Don’t change it , I love it. <3. It will be such a great model in a collection just the way it is.

I love your sculpts and the paint jobs as well, they are wonderful. Don't change a thing. By all means keep going and keep trying, but each and every thing you have made has been better and stronger and you are coming to life bud. That flesh golem is truly fantastic.

 Camkierhi wrote:
By all means keep going and keep trying, but each and every thing you have made has been better and stronger and you are coming to life bud. That flesh golem is truly fantastic.

Signed for truth. Please, go on. Most things can be improved, but many more can be made anew better with experience earned. Keep up!

Thank you for the wonderful kind words you three.

@Theophony: Thanks, and alright, I'll keep it as is. Also thanks for the page turn.
@Camlierhi: Thanks so much Cam. That means a lot, especially coming from someone of your skill. I'm glad you think I'm improving.
@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat, I will move on, and leave the mini as is. Thanks for the encouragement. I defiantly have plenty of plans to get to without obsessing over a single mini.

Speaking of moving on, I'm still having fun making mini golem tutorials for Vik's thread about sharing scratch building advice for RPG minis. It might be looking a bit more like a robot than a golem, but I'm really liking how the iron golem I am making out of nothing but broken markers/mechanical pencils, apple sauce twist lids, and other junk.


Here's a starting materials shot


I noticed in the past, that if one of the apple sauce twists isn't cut straight when cutting off one of the fins it looks kind of like a helmet with a visor, that that will be my golem's head. The "spikey bracelets" are from old contact lens cleaning stuff. The rest is marker cases and the innards of mechanical pencils.


Here I've begun attaching the body parts, and used a screw top to a contact lens case cut in half for shoulders.


The legs and feet are more pieces of marker and apple sauce twists. I cut the fins into small sections and stacked them for the feet.


I made a sword from an apple sauce twist fin, a piece of the back of a marker, and some foam core


This is as far as I have gotten today. The fingers are also from a contact lens cleaning thing. I've also cut up some milk pulls for an armored skirt


I've also finished the easiest golem, the stone golem.
I started with an over sized elf from Mythical Heroes bucket, cut and reposed.



Then I based it, followed by a quick prime, base coat of light grey with a black wash, and I was done.



Thanks

That iron golem is off to a great start. I'm impressed by your use of found objects for this project.

Love the robot thing . That is grade A+ creativity and craftsmanship .

Thanks so much Josh and Theo
Unfortunately after that big push for two days of crafting, I haven't really done anything since.

After posting about it on Josh's blog, I'm tempted to do some group photos of all my fantasy minis based on D&D class archetype, like all the wizards in one, all the warriors in another, all the cleric type guys, etc. It would also be fun to see others do the same.

Oh man, that Golem is going to be awesome. I think some simple stuff like weathering him and painting him in an "armour" style, and maybe a simple heraldic device put on him somewhere (using a spare shield from a bitz box or something) would give enough visual difference to make him firmly Golem rather than Robot.
But hey, Robots are part of Dungeons and Dragons since the old days too!

Thanks Da Boss, and thanks for the advice. I've been working on attaching the armor plates now, let me know what you think.




Another 8 or so apple sauce tops have been consumed by this project now

Looks great! Amazing what you have done with materials that others would probably have chucked in the bin.

Thanks so much Da Boss, and I agree with what you said, I think it will all come down to how well I paint and weather him to make him more believable as iron golem than robot.

There's of course more I can do, but I'm going to call this guy done now that his hand and arm are attached, just need to prime and paint now.


And a scale shot of this imposing fellow

at first i thought your sword/knife thing was taken from a playmobil mini...but then it dawned on me you scratch built it too!

you´re in a building frenzy and in a good one! that last creature is right up my alley...to the very base, as it has that magic/steampunky vibe in full steam going on!!! i like how you avoided the icky issue of joints, simply by hinting them in the next section! somehow this never is an option for my own builds! :facpelam: i always stumble due to the then too lanky looking minis i make... i can imagine this golem to look all brass or copper...with a really nasty glowing one eye in his "face" ....this one is really full of win!
one small suggestion for a next build...there are these small conductor tongs...

https://www.bueromarkt-ag.de/lochzange_rayher_8932300,p-8932300,l-google-prd,pd-b2c.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwtYXmBRAOEiwAYsyl3P8WSMeH864F-7HGyogQ4g7z_mZ9xJ6Pw159ddK2UPflWvSR7dIO-hoCLGgQAvD_BwE

that can be used to add rivets to your used materials by embossing the rivets right into the material...(just a hint...as this stuff seldom will later on take rivets glued on very well...)


the stone golem took some convincing...but once you added paint...i was sold^^

anyway...my hat´s off to you...also...sadly my oh so precious arena wont win ..if the public voting is any foreshadowing^^

Learned a new trick, today, to do cool hair/tendrils:

Take a piece of plastic, preferably thick. Grab your drill, and put a small bit into it.

Slowly drill through the plastic, as if you were making a mounting hole.

Collect the spiral threads from drilling.

Use these as tendrils, snakes, wild hair, etc.

Go wild!

--Brian

Impressive golem, really creative !

@Viktor von Domm: Thanks Vik, I finally have a vacation so I've been having a lot of fun crafting. Thanls for mentioning the joints, I'm glad you think they work well as is, but it reminded me that I forgot to do them, which I had planned from the very start. Thanks about the stone golem too, the paint really does make all the difference from out of scale toy to statue
Also thanks for the pointer about that punch, despite being a member of the league, I never rivet stuff because I find it too frustrating. I'll check that punch out.
Don't be too hard on yourself about your very nice arena, once Cam joins in it's hard to win these comps You've still won twice, which is more than most people.

@Briancj: Thanks for the tip Brian, sounds useful and fun.

@KernelTerror: Thanks! These have been a fun diversion.

I haven't done anymore crafting since my last post, but the present I bought myself arrived today:

14 kobolds, 3 dwarves, a female Elven blacksmith, a sylph, a halfling ranger, and 3 classic wizards.
Also a fun side note, this pic is exactly my 700th uploaded pic to my gallery.

I've been having fun making monsters during my vacation, but today I remembered that my D&D players finished the dungeon we were on and will be going to a new dungeon. A dungeon that beyond making a few pieces of furniture, I hadn't even started to make yet. So I spent the majority of today making almost the entire dungeon out of cardboard. All I have left is a few staircases, and a few pieces of furniture to finish, and then painting it. At least one of my players visits my blog from time to time, so I'm not going to share the dungeon yet. One of the benefits of this rush is that I finally got around to making the mold of the dungeon door master I made some time ago.


Thanks for stopping by.

I can't believe how well the mold material took the fine lines from your door master- really impressive. Your players are lucky to have you!

Thanks so much, Meer_Cat

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of updates. I've been so exhausted lately that I haven't been doing any crafting. Two updates though, one is I'm observing a school that is a meer mile and a half away from my closest FLGS, rather than the usual 45 minutes through heavy and unpredictable traffic, so I swung by and picked up a few D&D minis to support the store and also a second copy of the starter set. The other adult in the D&D group I run was talking about continuing the group when I have to leave for the summer again. I bought the starter set as a gift for him, in case he wants to continue the starter campaign with the group.


Also, the next round of the League of Extraordinary Riveters is up. If anyone doesn't alreayd know about it, check it out, they're a lot of fun.

 Syro_ wrote:
I've been having fun making monsters during my vacation, but today I remembered that my D&D players finished the dungeon we were on and will be going to a new dungeon. A dungeon that beyond making a few pieces of furniture, I hadn't even started to make yet. So I spent the majority of today making almost the entire dungeon out of cardboard. All I have left is a few staircases, and a few pieces of furniture to finish, and then painting it. At least one of my players visits my blog from time to time, so I'm not going to share the dungeon yet. One of the benefits of this rush is that I finally got around to making the mold of the dungeon door master I made some time ago.


Thanks for stopping by.

Looks really good! Hope casting will go as smoothly as mold making. Making matching pins and holes for two part mold is the right thing to do. Lots of us forget them... Do You plan on using mold release or just hoping for the best?

I keep looking at these DnD miniatures ever since our shop started carrying the line, but they look so out of scale with majority of my collection that I can't fathom getting them even just to paint, except some monsters. Monsters - they look on par with Reaper, that's true. Maybe one day...

Thanks Wirecat. Luckily, the casting went pretty smoothly, just using hot glue. There were a few little air bubbles, but turned out surprisingly well. I'll have to snap a pic sometime soon and post it. I cast 6 doors a few weeks ago, and primed them. And have been so busy ever since that's where I stopped. Also luckily with these silicon molds, I've never used mold release and never had problems. The only thing that give a little problem is Apoxie Sculpt curing in the mold, sometimes sticks a little. Nothing else seems to at all, and even the apoxie sculpt doesn't cause too much mold degradation.

The scale, is a little odd at times, but I have such a mix of miniatures (plus the ones I sculpt are probably off in scale too), that it doesn't bother me too much. Also you have the benefit of such superior sculpting skills that you never have to buy any minis if you only had enough time to sculpt them all yourself So yeah, I totally understand if any feel off, to not get them. But if you find a few you like, go for it.

That door is fantastic. I can never get gs molds to work quite right. I probably don't 'oil' them enough or something to that effect.

Thanks Maniac_nmt. I like the rubbery give of silicone molds, I doubt I could accomplish much with GS molds.

