jV9Zw#imgrc=S4hvvK_Yg4AJbM:

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=946&ei=EWiIW9yDG4GusAGp3avQDA&q=trench+warfare+in+desert&oq=tren&gs_l=img.1.0.35i39k1j0l9.1148.2569.0.5182.6.6.0.0.0.0.217.546.0j2j1.3.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.3.545.0...0.66yBV2jV9Zw#imgdii=WS__BRLu0VBklM:&imgrc=inwTshpmVbTXHM:

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=946&ei=EWiIW9yDG4GusAGp3avQDA&q=trench+warfare+in+desert&oq=tren&gs_l=img.1.0.35i39k1j0l9.1148.2569.0.5182.6.6.0.0.0.0.217.546.0j2j1.3.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.3.545.0...0.66yBV2jV9Zw#imgdii=Jm-GeScKQjbEKM:&imgrc=kICn0WuZOydm7M:

https://pharcae.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/a-small-death-korps-of-krieg-diorama/

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=946&ei=EWiIW9yDG4GusAGp3avQDA&q=trench+warfare+in+desert&oq=tren&gs_l=img.1.0.35i39k1j0l9.1148.2569.0.5182.6.6.0.0.0.0.217.546.0j2j1.3.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..3.3.545.0...0.66yBV2jV9Zw#imgrc=Jg52ufh_jWMkqM:


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/01 11:31:32


Post by: Syro_


Hi everyone. Not too much progress, I have been very busy. What I have been doing is slowly adding layer after layer of this red craft paint to the tanks. The one on the right has six coats, I think.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/01 18:18:22


Post by: Private Benjamin


Those look great! What is that unique "tank" on the far left side sir?


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/01 21:40:15


Post by: Syro_


@Private Benjamin: It's a tank that I made up using the vehicle design rules. Meer_Cat mentioned the surprising similarity to the real life French tank from World War 1 the Saint Chamond tank:
https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=946&ei=gwWLW8jxEays_Qbw8qjYCA&q=saint+chammoud+tank&oq=saint+chammoud+tank&gs_l=img.3...1424.11029..11283...1.0..1.199.1589.18j2......3....1..gws-wiz-img.....0..0j35i39j0i10j0i30j0i10i24.ol0eYT-rT2I#imgrc=53YgKlNP7od7lM:

Thanks for your kind words and interest


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/01 22:39:57


Post by: Meer_Cat


These are all really coming along- very nice work! How did you shape the dozer blades? And are those milk carton pulls for some of the hatches? That's one of my favorite 'junk' bits to find uses for!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/01 23:08:57


Post by: Syro_


Meer_Cat, I knew you would recognize the milk carton pulls for the hatches , yes that's what they are. I'm looking forward to when I can show you my scratch built super heavy tank. As for the dozer blades, each one is made differently as I experimented with different ideas. On the far right, the dozer blade is made of several layers of milk jug hot glued together. I think I wrapped it around a bottle and held it there as it hardened to get that shape. The one on the left is a cut section of a contact lens cleaner bottle. It's made of the same kind of plastic as milk jugs but thicker and had a perfect natural curve. The vindi in the middle is a hybrid of the other two where part of it is the contact lens cleaner bottle, but other sections and layers are water jug. It doesn't really show in any of the pictures, but each of these tanks has those textured plastic straps that you find on really heavy cardboard boxes (like reams of printer paper or mini fridges) as their tank tracks.

On another note, I figure I will summarize my attempts to finish more of my collection this month. I was not back for half of it. I finished my modular trenches which is great, but I think the challenge is about completing models. I finished making part of a helbrute, have not finished painting my chaos tanks, picked up my PPW (pottery purple worm) and a clay golem from where I was taking a pottery class and now own "Wrath of Ashardalon" which has 42 unpainted minis. So my progress for completing models in my collection is at negative 44... a good start . Next month should be even worse as it's the busiest month of my job, and my two Blandco inspired moments of weakness should have arrived by then, and will be a part of my model collection.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/01 23:32:30


Post by: monkeytroll


Three years seems like an eminently suitable period of time to be waiting for a paint job, I see no issue there......