I haven't played a game of 40k in about 2 years, but I was really in the mood to go back to working on my helbrutes for some reason. I'm not a big fan of all the little tubes, and tenticles, but over all I like the helbrute sculpt for the 6th/7th Edition starter set Dark Vengeance. (I get the impression, I'm one of the only ones, heh). I bought two extras many years ago when I first started collecting which I'm kit bashing, cutting apart, etc. The last time I worked on and talked about these guys was back in August 2018 on page 9 of this blog.

The one I was focusing on last time, is even closer to done. I just need to make the one leg, sculpt some stuff on the wire arm, and reinforce the right shoulder.


This second one is mainly kit bashed, and is almost ready to go, but I want to sculpt/build a different back for him. More chaos armor, less weird fleshy.


I decided to make a weird morphing eyeball covered Tzeentch, chaos dread/helbrute that is still in the very early stages. I plane to make it mostly from hot glue and styrofoam BBs, on part of one of my scratch built dreadnoughts.


I still have all these parts left from the helbrute butchery, with some new additions. I'm thinking of making a fleshy Slaanesh style helbrute copying the fleshy style of some parts of the original helbrute and using all the weird tubes and tentacles I have.


And finally the promised pictures of the doors I cast. There was more air bubbles than I thought, but they're ok. Not painted yet

Holy cow- hellbrutes is a very different direction than you've taken for awhile, for sure! Very interesting builds and my penurious nature heartily approves of your plans to use up all the extra bits in the third build. The Eye-thing sounds interesting too- mostly because I want to see how hot glue and styro-BB's work together.

_Love_ the doors (I'm hearing Jim Morrison screeching Hello, I love you even as I type this). The casts came out amazingly well, I think.

Too much fun!

Thanks very much Meer_Cat. I've been so tired that there has been a serious drop off in progress of any of my projects for weeks. I can't seem to concentrate on sculpting, but I did work some more on the weird hot glue and styrofoam BB dread.

Tired due to job, stress, or health?

Wow, that BB dread and the bottle gollumn/robot are both really cool. They remind me of 70s sci fi novel covers. There's nothing quite like making things yourself. What do you use for glue on projects like that? Adhesion is my achilles heel for that kind of build. The "this to that" site helps though.

Hope ya feel better!

Thank you both.
@Briancj: Luckily only the first two. Too many of the great people here on dakka are suffering with health problems, thankfully I'm not one of them. Thanks for your concern.
@kestral: Thanks kestral. Both for the kind words and the interest in the stuff I'm making. Adhesion is a pain for me too sometimes, I was lucky that Brian introduced me to "this to that". The entire golem figure made from mostly the green plastic is all held together by hot glue. I find quality of the glue gun and ammo make a surprising difference. When I use my Surebonder high heat glue gun and Surebonder glue sticks, it holds most things well. When I use the cheapo glue sticks from the dollar store, not so much (I still sue them for a lot of stuff tho). I can totally see the 70s sci fi aesthetic you're talking about, thanks.

After an energy drink that didn't help enough, and a mid-day nap (which feels weird how often I'm doing that when I'm only in my early 30s), and going jogging, not to mention the support Brian and kestral showed, I was feeling better and got a little of my groove back with crafting. I kept working on my chaos dreads, even tho I should really be crafting for D&D.

The Tzeenth dread is basically done. Would anyone like to suggest his weapon arm? I'm looking forward to painting this guy, to see if it ties in half as well as it looked in my imagination.


I started building another of the dreads, but have to take it slow, the pieces down want to stay how I positioned them. I also sculpted a exposed muscle across the cabling on my most complete altered dread.


I finally started the very beginnings of the mind flayer for the LoER contest, but nothing worth showing yet. Thanks for stopping by.

(which feels weird how often I'm doing that when I'm only in my early 30s),

erm...coming from a man working as a kindergarden ward/nursery nurse... you might consider to think about burn out a bit? just to be on the safe side...it is a thing for people working with people that happens eventually...(it´s almost impossible not to occur in my opinion...been there done that, fell down the stairs and tried to get up...)

the doors looks very good...i´ve seen sets of these for sale on ebay...from pathfinder, MTG and so on... you´re very close to perfection here...and in my opinion what you´re still not done in perfection gives character...which then sums up to the 100% count!!!

also...the dreads are developing really cool...as for the weapon arm...plasma?...plenty of room this way for scratch building...

The Tzeentch dread/hot glue and balls dread looks great , very creative.

I keep forgetting how efficient You are with that hot glue stuff... I like silicone moulds too, but with a lot of available resin mixes they either do not last long enough or require a lot of care and lubricant. Doors look very solid!

And these brutes/dread thingies - I really like that weirdness! But I do wonder if sprue, pulled and twisted over the candle light, would make a better "veiny" kind of detail than a greenstuff on a wire. May try that on some future beastie.

Loving the Tzeentch dread, he’s a real freak of the warp so far. The clawed foot is a particularly nice touch.

Viktor von Domm wrote:

(which feels weird how often I'm doing that when I'm only in my early 30s),

erm...coming from a man working as a kindergarden ward/nursery nurse... you might consider to think about burn out a bit? just to be on the safe side...it is a thing for people working with people that happens eventually...(it´s almost impossible not to occur in my opinion...been there done that, fell down the stairs and tried to get up...)
the doors looks very good...i´ve seen sets of these for sale on ebay...from pathfinder, MTG and so on... you´re very close to perfection here...and in my opinion what you´re still not done in perfection gives character...which then sums up to the 100% count!!!

also...the dreads are developing really cool...as for the weapon arm...plasma?...plenty of room this way for scratch building...

Unfortunately, I think you're 100% right on that. I don't really know what I can do about it though, I'm just trying to hold on for the last few weeks of school. I'm still spending every summer in intense training, but I'm at least expecting an easier less stressful class next school year. Also thanks for the kind words on the doors and the dreads. I hope to get around to finishing the paint jobs on the doors soon, and get them posted. I like your idea of the plasma weapon for the Tzeentch dread, I'll go with that, thanks.

The Tzeentch dread/hot glue and balls dread looks great , very creative.

@Theophony: Thanks Theo! It's mostly done, so I've moved it to my painting station to finish. Unfortunately moving to the painting station is usually the death of regular progress on my projects

@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat, I do think messing with hot glue is what I'm best at over other crafting forms . I didn't realize resin tends to beat up the silicone molds. And I'll have to keep the melting sprue in mind for the future. Thanks for all the advice.

@gobert: Thanks gobert, and welcome to my blog. I'm glad you like the clawed foot, being Tzeentch I wanted to make one of the legs look bird-like.

I've finally started building the last leg of my one chaos dread. The leg still needs to bulking up. But I noticed in the pic I took, that it really looks like the leg is growing out of his armpit , it's really not, I promise.


I can't post most of the D&D stuff I've been making to not spoil it for my players, but once the school year ends, I'll have a big post of the stuff I've been holding back. For now, here's some really simple stuff that's not in the starter campaign, so I can show it.
Beginning of a simple throne/chair out of craft sticks


It's probably not even worth showing the super simple ladder made out of skewers.

I've also finally started the sculpt of a Mind Flayer for the LoER terrain contest. The first time I'm doing a diorama. The Contest is titled "Food for thought", and I couldn't resist going with a pun. So my contest entry is a monster that eats brains, running a little food stand selling brains to eat. (Sorry you have to hear this twice Vik).


Thanks for stopping by

D&D club was yesterday, and my group discovered one of the things I prepared, so now I can post it. The groups ranger is both very clever and very stubborn. He thought of some very smart things to ask me which allowed him to find and follow goblin tracks toward a goblin hideout, and so far seem to be skipping at least one part of the module, maybe more. They were ambushed by 4 goblins in scrub land, and battled them for quite a while. They handled the combat well, taking little damage, but it took a long time as the goblins continually fired one them, fell back, and used their bonus action to hide. After two goblins were killed, they rest disappeared into the scrub with extremely high stealth scores, ending combat. Following these new tracks, the party came upon the "Impregnable Fortress of Dib" from "Prepared" a D&D one shot suppliment.



Here is them finding it and my build.








And finished






Thanks for stopping by

Oh, that is highly recognizable!

Also....makes me very envious to read about your successful d&d meeting. I wish i could find some players for me too...games with the family have a very sober nature...i miss my younger times, during university. That was an active gaming time, where hearty games happened. Unfortunately we all lost contact to one another and lives moved on...

Ahahah gorgeous fortress, well done !

@Viktor von Domm: Thanks Vik. I'm sorry to hear about your difficulty getting a D&D group together. I miss my youth where friends were close by and had more free time too, it's a lot harder hanging out as adults. Maybe try getting your kids' friends to join to make the group bigger, and try to get some of the other parents to come along and hopefully end up joining also? Either way, good luck.
@KernelTerror: Thanks

I've been slowly making progress

Here is the Iron golem's paint job so far. I still need to add white to the middle of the cylon eye. I'm also thinking I should weather this piece all over with a reddish orange powder. Thoughts? Also I've never done weathering before, so advice would be welcome and appreciated.


I've been painting the Tzeentch dread, but still WIP. I feel like the Navy blue and purple washes over the regular blue paint job isn't showing that clearly. I'm thinking of highlighting with a lighter blue or purple, and then finally painting all the eyes. I still need to make the plasma cannon arm too.

syro...good ideas on how to start/recruit group members... i think i will go down that route!

the iron golem turned out very good indeed, all that it promised and then some. i am with you on the weathering issue, i´d start with a light brownish/ orangeish drybrush or sponging it on on certain areas...

the tzeentch dread looks highly promising too... the bubbled area is really good looking. i would add some more purple and pink here and there...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also...the mind flayer looks really cute!!!

Vik, I hope you are able to get a group. Thanks for the advice on weathering. As for the dread, do you really think pink would be a good addition? I feel like pink is reserved for Slaanesh, blue for Tzeentch, and they both seem to share purple. What do you think?

The rest of the figures were garbage in the Halloween 5 pack from Dollar Tree, but I like the gargoyle that came in it. I've cut off some pieces and cleaned up a lot of mess and flash. sculpted back on an ear that I broke off while cleaning it. Made it a tail, and now am making it much better wings than it had. I'm planning in immortalizing this gargoyle as a mold for D&D gargoyles.


I've gotten a little further on the mind flayer for the LoER terrain contest. Gap filled, sculpted details on the head, and started on the hands.


I haven't gotten back to painting the iron golem, but I have gotten started on crafting two more golems. Not far enough to take pics yet. One is a gravestone golem, like Reaper miniatures makes. The other is original and unusual.

I had my reservations when I saw the WIP photos, but I'll be darned if that golem doesn't look infinitely better with a coat of paint on it.

Syro, please do not take this wrong, you have always inspired me with your ingenuity and brilliant models, but you really have stepped up a notch or two bud, these figures and terrain pieces are amazing, really great stuff.

@JoshInJapan: That's good to hear, I'm not super happy with the paint job in the iron golem and kind of miss the crazy plastic colors from when I started. I'm glad it looks good to you.
@Camkierhi: No offense taken at all, and thank you, Cam. I haven't really felt like I'm getting better, so I'm glad to hear that you think I am. thanks Cam

It was really nice having Memorial Day off, and I spent a decent chunk of it crafting, and writing. I might need to add more water, but I added bodies of water to the planet I've been creating. I'll be adding the equator and major lines of latitude next.





I'm also excited to say that my 7 year old nephew has recently become very interested in Dungeons & Dragons. So I've started giving him a mini or two each time I see him, to start his collection. I whipped out my molds and cast everything I've given to my D&D group to also give to him. I'm also going to be giving him a few pre-painted minis from my collection that I have spares of (but not enough for my whole D&D group). Here's what I have prepared to give him.


The colors are hard to see in the photo, but I've finished a quick paint job on all the rat swarms that I'll be giving my D&D group. Sadly this Thursday is the last session of the school year. I'll try to have the gargoyles ready to give them by then, also.

 Syro_ wrote:


Thanks for stopping by

This fortress reminds me of a blindaged gunboats of American Civil War. Which is not even near being a bad thing! Very cool, very stylish, if such thing (stylish wooden pillbox) exists... Drat! Now I am thinking of a cross between a humidor and a doctors necessary..

Wow, you have been busy. Have missed a handful of updates since I've not had the time to browse dakka properly.
I' now caught up and you never seem to disappoint with your crafting.

Especially loved the Tzeentch dread. Really good work with the hot glue. It looks like a proper creation of the warp.
It kind of reminded me of one of the monsters in the video game SOMA.

Awesome job on the Golem and rat swarms.

Loving the wooden fort too, you really make a lot of custom stuff for your players!

@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat, I like that comparison. I also like the idea and term "stylish wooden pillboxes"
@Ezki: Thanks Ezki, it's good to see you back online. Your comments give me a lot of confidence and enthusiasm to push to get more stuff done. I've never heard of SOMA, but I definitely see the similarity between my dread and the pic.
@Da Boss: Thanks Da Boss. It's nice how well the press mold turned out for the rat swarms. I don't know how sustainable it is, but I've been trying to craft everything they come across to have visual representations.

Just a small update. I've been making some more minis as going away gifts for my school D&D group (which I'll post later). I went with the plans to do some sculpting with apoxie putties for my mind flayer, but ended up making the plasma cannon arm for my Tzeentch dread instead. I hope to get it painted to match the rest soon. And finish the dread in general.




Thanks for stopping by.

that needs a lick of paint ....currently its a bit lacking in contrast...

the wings are really promising...
and you´re imo the master of press moulding...holy moly!!!

also...would be interested how you start gaming d&d with kids of that young age...how they envision the path that "might" lay before them...do you help your nephew with the phase space of choices available?...

That dread is really promising, I may have missed is, but did you take a scale shot of it ?
The glue+balls mix is definitely something I might steal....

@Viktor von Domm: Thanks Vik, yeah the new arm does clash a bit with the color scheme . Thank you also about your kind words about making molds. I really love make molds and go overboard with it. I just happened to have a plasma cannon terminator arm mold from years ago, so I put together the dreads arm super fast. Are you talking about the gargoyle's wing? I've make a bunch of them (with a new mold ), and i think they turned out well, but I forgot to photograph them, I should try to before I give them away. it would be best if I gave them a simple paint job so people can actually see them.

As for starting D&D, it can be hard. I made plans with my nephew's family to play D&D with the whole family, but they're even busier than me, so 6 months later and we still haven't done anything. My nephew has watched a few minutes of the D&D games at school, which got him interested in the first place. His mom hoped he'd want to ready about stuff from D&D, but he declined when I offered to lend him my Monster Manual (all kids' favorite of the D&D books to look at). So mostly, I'm just giving him little toys to get him excited even though he probably won't get to play a real game with them any time soon, but hopefully it will help keep the interest alive.
Starting D&D with kids can be a challenge, but also very rewarding if it happens. One of my student's dad has been playing D&D pretty much from the very beginning, he and his dad talk about it a lot at home. He's really interested in it, so I decided to start the school D&D group for him. We found a day that works for his closest friends, his brother, and Dad to all meet at the end of the school day, and it's been a lot of fun ever since. This made a lot of the other students jealous, and there were plans to start 3-4 more D&D groups, pretty much the entire class wanted to join. My only requirements were that they get an adult volunteer meaning a parent to join us and find a day of the week that works for enough of them to forma group. They were all stoked, but never got their act together enough for more than the one group to form. They would still ask me about starting a D&D group about once a month, but didn't manage to form any more groups.
Playing D&D with kids, is pretty straight forward. I started pretty easy since many had never played before, I have no intention of killing any characters if I can help it. The father with a lot of experience played a character to act as a mentor to the other characters, he gives them advice every game, and I've been watching them mature as they explore and get advice. Kids can get side tracked easily, but are also super creative. My group last year spent 30 minutes debating how to remove the chains of some guard wolves making more and more mild plans until the quite player suggested to just take their collars off. This year one of my players skipped a large section of the campaign, jumping far ahead with some really insightful planning and some good rolls. So a mixed bag like any group.

@KernelTerror: I'm glad you like the glue and balls mix. It would be an honor if my technique ended up in your amazing chaos army. I don't think I ever took a proper scale shot of the Tzeentch dread, only scaled against other homemade stuff, so here's a scale shot with the Dark vengeance helbrute and a space marine:


Also combining to cast pieces from my cape mold, I've started on the body/robe of the mind flayer for the LoER contest. I'll be sculpting on some more refined details where I've just done gap filling so far, before moving up the body and adding the arms.

Thanks for the scale shot ! that will be properly tzeentchian indeed !

That mindflayer is coming along brilliantly. I love the glue and balls technique for the Tzeentch Hellbrute as well, looks awesome and very fitting.

How excactly did i miss this tzeentchian dred?

Well done.

Thanks guys I hope to get more done soon.

Hi All,

I was really in the mood to get something done quickly today, I don't always have the patience to work slowly step by step with apoxie putties. That was when I noticed that the bag of Halloween skulls that I got from Dollar Tree are very similar in size to the beholder I made. You know what that means, time to make a Death Tyrant. I wasn't able to finish the painting with constantly waiting for stuff to dry, but the build itself is very easy and took less than an hour if anyone else wants to try it.


I started by sawing the skull into anterior and posterior halves to be able to insert clear plastic for the floating glowing eyes.


Next, using an Xacto, I cut out an area for the main eye socket


I glued in a sturdy wire for it to "float" with, and glued cheap expanded polystyrene over the eye socket.


Using the hot tip of the glue gun I hollowed out a cavity in the EPS for a socket shape.


I glue the two halves of the skull to a clear piece of plastic (this is from an egg carton) and glue the wire to a base.


I painted with a mixture of cheap craft paint (combo of tan, yellow, and white) and then made 10 dots of white glue that I sprinkled red glitter on. That's where I had to leave it to dry for the night.


I've also added the main lines of latitude to my fantasy planet that I've building from the ground up. Equator, 30, and 60 degrees.


Thanks for stopping by

I've stippled on some rust to my iron golem, first brown then orange. It's helped. It may need more, but I'm tired of working on it and calling it done. I'm still overall happy with it. Thanks to Vik for the suggestion about stippling on the rust, time to post this on his thread collecting "how to scratch build D&D minis.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/773264.page





Along with working on the Death Tyrant, I've also gotten back to making tombstone and grave markers for a tombstone golem

 Syro_ wrote:
I've stippled on some rust to my iron golem, first brown then orange. It's helped. It may need more, but I'm tired of working on it and calling it done. I'm still overall happy with it. Thanks to Vik for the suggestion about stippling on the rust, time to post this on his thread collecting "how to scratch build D&D minis.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/773264.page

Excuse me while I recompose myself and roll a good morale - amazing Rusty General! Looked good from the start, but the paint brought it to a real completion. Congratulations!