Good job on making them too, nicely done.

Trenches look boss too


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/02 12:39:07


Post by: Syro_


Thanks monkeytroll! It's so easy to put something off when I feel inspired to start something new.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/03 21:51:46


Post by: Wirecat


I dig these trenches! really, a very good looking and still playable modular system, congratulations! I'll reserve my harsh judgment of these tanks to a later time.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/06 10:44:57


Post by: Syro_


heh heh, thanks Wirecat. I'm glad you like the trenches, I am happy with how they turned out. I'm tempted to make some more modules when I have time.

I'm still painting those same chaos tanks, still more coats of red paint, and I went over the black areas with black paint. it didn't seem to warrant a picture however.
Instead, I'll share a clay golem that I threw together in a handful of minutes on the last day of pottery class. It certainly diserves any harsh judgement it gets, but I doubt I'll go back to make it any better, it was something that I wanted to finish quickly.


When I got him back after firing


I drilled holes in its feet, and glues in a paperclip to glue inside the base to hopefully stay on the base better.


Painted up. I was trying to go for a wet clay look with the edges of the body starting to dry out. I tried a crackle paint technique on these edges, but there was no result.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/07 22:25:38


Post by: Syro_


One of my Blandco inspired purchases arrived yesterday. "Lionheart" a board game from the late 90s. The minis remind me of Battle Masters, and the game play is apparently similar to chess, but with attack dice roles to see how well your attacks go. I just bought it for the minis (especially the peasants), and only paying a little over $20 left me happy with this purchase. I may want to try the game anyway, though.





Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/09 02:09:25


Post by: Syro_


Didn't feel well today, so I didn't accomplish much. I've stopped working on the chaos tanks for a little while, because I'm tempted to buy or make some skulls to decorate them with. I'm considering buying the citadel skulls pack. I've heard good things about it. Has anyone here gotten or used them, if so what do you think of them? I've been making a model volcano for my classroom to replace my old clay one which is falling apart and not great. This one is made of styrofoam.

Quite a few sections of expanded polystyrene glues together and carved to shape. I've done some gap filling since this photo was taken, but it's still wet. I plan to flock it with sand, seal it with PVA then paint it. I figure it's kind of miniature terrain, so hopefully it's ok to share here.


I also put together 5 troopers from Sedition Wars. I then decided it would probably be better to paint first, then assemble the rest.

I've also been making a scale model of the planets in our solar system, pics will follow some time in the future when I get further. This practice will come in handy if GW does re-release BFG


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/09 02:39:42


Post by: Commander Cain


That's a good selection of stuff you have to work with! How accurate is the scaling for the solar system going to be? Knowing me I would end up going way too accurate and end up with either a chair sized sun or go the other way and lose Mercury within seconds of making it


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/09 02:47:01


Post by: Camkierhi


All looking good.

As to GW skulls, well worth it in my opinion. One of the best buys you can get from them.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/09 13:29:57


Post by: Syro_


@Camkierhi: Thanks for the advice Cam. After reading what you wrote about them, I just ordered the Citadel Skulls. I should have fun with them, when they arrive

@Commander Cain: Thanks for your interest. I'm the same way as you, and I'm trying to make the planets as accurately to scale as possible (within reason). I researched all their sizes and converted to a usable scale. I wanted the size differences to be shown accurately unlike all the models you can buy. And like you said, The sun is too huge for anything else to be in scale and visable so I'm only doing the planets


Earth and Venus are pingpong/table tennis balls. Mercury and Mars are made of pieces of foam with filler smeared on to round them out.


In the back is Saturn, with more work to still do. Still needs rings for one


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/09 19:36:05


Post by: Wirecat


 Syro_ wrote:
heh heh, thanks Wirecat. I'm glad you like the trenches, I am happy with how they turned out. I'm tempted to make some more modules when I have time.