Golem looks friggen sweet!

The eye tyrant is genius as well. Loving the world, though that is a proper bottom up approach to world creation!

Just noticed your posts about tiredness and burnout. Fellow teacher here, and definitely feel ya. We are down a bunch of staff in my school and the load is redistributed to the rest of us and really wears us down. Take care of yourself!

@Wirecat: Thanks so much, I'm glad you like it
@Da Boss: As a fellow teacher, you definately do know where I'm coming from, thanks. I'm glad you like the golem and undead beholder. If you're planning to make any of these monsters for your own games, I'd be happy to talk with you about them and see them on your blog when you're done.

Speaking of the Death tyrant, I've finished it (After redoing the paint job):



I've also gotten started on another golem that can be called a tombstone, gravestone, or graveyard golem. I decided to model it with similar proportions to a 40k dread in my mind. It's honestly too big for its 2 inch base.
Some starting stuff, I ended up making twice the starting amount of foamcore graves in the end.





Here he is finished, but very hard to see without paint




Thanks for stopping by

Here I thought I was a nut with repurposing odd parts , your robot guy is awesome

Good work on the tombstones as well.

hey Syro...

the Iron Golem is everything the constriction promised and then some!

the death tyrant (i had to check this via google to know what it is all about for starters...) is a really cool thing too...the clea plastic surface idea is a nice twist...me i probably would have used gems on a clear rod...but since i´ve done some research now i´ve seen that idea gets some use too...(i think i need to build so many cool monsters eventually that i will come to a death tyrant sooner than later too^^)

as for the tombstone golem...brilliant! i recently marveld about these animated "household" items golems for quite some time... i want to build a skull golem for sure...also...what do you think about a knife golem? build from knifes around a substructure of hot glue...
come to that... i have these clear plastic gems...all shaped alike but once glued together could make a cool crystal ...whatever^^

i recently ,made an homage work on pacman...i really need to take and upload some pics of my recent works...

@Theophony: Thanks Theo! Luckily we can all hold each other up as examples of why we hold onto massive amounts of junk
@Viktor von Domm: Thanks Vik, I hope you do post more of your recent stuff and have more time for crafting. For the skull golem, do you want only skulls? or do you want more of a golem made from human skeletons? If you look up "Critical Crafting bone golem" on Youtube there's a really cool, huge bone golem made from Dollar store skeletons. I really want to try making one in the future. As for the knife golem, I think that sounds like a really sweet idea, and also a heck of a lot of work. Will you be making a mold and casting some knives or buying/building them in bulk? I imagine the knife golem being the ultimate weakness of hand-to-hand fighters
I think someone has actually made homebrew rules for a gem golem, and probably crystal golems too. I'm no expert on lore, but I could see them going around the Underdark, maybe made by deep gnomes?

just looked up the vid...thanks...another new channel to watch
that bone golem is pure evil....(btw do you see a scale issue with these dollar store skellies?)

as for the knife golem...i have a massive truckload of knifes and blades due to my bitzbox...especially the leftover ogre stuff you can haul in on ebay really cheap...(and which i did years ago)

and yep...i will set the date for a nice update on Thursday... then i will show off

I'm looking forward to your update
As for scale issues with dollar store skeletons, yes there definitely is. Critical crafting seems to embrace that they're not to scale, but I try to stick with ones that I close personally. I find it helps to use only parts of the skeletons at a time, all cut up, as it makes me feel like the wrong scale isn't as obvious. Do you find the same?

scale issue is something that is turning out to have some kind of OCP on me...it grows on me more and more... to the effect that i have problems using frostgrave minis together with warhammer minis...or heavens forbid D&D minis... the differences are subtil to be honest... but hands, heads and so on are items of minis that are of great importance for the character of said mini...

but to be honest... when i was a kid...many kids never had a problem mixing playmobil, action figures and legos... me, i was twitching around and feeling nervous ... i am in these matters a bit more purist than maybe necessary....

Iron golem sure is looking sweet! Great use of materials.

Looking forward to see more progress on the tombstone golem.

@Viktor von Domm: Everyone has different things that bother them, so worries. But yeah, I definitely wouldn't get any dollar store skeletons then.
@Ezki: Thanks Ezki! I've got enough paint on to make it visible, but will be a while before it's fully painted.

Just like last summer because of my continuing education, I'll be leaving home again for a few months. That means this will be a last update on this blog for a while, although I will still be on Dakka and visiting everyone else's blogs. I ordered green stuff and sculpting tools while I was out there last year, but was so busy that I never even opened them.

I'm planning on painting the tombstone golem to look like there are several different kinds of stone making it up, along with dirt, algae stains, etc. For now I just have it a flat gray with a black wash for you can see the details.

Love that tombstone golumn - by strange coincidence, my first 40K scratch build used that same hero quest piece to make a dreadnaught - with pen caps and lots of hot glue! I wish I'd known how to mold the part though.

It reminds me of "Rock" from Galaxy quest. Brilliant!

The death tyrant and the bubbly hell brute are lovely too.

Thanks kestral, that Hero Quest tomb is so useful, I use it constantly, and think it would be really great for a Dark Angels dread. And the tombstone golem defiantly has the same esthetic as "Rock" from Galaxy Quest.

Indeed, the “Rock” from galaxy quest .

Looking forward to some paint on him. Will they be more marble or limestone colored. Also needs lots of moss on them.

Thanks Theo, and I'm glad you mentioned limestone as that's what I was thinking of when I said marble before. I'm planning on mainly limestone and grey stone for the graves, with a few different ones sprinkled in like marble, maybe dolomite. The moss is a good point too, I'll make sure to include it.

I'm not quite home yet to be able to return to working on any projects, but I found this cool little package of clock and gear buttons in Walmart for $5. The seem like they would be useful for mechanicus stuff in 40k, D&D terrain for the plane "Mechanus" with the modrons. Also just making a clock tower.

Woo! Looks like a jackpot.
I can only imagine what you could achieve with those pieces.

Those could very well be used for some orky machinery. Or a clockwork robot

I may have used some of those in my most recent building builds...

I've a packet of something similar also- elevation gears for artillery, engine components under the hood- Warhammer 40 k meets Steampunk! Great find, Syro!

I will be repetitive here - Earth-Sun-Moon model in astromancers lab.

But selection of parts looks good indeed, lots of possibilities. The scale may be too small for actual clock tower, but they came in all sizes and forms back then, and a lot of things can be adorned with a clock face. Mechanic shoppe, entry gate... steam omnibus stop?

Thanks for all the great ideas guys! I have a lot of fun stuff to try and make sometime. I'll have to take a closer look at Brian's mechanicus table for gears And good point Wirecat, the clock faces definitely aren't big enough for a full clock tower, maybe more of a town clock or something.

Bases for tempus fugite or whatever the clockman from DC goes by, depends on the size of them though.

Cool idea Theo, the clock face buttons are 1 inch and 1/16 of an inch total. So pretty close to a standard base.

I'm finally home again even though it's only for a few days. I haven't been able to find one package that I ordered, arrived, and I think was brought in by my family close to 2 months ago, but I did open the other thing I ordered for myself.
Here are the Agricola expansion miniatures. Paint job is nowhere near how they look in the photos on the box of course, but I still think they are nice


I couldn't find all of them for the group shot, but I'm happy with the number of townsfolk/villager minis I'm collected

There are so many partially finished projects I should be working on, but when I saw this goat toy in the dollar store I couldn't help getting it to try to make a blood thirster for 40k.

GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) bloodthirster . I’m sure you’ll have it living up to it’s name here shortly.

Ooooh, that is very promising !

Hah! That is brilliant. Goat-thirster is going to be a really fun project no matter what.

Brilliant, simply brilliant. Cant wait to see him progress.

 Syro_ wrote:

Intimidating already! Actually, was looking at these things myself, in relation with some Reaper stuff, like a celestial stag, but decided to lay that idea off for a while. And here You are diving into a great conversion! Good luck with it!

@Theophony: Thanks Theo! I'll try my best to have the bloodthirster live up to the cool name you've given it.
@KernelTerror: Thanks
@Da Boss: Thanks Da Boss, it has been fun so far.
@Camkierhi: Thanks Cam. I I'm looking forward to getting back to him as soon as I can.
@Wirecat: Thanks! I hope it goes well. I'd love to see you do a similar conversion

No update photos this time, and I've been so busy and jet lagged that I haven't been updating. I've moved to a new country, and now live in Hong Kong, China. I've been very busy at my new job, but can't wait to get back to my projects and posting here. Sadly & obviously I couldn't bring my over crowded crafting area, so my projects will be changing to be more just sculpting with putties & a few conversions (similar to how Pneumo could only sculpt while he was studying abroad if I recall correctly).

GOAT Bloodthirster has traveled with me and I'm looking forward to returning to work on him. Unfortunately, I was afraid airport security would stop me if I tried to bring my apoxie putties, sculpting tools, and hobby knives. When I was going to ship them I found out it would cost about $60. I figured I could buy them again once I got here cheaper than that. Turns out, that's not true because of import duties/taxes but it was still pretty close, in price, and because I had a gift card balance it technically was pretty cheap. If all goes well, my art supplies should arrive September 5th.

Thanks to all of you for your interest and support.

Now that is quite a move... Take care, settle well and good luck!

Phew, fair play for taking ANY crafting stuff with you on such a move! Hope you enjoy Hong Kong!

@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat, It is taking a lot of getting used to, settling here.
@Da Boss: Thanks Da Boss

I'm very happy to say that my art supplies have finally arrived! I can now start some sculpting.


I spent most of the window of time for crafting making stuff for my classroom instead. I'm making a model volcano out of clay, and also a model solar system to hang from my ceiling. I also discovered that I still need to buy some super glue, so I didn't get to far, but I have begun the armatures for two more bloodthirsters that I plan to sculpt. Wish me luck

Good luck!

"Captain Scarlet is indestructible, you are not, remember the difference." Colonel White Thunderbirds Are Go!

Nice supply drop, glad to see you are getting set up allright in Hong Kong.
Yeah lack of superglue is the worst, and blocks everything ! I'm currently trying to make my last tube last the sunday...Won't happen ^^ !

Thanks Meer_Cat, thanks KernelTerror.
@KernelTerror: I hope your super glue lasted, I forgot to buy some again. I did a probably unnecessary price comparison and the store with the best price is a little harder to get to. I don't remember 100% where it is either...

I've done a little work of GOAT bloodthirster and his buddies.

 Syro_ wrote:

Don't remind me about dentistry! But, actually, I need a couple of scalpels-spreaders like that. Making do with pocket knife and bits of hardened wire is possible... yet tiring and frustrating. Now do some bloody bloodthirster! Chaos won't happen by itself, no matter what some people try to pretend. :(

 Syro_ wrote:

@KernelTerror: I hope your super glue lasted, I forgot to buy some again. I did a probably unnecessary price comparison and the store with the best price is a little harder to get to. I don't remember 100% where it is either...

Well now I feel bad, while my tube was empty by 2 in the afternoon, I then remembered I may have had a stash in the garage...And managed to keep on gluing.

Nice to see that the goat is getting friends !

But, actually, I need a couple of scalpels-spreaders like that. Making do with pocket knife and bits of hardened wire is possible... yet tiring and frustrating.

Wirecat, are you seriously sculpting those amazing things that you make without typical sculpting tools?

@KernelTerror: I'm glad you had enough glue, I finally got some. And thanks, hopefully all the bloodthirsters will turn out okay.

You see see some of the slow progress on the bloodthirsters





More art supplies as well. I finally bought some super glue, my girlfriend ordered me some magnets, and I picked up some extra x-acto blades while I was browsing an art store.


I mixed up way too much putty today, so after finishing what I felt could be accomplished on the bloodthirsters I had a lot left. I threw together some not very good brains for my mind flayer, hopefully they will look good enough with a splash of pink paint. I also bulked out a helbrute with the excess.



Thanks for stopping by

It's been a long time since my last post on here. I've been very busy with work and also just plain forgetful. I've been meaning to post this for two days but get distracted reading everyone else's blogs

A little more progress on the bloodthirsters. GOAT is starting to get its whip holding arm (mostly to help it stand up as the cheap plastic of the goat toy keeps bending over time from the weight of the putty and then won't stand up). I also found a Warhammer store here in Hong Kong not far from where I live, I stumbled upon it while shopping. It was really nice looking at the minis on display and the tables. It was also my first time seeing a bloodthirster model in person. They always look so massive in online photos, but aren't. I broke the legs of the least complete bloodthirster to reposition it to more of a crouch, and any future bloodthirsters I will try to sculpt much smaller than I have been.


I also started sculpting some daemon heads. I have trouble sculpting heads, and I'm trying to improve and research techniques. Hopefully this will look more okay as I add detail and layers.


On the left I also sculpted two multimelta barrels

Your bloodthirsters remind me of the old Realms of Chaos days, when daemons were all weird and unique sculpts. Yours really look like they'll be real creatures of Chaos.

Heh heh, thanks Josh, sadly the weirdness of my sculpts aren't intentional
But I am trying to make each one look unique. I'll be building up a lot on top of the "screaming green marbles" that I started with

It's been really nice being able to devote time this weekend to sculpting. I've been trying out making more daemon heads, worked a bit more on a modified helbrute (not fully pictured), and picked up a few more supplies at the Hong Kong equivalent of a dollar store, tht my girlfriend told me about and took me too.






Thanks for stopping by

FYI, Syro, I'm now running an online D&D campaign. Using miniatures!

Congrats Brian! I'm glad you are getting to play. I'm also glad you are getting to use that beautiful collection of miniatures you have, but I admit I'm confused how you are using them in an online game. Could you give some more detail?

I was in the mood to work on the helbrute today, but did a very little bit more on the bloodletters.

I point a camera at the battlemat, and screen-share the cam's output.

--Brian

@Briancj: That's sounds a lot nicer to look at than the usual digital tokens of many online D&D games.

I continue the slow methodical progress of sculpting daemon heads

I'm calling this daemon head finished. I have to say, I'm very happy with how it turned out. It's better than I realized I could do. I credit that to Wirecat who has answered my questions in the past, and from watching his own sculpts in progress helped me become a better sculptor.

I'm also happy to say that my girlfriend bought me a desk and chair, plus made room in the apartment for them so that I could return to crafting in a more relaxed manner. Until now I've been doing my sculpting in my classroom after hours usually returning at night. It's been hit or miss though, where sometimes after getting everything out of the storage cabinet I'm too tired to feel inspired to sculpt. It also didn't always have the relaxing feel I'm used to where I'd be interupted sometimes by cleaning crews or exterminators and couldn't get my focus back. So this has been a real blessing for me.


Over all progress on the plodding forward sculpting of the daemon head collection


It's good to be back, and thanks for stopping by

A good collection of parts - and a really well lit working surface, congratulations! I hope Your continuing progress will result in great miniatures. That brute looks almost natural!

Great demon face, that will be impressive once painted !
Congrats on the desk too !

Fantastic work sir, wonderful to see you still going forward, and really happy for you to have a place at home to create, makes a world of difference.

Gratz on the desk, tha'll actually help put a lot. And excellent sculpting, I have to say. Well done!

Thanks Wirecat, thanks KernelTerror, thanks Cam, thanks CommissarKhaine.
I'm hoping I can sculpt the bodies well enough to look right with the head. I'm very happy to have a desk to work at now.

Still rough and WIP but made a good step forward on the mind flayer. (Also it wants a hug)


Scraped one of the daemon heads, it just wasn't turning out right. I experimented and made the head on the left. Not good for a bloodthirster at all, but it turned out looking a lot like a terminator head. I may use it for a daemon prince elevated from a terminator?


I did some work of the back of the helbrute which I feel helped:



thanks for stopping by

Wow! I never thinked about that. Thanks!

Loving the mindflayer, and all the mods are looking good!

It always takes courage to scrap something, so kudos on that!

Don't look for reasons in chaos - it might start reasonong with You!

Heads are good, but I wouldn't go looking for hugs next to this one welcoming figure. Nice progress, Syro, keep up and steady!

@sajmonikpl1: Thanks for stopping by
@CommissarKhaine: Thanks Commissar, I'm glad you're liking it. The mindflayer was originally going to be a sculpt for part of an old LoER contest that I got no where on. It feels good to get back to it (and hopefully finish it).
@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat, and good advice

Some more small bits of progress, work has kept me very busy and tired. I broke and re-positioned the arms on the mindflayer slightly try for a more lifelike pose (sorry for the lighting)


Finished the horns on one of the daemon heads and started on the face of another


And worked on the Helbrute's pauldrons

The hacked Helbrute is looking great!

Syro_ wrote:

The more "from the top" shots You post, the more I am convinced his hands/arms should be slanted a little more to give his sleeves the same sense of movement as his "bottom". Or just add some small bits of clay along the sleeves and brush them in the same direction. Anyway, this is already a very cool miniature. Please continue!

Briancj wrote:The hacked Helbrute is looking great!

Seconded. You a doing great!

Thanks Brian! The helbrute is luckily approaching completion, just need to detail the right arm and the back some more, and make a few weapon swaps.

Thanks Wirecat. And thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. I've been slowly changing the planned pose for the mindflayer over time. It started with the "hug" pose because I was trying to make a pose that was like a shop keeper spreading out his arms to say "look at everything I have for sale", but could double as a combat pose. I built the cloak off of a molded cape to make the fabric folds better than I could sculpt. But you are so right that with the cloak so full of sideways movement and action it would look better to have the arms follow the same movement, and will look better too. Do you think I should do anything more than trying to make the sleeves follow the same movement? Thanks.

It's the season to go back to older stuff I guess, I've been doing the same. I love what you did with the hellbrute, improves the model by loads!

Thank you CommissarKhaine. I hope to get back to working on it and finish soon.

Sorry, close to a month with no updates. I'm so worn out from work that I feel no inspiration and enthusiasm to sculpt. With traveling home soon to visit my family for Christmas, I've been feeling happier and got some sculpting done, but still am so busy that I don't find time to upload. This pics are about a week apart, and I have to say, that I am very proud of how these daemon heads are turning out, I feel like I have improved as a sculptor during the making of these and am making better sculptures than I thought I was capable of.

Such a familiar feeling... I wish You a great time and easy travels to regain that often exhausted but always needed enthusiasm!

Neat monster horns, BTW

Thanks Wirecat I'm looking forward to being home, I expect a jump in progress while I'm there too.

Your sculpting skills have improved noticeably!

--Brian

Thanks Brian, I'm really glad to hear that

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm home for the holidays and it's wonderful seeing my family and relaxing with all my crafting supplies.

I haven't used the first beholder I made, I might not ever get to use it, but beholders are fun to make and I was in the mood to make one so that's what I'm doing.