Cool. For the most part we have replaced trenches with barricades and walls/fences everywhere as they are much easier to throw together from the hobby junk. It is a bit sad, considering You and others come up with great ideas and execute them so well.

Instead, I'll share a clay golem that I threw together in a handful of minutes on the last day of pottery class. It certainly diserves any harsh judgement it gets, but I doubt I'll go back to make it any better, it was something that I wanted to finish quickly.


I want to get to this sort of pottery class! Or at least get access to the proper furnace. So many possibilities... Sigh.

That old table/war-game looks interesting, I've heard some things about it but never bothered to look at it closely. And that solar system... You keep me amazed!


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/09 19:52:31


Post by: adamsouza


The modular trenches remind me of the old Armorcast trenches.



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/09 21:12:19


Post by: Syro_


@Wirecat: Thanks so much Wirecat. I would be interested to see what amazing stuff you would make if you took a pottery class like that. I've found that I prefer apoxie putties personally. I'm glad you like the trenches and solar system.

@adamsouza: I just looked up the armorcast trenches, I can see the resemblance. I may have even used a pic of some for inspiration without realizing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I forgot to mention that my last upload brought my to 400 photos in my gallery, which feels pretty cool to me


I flocked the volcano last night with sand for some texture under the paint.


I gave it a coat of watered down PVA glue this morning, and then painted it this two tone gray this evening. It will be making it's debut in my classroom tomorrow.


I did some more work painting my model planets too. I'm calling Mars and Mercury (not pictured) done, and I may consider Venus done too, or I may go back and add some darker cloud belts.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/11 19:14:39


Post by: Fango


Its been a while, so, a few things...

Welcome back!

I love that you have returned to hit the ground running! You knocked out those trenches real quick and they look great! Hopefully the piece I'm sending you fits right in to the set with minimal fuss!

Next, those are all scratch-built tanks?! Nice! Great work on the Hellbrutes as well, those conversions are coming along really nicely.

Lastly, thanks for the shoutout for my Plog! though, I've been a ghost around here for almost a month now...School started back up, and we've been super busy with all of the kids extracurricular activities and such. I'll post an update soon to explain what I've been up to.

Keep up the great work, Syro. It's so hard to keep the backlog from growing...especially with how fast the industry is pumping out great games and such recently!



Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/11 19:23:55


Post by: CommissarKhaine


Some interesting stuff you got going there, following with interest, as usual


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/12 01:20:24


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Fango! it was frustrating that I was so close to finishing the trenches back in June and then couldn't. Luckily the deadline was very long for this most recent LoER terrain contest, and I felt I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't finish once I got back. Thansk also for the kind words about the scratch-built tanks and the hellbrutes. I should be back to working on them in a week or two once some new supplies arrive. You were really moving on your Plog before, but life does happen, and the school year starting is a big one. I hope you find time for your hobby soon, but what you are doing is important.

Thanks CommissarKhaine, thanks for visiting my blog.

No real update tonight. I brought the planets in to show my students and forgot them at school, so I didn't work anymore on Earth. My students were very excited and impressed by them. I've been painting a homemade plant root viewer that I made out of styrofoam, but not really something worth showing. Have quite the headache, so didn't so anything beyond that.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/12 02:07:06


Post by: adamsouza


The clay golem is so retro it hurts....in a good way.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/13 00:15:47


Post by: Camkierhi


Good work going on as usual. Planets are a real challenge, and well done sir, looking brilliant so far. Did a volcano myself a year or two ago. Fun.

Please trust me when I say your trenches made judging very very difficult. Several of the pieces were very close. You did an excellent job.


Syro's projects: D&D minis, Historic Wargames, and 40k @ 2018/09/14 00:50:41


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Adam, I'm glad it's in a good way

Thanks Cam, I'm glad you like what's going on here. It's cool to hear you made a volcano too recently. What materials did you make yours out of? I'm very happy with the trenches, I'm glad your contest inspired me to make them. I'm glad you like they too.