Progress shots:




Also as an aside, these are the sculpting tools that I like the most and find most useful. If anyone else would like to share their best/favorite sculpting tools either here or on the own blogs, I would be interested to see and hear about them.

One can never have too many beholders.

I'm glad you think so Josh

Making the beholder is now done, just need to prime and paint it now

Dang, that is sweet. I should get you to make one for me.

Thanks Josh, I appreciate the kind words. Here is the progress on painting the beholder.

Do you think I should leave the main eye featureless and glossy like that?

I am also happy to say that I have finished painting two models today, one of which I starting crafting in May and the other in June, but I had to stop working on them because of how much I have been moving around this year.
Completed Gravestone golem




Completed Tzeentch mutating eyeball dread:





Let me know what you think, and thanks for stopping by

Nice beholder, although I have to admit, that I mostly know it from a Futurama episode, where one was working as a bureaucrat

Glad you managed to finish up some old projects and whilst at home. The Tzeentch Dread looks even better with a lick of paint!

@Viterbi: I love Futurama! That part with the beholder was really funny. Thanks
@Gobert: Thanks, I like how the eyes turned out. I could have had more detail on the dread half of it, but it's something I'll likely never get to play with, so I'm calling it good enough. It's a good feeling of accomplishment checking off projects that I was forced to put on hold. Plus I wanted some more stuff done for the traditional year end recap

Fantastic little homemade beholder!

Creepy to the point of perfection! Yep, a very nice slimy beholder You've got, even though it is rare for a beholder to be nice. Gravestone golem... Having spent some time around some very old places I wish (a little) that the stone would be more worn and broken, maybe mossy. But there is also a saying that moss never grows on a turning stone, so... another great miniature!

Happy New Year, Syro, have fun and happy time and a health and place to have it with people You love!

(Re: sculpting tools - I'll try not to forget and post my "set" some time soon.)

@aku-chan: Thanks aku-chan! Did you see the other homemade beholder I made? If not I'll be posting it in a few days for the 2019 retrospective.
@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat! It is kind of funny how happy this new beholder looks. That's a very good point about moss on the grave stones. I used a green wash on the white tombstones to make it look like there's so algae growing on it, but didn't show clearly. I'm not sure how to make the gravestones look broken in a believable way. I'm looking forward to seeing your tools. I get the impression that your tools aren't as good as the amazing sculpts you somehow make with them. Happy New Year.

I've finally put the finishing touches on my Nolzur's Owlbear (though I seem to have lost the base for it).



Not that different, but finished the last bits of my newest beholder

2019 Retrospective

Hi everyone, I was worried I wouldn't have much to show in accomplishing stuff fort the hobby in 2019 with how much I've been moving around. Luckily in the beginning of 2019 I had an active D&D group that had me very productive. Also the last two weeks or so I've been happily working at a fast pace during my visit home for Christmas. Below is an overview of what I have completed in 2019.

For 40k,I completed my Tzeentch dread:


I completed a goblin tank and goblin fort for D&D one shots this year.



D&D monsters and miniatures include:
Painted dopplegangers:

Sculpted and painted Ochre Jellies:
Crafted and painted Twig Blights


Molded, cast, and painted elementals:

Sculpted and painted nothic:

Dragon cultists:

Mass produced some rat swarms:

I designed, made, and painted 5 different types of golem. Flesh golem, stone golem, clay golem, iron golem, and tombstone golem.

And probably the greatest achievement is making and painting all of these beholder/beholder-kin (unfortunately the gazer is from 2018 & not in this pic):

I only just finished the deathkiss beholder today, so this is the first ime anyone will be seeing it. I'll be making a second copy of it with tentacles extended.


Terrain for D&D including carts, merchant stalls, campfire, fantasy doors, and a bronze statue, and this grassy area


For a LoER contest, I made this card table:


Thank you all for your visits and support this year. I hope 2019 treated you well and that 2020 will be better for all of us

this is probably the best post of all because it allows me to re- apreciate your works and congratulate you for your 25 pages of awesomeness and also wishing you a happy new year!

also... i have been lurking and not really felt the energy to talk about your wonderful golem works... (there is a slight pang of guilt on my part for still not acting upon my own idea) we recently moved with the whole family in a new town and are still quite a bit exhausted...and my hobby space looks still a mess...

the gravestone golem is a piece art... and the deathkiss beholder looks really cool too...(unknown beast to me by the way, and reminds me a bit of that super mario toadstool)

Thanks so much Vik
I'm really glad you appreciate my stuff. And no worries about feeling too tired to post, I've been there, but it's good to see you online. Try not to feel guilty about your thread, it's a really great idea to have a place to share methods of making fantasy minis. It will still be there, we can also pick it back up and start adding to it again when both of our lives calm down. I hope you'll have the time, space, and energy to return to crafting soon.

Like the deathkiss beholder. He isn't by any chance inspired by Yivo, if you are a Futurama fan too?

Been absent from the forums for months, so had to do some catching up.
It's always a pleasure to read your posts and to see the progress you have made. It was actually quite nice to read all the updates I have missed in one sitting.

Firstly, good that you got settled in Hong Kong. It was a big step I presume.

I almost laughed out loud for this comment:

 Syro_ wrote:
I have trouble sculpting heads

And for the few next updates, I see nothing else than excellently crafted head pieces
I mean, really really good work!

It was also nice to see all the stuff you finished last year. Quite an accomplishment. Especially the fact that you have created the stuff yourself.
Keep it up for 2020!

@Viterbi: I am a Futurama fan too, but it's been so long since I watched the movies that I didn't even realize how similar the deathkiss beholder looked to Yivo. You're right about the similarity, but I was just following the design as best I could from the source book (Volo's Guide: p.124)

@Ezki: Hey Ezki it's great to see you back. And thank you, you say such encouraging things it makes me very happy. I am surprised how well the demon heads came out, I did a lot of research to try to improve my head sculpting, but still surprised myself. I'll keep it up as best I can in 2020. It will be the divided as usual. D&D and bigger projects while I'm home, back to daemons in Hong Kong.

I bought myself a few presents. 4 new miniatures. The goristro and faerie dragon are because I want to be able to run the free WotC adventure "Harried in Hillsfar". The two giants are just because I want them. I have been working on sculpting a simple dretch to make a press mold of, but it's not really worth sharing yet.
Also some fun news is while I'm here visiting home, my old D&D group really wanted to all get together and have one last adventure with me before I go back to Hong Kong so that will be happening in two days

Cool end of year wrap up.

Also glad you get to have another game before you go.

All those eyes .

Thanks Theo, It was a lot of fun, we tried to pickup with the "Impregnable Fortress of Dib" Where we left off back in May/June. It was a lot of fun seeing them. They burned the fortress to the ground with flaming arrows, then carefully approached through the underground tunnel avoiding the trap.

Loads of cool stuff to comment on here, but I just love your Beholders. Your method is so effective and produces such excellent results! Your sculpting is coming along really well as well.

Thanks Da Boss, I'm really happy how well the beholders turn out also, especially when it's such a quick and easy process.

So much wonderful inspiration. I have missed you my friend. Love it all. Going to pour over your whole blog with my daughter, she will be DMing for the first time.

I love stopping by to see what crazy, awesome, creepy, creatures you are currently sculpting and scratch-building. Particularly loving the beholders. Keep up the awesome work Syro!

I know how it is to be overwhelmed with work and let hobby time slip just from being exhausted and burned out....heck, I've only just got my mojo back recently to start building, painting, and posting in here again after a much-needed break and recovery over the holidays...I think its been like 6 months for me.

Anyhow, nice to see you are back at it!.

@Camkierhi: Thanks Cam, I've missed you too. That's really exciting that your daughter is getting into D&D and will be DMing. Also that's very flattering that you two will be going through my blog together. I'm by no means a very good or experienced DM but if she wants any advice, you can pass her questions on to me. I'm mainly popular as a DM because I make so many monsters and craft all the terrain, if she takes after her dad she'll be very popular too

@Fango: Thanks Fango, I'm glad you enjoy visiting my blog. Making monsters is probably my favorite activity of all my hobby activities. Thanks for the advice, and it's good to see you back.

Just a small update that I've finished one more bloodthirster head. That means only two head left to finish. Nothing else that I'm working on if to a point that it's worth posting yet.

I'm not working on the last two daemon heads out of the eight total I decided to make. it's hard to believe I'm so close to finishing this step.


I've also decided to start sculpting another spectator for D&D, not out of any need, but just because I like them.


I had some putty left over from my various projects (not all pictured), so I decided to mix up a little more and make a dark mantle (an evil fly squid that pretends to be part of the cave ceiling) for D&D. This is meant to be a master for a silicone push mold.


Thanks for stopping by

Your sculpting looks amazing, excited to see those Bloodthirster heads painted up!

The heads look really good!
Looking forward to see how they look on top of a body and with some paint on them!

Great sculpting Syro. Always a pleasure seeing your projects come to life.

@Viterbi, Ezki, and Theo: Thanks guys I appreciate the kind words and encouragement. This project still has a very long period of work ahead of it, since 5 of the bodies are only armitures, and the other three aren't too far. But I'm excited to be finishing the heads, which I considered the toughest part. Bodies are easier. Though if any of you have suggestions/tutorials on making the wings, let me know.

Put the pieces together of this bloodthirster head. It bothers me that the top horns aren't lined up with each other. This ones head is so busy that I chopped off the lower jaw to work and parts of it separately, and didn't attach the top horns until recently.

All looks amazing bud.

As to not symmetrical, nature isn't. People are weird if you take one side and flip it and put them together. So a little squint is good.

Cam is right, I think. Assymytery is perfectly appropriate for Chaos Daemons.

Cam, Josh, thanks for the encouragement

Some more progress on my daemon heads. The one on the right is getting close to being finished.


Also small update that I finished the eyes of the dark mantle, so now it is ready to have a mold made of it.

Great progress syro.

I like the horns not being aligned perfectly. Just look at animals in nature like boars where their teeth/tusks are all out of whack.

Thanks Theo

I am happy to say that all eight bloodthirster heads are now finished!

Your obsession with creepy eyes has been noted. Looking good, all these heads! The one already on the neck makes that latest photo even better.

Looks like an inquisitor’s hunting wall . Great work.

They look scary.
Really really good job!

The amount of detail just blows my mind.

@Theophony: Thanks Theo, I like that imagery Though way that would be an impressive inquisitor, would put even Isenhorn and Ravenor to shame.

@Ezki: Thanks Ezki! I'm proud of how they came out, and didn't realize I was capable of it. Still, even with taking a month off, and work leaving me with little time, it still hurts looking back and realizing that I have been working on these heads since October 2nd.

@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat Speaking of creepy eyes, here's progress on the new spectator I'm making for D&D

I'm digging those bloodthirstier heads. Got to say my favourite is the fourth one along. The evil goat looking one, very chaotic.

Thanks Howie

It's been close to a week since I last posted here. I think it's been about that long since I got this far on the spectator and forgot to share it.


I also just recently joined the latest LoER contest (you can click the banner in my sig to check it out).
I joined a month late, but I have a pretty simple build planned since I'm a hemisphere away from most of my crafting supplies. I really love the shape of this water bottle for crafting possibilities. I'm making Necro terrain from it. I feel it resembles a combination of the Necron greater summoning core and the plasma generator from the Dawn of War video game series.

starting materials


Today's progress

Looks most intriguing, Syro. Nice texture on that bottle, plenty of possibilities to use it, even literally highlight it with a LED from inside.

And that spectator with neko ears is just asking for a trouble - or a pokemon name.

Thanks Wirecat, and yes that hole I drilled in the base holding the water bottle is for an LED light. That's funny about the spectator looking like it has cat ears

Good luck with the loer contest!
Excited to see what comes out of that bottle.

That's one way to recycle!

Thanks Ezki! Not much progress on the bottle yet, but some.

I'm very close to finishing the cat eared spectator, just going to thicken the bases of the eye stalks and call it done.



I really like spectators, so I started sculpting a third. This one is made from an armature of only aluminum foil (the only wire is what attaches it to its base). This spectator will have a story behind it, where it is a relatively old spectator and for close to 100 years it has been using the ey-ray from one of it's eye stalks daily, and barely used the others at all. So I made one larger and longer than the others.


Lastly, the small progress on the LoER water bottle tower

The personality is really starting to come out in this spectator. It's getting close to done.

Ooh, I like those wrinkles in the corners of the eyes. It makes the whole thing seem more organic.

Thanks Josh! I'm glad you noticed and like the eye wrinkles. I'm trying for a slightly elderly and more approachable look for the monster.

Spectator ancient? He sure has got a character going around him. Nice progress on both monsters, Syro!

Thanks Wirecat, and I'm sorry I thought I had already responded to you.

Working from home during this pandemic has left me with very little time and even less energy. But this weekend I felt some enthusiasm, so I began working on a fleshy organic helbrute. I'm thinking Slaneesh, and Fabius Bile probably made this one? Also, I finally took pictures of my finished LoER #31 terrain piece.

Here is the helbrute so far, with removable pieces shown in the last picture:





If you don't want to wait until the LoER voting or don't follow it but want to see my piece:

Nice augmented brute it is!

There are so many things I don't follow here and there that any heads up is appreciated. That obelisk is slightly too necronish. But very cool nevertheless. Lighting has turned out great and with such basing it is quite universal. I mean, it could blend with lots of decorations...

Thanks Wirecat, I'm really happy with how the helbrute is turning out. I do jump around topics a lot with forgetting to update the title of what I'm working on. The League of Extraordinary Riveters terrain contest, was to make something out of a drink container. When I saw this water bottle, it looked so perfect to make into a necron building. The obelisk is a piece of necron terrain, so hopefully being too necronish is a good thing I've never made any necron terrain before, so some day I'll have to make some more to go with it.

Here are new additions to my helbrute, I really like the look of the exposed shoulder muscles and the bird skull tip to the tentacle (sorry for the terrible lighting, I don't have much to work with here in Hong Kong).

Some really great sculpting there Syro, especially the heads on the previous page.

 Syro_ wrote:

Cheers,

CB

Very nice, great muscles on that brute !

Woah! That light up terrain is amazing. I do love interesting bottles. The beholder family growing even larger is nice to see - gotta admit I find them kind of cute though. And kudso for sculpting even more than usual.

The goblin fort is a great bit also.

Nice start on the Hellbrute, excited to see it come together!

Syro, these are fantastic! I love the diversity of materials, and your integration of putty, green stuff, plastic, wire, foil, etc. seems pretty smooth. I'm excited to see those big guys with paint!

Wow, thank you for all the responses everyone. It makes me happy to hear from all of you.

@Captain Brown: Thanks Captain Brown, I am extremely proud of those heads. My bloodthirsters are a slow burning project. Partially because the more I like what I do with them, the more I worry that I'm going to mess them up. But even more, with eight of them there's too many plans to keep in my head, so for the first time ever in my crafting career I'm drawing concept sketches for their poses. This will take a while as I'm more into sculpting than drawing, but I am still working on them.

@KernelTerror: Thank you! That's great hearing that from someone with such a wonderfully crafted chaos force.

@kestral: Thank you kestral. I have to admit I think the green beholder is cute too, I don't think the peach-orange one is though. And thank you, I've been pushing myself more toward sculpting since there is no room for crafting supplies here in Hong Kong. I do feel that the focus is helping improve my sculpting skills.

@Viterbi: Thank you, I'm very excited by how the helbrute is turning out, so it's getting my main focus right now, and should progress quickly. I worked more on it tonight, but nothing photo worthy.

@MacPhail: Thank you so much MacPhail, I do like to try out a lot of different materials. There's paper mache bulking out the torsos of a a few of the bloodthirsters, and a big chuck of EPS foam in the torso of the helbrute, too

I've continued to work, but nothing worth photgraphing. I added a few more muscles to the helbrute and did a lot of gap filling. I worked on an additional weapon for the helbrute, and continued working on two more spectators (mini beholders from D&D). When they are finished, it will bring my collection of spectators up to 5. I don't need more than one, but I really like spectators, and I like making them.

The lights really bring that necron obelisk to life!
And great work on the hellbrute so far. He will be a mean best when he's done!

Even though you only need one spectator, building something that you like is reason enough to do so.
And they all are cool. Aaand we will never get fed up seeing more spectators!

Thanks Ezki, I'm glad you and several others like the light with the necron building, I was personally disappointed that it wasn't really lighting up the upper half of the building. Thanks about the helbrute, and especially about the spectators. I'm glad you won't be getting board of them.

I love those heads you've sculpted. Really Oldhammer feel to them.

Thanks, Fifty. I hope to make the bodies of each of those bloodthirsters well enough to suit the heads.

I have done some more work on the helbrute, and finished connecting the last of the tubes to its back.

Looks cool. Lots and lots of upgrades.

Looking at that muscle tissue gave me an idea - if I get a time this week to test it... Thanks for inspiration anyway!

That is turning into quite the conversion Syro_

Cheers,

CB

Wow, that is so stunning even at the WIP stage!

Thank you Wirecat, Captain Brown, and Viterbi. I'm glad all of you like it. I wanted to make a mostly flesh helbrute to use all the fleshy bitz I cut off the other helbrutes I was converting. As I went, I felt more and more inspired, leading to something I'm very happy with. Also Wirecat, I hope I get to see what your idea.

I've finally started working on the front. It's not exposed muscle there, but hopefully still a good look for the model.

That Hellbrute is shaping up to be a delightfully gross model. It looks like it will have a serpentine body rather than legs-- am I reading that right?

That Hellbrute is ripped, maybe Chaos isn't that bad after all Nice work, I love a project unfolding with all the steps.

@JoshInJapan: Thanks Josh! About the serpentine body, the answer is "kind of". The brute has the one finished leg that it's standing on, but the leg is very folded up and organic. I have a magnet glued in where the other leg will go, so it can be removed and replaced with other stuff like tentacles or the like. (A thick snake tail is a cool idea for that, thanks).

@Viterbi:

Sorry for the long absence, teaching remotely keeps me very busy and exhausted. What little hobby time I have has been taken up by a sculpture contest.

I have finished a small milestone of having finishing bulking out the helbrute's shoulder so it looks more attached to the body.



Thanks for stopping by. I'll have to remember to take a pic of my ever growing collection of spectators.

Chaotic - and rightly so. Very senseless, almost to the GW point.

Having toyed with similar texture for muscles, I may have a suggestion for Your future projects. Use a thicker blade, maybe even get a thick piece of hard charcoal as used by artists. Or make a "blade" out of ice-cream stick, 2mm should be enough to sharpen it with a knife a little, plus the wood gets wet and stays wet, less sticking to the greenstuff. And when You draw the texture, not just drag the edge over the putty, but press and roll it a little. This will not only produce a single groove but push the material sideways, creating a more rounded, tube-like shape. I will try to illustrate this next week.

Sorry to hear about the job, hope it gets easier with the remote teaching over time!

But nice work on the Helbrute, it doesn't look a happy creature

@Wirecat: Thank you for the advice Wirecat. I was mostly using the side of a pin, and the angled wedge color shaper. It did bother me that I wasn't getting a more rounded appearance at times.

@Viterbi: Thanks Viterbi. I agree that he doesn't look to happy It might be all the exposed muscle with no skin, of that he is going into battle more or less naked, with no armor.

As mentioned before, I really like the Dungeons and Dragons monster "spectator" and I like making them. Here are all the spectators I have sculpted since moving to Hong Kong in August. I have experimented and tried different things out on them, such as different kinds of armature and other techniques. The one on the right is still WIP

Syro_

Sculpting the of the helbrute is coming along.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks Captain Brown, I really need to get around to making the other leg and I could pretty much call it done. It would be fun to make a few more custom weapon attachments too.

Spectators = lesser beholders ??

Hellbrute certainly taking shape - I think he's grumpy because he has to hop everywhere, and I like that

I think he's grumpy because he has to hop everywhere, and I like that

Could be, Iike your thought on it

And yes you are exactly right, spectators are a form of lesser beholder.

Hellbrute is definitely taking shape! I'm afraid of it already.

These times certainly challenge our hobby time.

I teach a youth department at a voluntary fire department for one hour a week (currently remotely as well). That's exhausting for me already, especially creating all the materials instead of teaching with the actual equipment.
I can only imagine how exhausting that is when you do it full time(?).

The spectators are coming along nicely. Always loved all your variety of beholders, I never thought about differences in the species until I saw your thread .

The hellbrute has skipped leg and arm day and has really focused on pecks and lats . He is looking great, nice work using the sedition wars? Arm.

@Ezki: Thanks Ezki. Yes teaching full time is incredibly exhausting during Corona virus. No job has ever worn me out me, so thank you for your sympathy.

@Theophony:

The hellbrute has skipped leg and arm day and has really focused on pecks and lats

That's a very funny and accurate way to put it. Thanks about the beholders also, they are a lot of fun to make, and to add variety too (which is luckily supported by the lore). And you have a really good eye for minis and bitz, the helbrutes arm is exactly an arm from Sedition Wars.

Speaking of beholders, I hope it's okay for me to be posting stuff here that I have shared elsewhere. About two weeks ago, I finished making Xanathar the beholder for a Dungeons and Dragons miniature sculpting competition. I only had time to work on him during weekends because of work, but luckily it's a two month long contest. I think it may be the best monster and sculpture I have made.






Here are the WIP pics






I won't be able to paint this guy until I get home to America and all my hobby supplies, but I'm looking forward to when I do.

Love the step by step of this newer model. I applaud anyone who goes and sculpts their own models. It’s something I really haven’t tried, except for the maggot-centaurs and that was really lazy work on my part. Your skills are really improving over your earlier work.

That arm came from the alligator looking sedition wars model, one of my all time favorites. I wish they scaled well with GW. It puts the current Hell brute and dinobots to shame.

I think it may be the best monster and sculpture I have made.

absolutly...

the last pic even shows a very maniac grin... its a full win!

sorry for so long only lurking... but when you produce something like that i quit hiding^^

Now that is a beauty! I'm just loving it.
Always like to see the steps and the starting point. Brilliant stuff.

Looking at your creations I'm starting to think that beholders and watchers are becoming my favorite D&D monsters

Holy warp, yeah, that is a beholder to be proud of mate ! Congratulations ! Can't wait to see it painted.

I'm also a teacher, working remotely full time. Not quite what we signed up for, eh?

The sculpting all looks great. I love the WIP shots with all the different blends of gs and epoxy sculpt. Different consistencies for different parts of the project.

Your blog inspired me, too, to create some stuff out of gs. We'll see if any of it turns out.

When do you get back to the states? Will it be in time to finish your model for the competition?

Nice work on that beholder, very nice.

@Theophony: Thanks Theo, making and sculpting my own models is my favorite part of the hobby. Out of curiosity, which parts of Sedition Wars are you finding don't scale well with GW models? I bought it mostly for kit bashing and using the models for 40k, so I might save some time and disappointment finding out from you.

@Viktor von Domm: Thanks Vik. And thank you for even lurking. No worries about not having a comment to say. What's the matter, you could think of something original to say about my 13th post of adding one additional muscle to the helbrute?

@Ezki: Thanks Ezki. I enjoy seeing the steps of other people's work so I try to include them. I'm happy to hear how much you're enjoying the beholders. I'm liking them more and more too. It started because I needed a spectator for the D&D game I was running, and because it's super easy to make a good looking beholder. But as I make more, I read about them more, and think of more ideas. So I'm liking them more and more too.

@KernelTerror: Thanks! I'm looking forward to painting it. Even with the hundreds of new unpainted minis that I impulse bought while abroad, this will definitely be a top priority to paint.

@DJJJAzzyJeff: Yes, this definitely isn't what we signed up for. The way it never ends, I'm not sure if I've ever felt so burnt out. Hang in there. Also thank you for your kind comments about my sculpt and for visiting my blog. The different blends of apoxie putties is for exactly what you said, I really like the different consistencies and levels of stickiness from different mixtures. I'm looking forward to seeing your own green stuff creations. And don't worry, luckily the competition is purely sculpture, no one paints their sculpts for the competition.

@monkeytroll: Thanks!

That last beholder is looking great and that's a very broad and knowing grin. It has seen things we probably wouldn't believe

Just the “big guys” the gator critter and the level 5 monster are just not to a size where they would match up to 40K power in my mind. If the level 5 guy was the size of a dreadnought, I’d be so pleased. If the gator could be brought up to dinobot (forget GW name for the mechanized beast) size then it would be perfect. Unfortunately GW likes making things to fight old He-Man figures now.

Grin is A+, scaly skin is A++. Extremely uneasy beholder You have made Syro!

 Theophony wrote:
Unfortunately GW likes making things to fight old He-Man figures now.

A sad truth that is. :(

Love the newest beholder with his insect-like eye tentacles.

Great Beholder Syro_

Cheers,

CB

@Viterbi: Thanks Viterbi! I'm glad you like the grin, I put a lot of effort to get the grin just right

@Theophony: Thanks for the clarification Theo. And yeah it is sad how much GW has been letting the scale of things slide.

@aku-chan: Thanks aku-chan! This style of eyestalk is new to me, I usually make them more like tentacles.

@Captain Brown: Thanks CB, I'm glad you like it.

Also everyone, sorry for the slow response. I had LASIK laser eye surgery a little over a week ago and it was too difficult to look at screens before. My eyes have been healing and improving very nicely.

Good luck with Your recovery, Syro! Don't overstrain!

Thanks Wirecat! I really miss my close up hobbies, but I should be able to return soon.

I had laser surgery many moons ago. I still think it’s the best money that I ever spent! Best of luck with the recovery and enjoy the little things you can do without needing glasses/contacts!

Well, I'm not sure I can say they turned out, but I did some gs sculpting.

It's not my blog, so I'll put pics in a spoiler. You can check out more on my blog.



They turned out ~okay~. Not too bad for being so tiny.

Hope your eyes heal up quick. My wife’s took about two weeks, and constant eye drops. It made me rethink doing it myself.

Best of luck on your recovery! When you eventually get back to the hobby, don't overdo it in the beginning. Easy does it

Thank you all.

Very Eyeronic that you work so hard on eye monsters and then needed eye work done .

Very true, and good one

So much creativivty here, man, just wow! I hope you are continuing to feel better. There is definitely some irony behind somebody having laser surgery and modelling Beholders!

Eye want to see you make a Beholder wearing glasses/monocles . Years ago when I was doing my “When Servo Skulls attack!” Silliness I made a servoskull of Nerdfest09 wearing glasses reading an adult Servo skull magazine he had hidden behind an Imperial tech manual.

I don’t always challenge people to do things, but if you ever get extra time when your eyes heal up, you should definitely do one. Who knows it could become a helpful NPC monster in a game. A Beholder who was beholden to a human who made him glasses to overcome his farsightedness. He was then able to study at a magical university when before he was unable to even read .

@Ragsta: Thank you, I'm glad you are enjoying my work, and thank you for the well wishes. I agree with you about the irony like Theo was joking about before that after making so many beholders I was the one that got rays fired into my eyes.

@Theophony: I like your servo skull and your idea about the beholder. That would be fun to make, I'll definitely plan on that. Now were you thinking just glasses/monocle for the main eye, or 11 monicles/5 pairs of glasses?

 Syro_ wrote:
@Ragsta: Thank you, I'm glad you are enjoying my work, and thank you for the well wishes. I agree with you about the irony like Theo was joking about before that after making so many beholders I was the one that got rays fired into my eyes.

@Theophony: I like your servo skull and your idea about the beholder. That would be fun to make, I'll definitely plan on that. Now were you thinking just glasses/monocle for the main eye, or 11 monicles/5 pairs of glasses?

I’d say he’d have to be a real classy Beholder, so 11 separate monocles . .

Sounds like a fun build Theo, I like your idea. Once I'm back home in America with my crafting supplies, it will be fun to make. I'm already thinking of ideas of how to go about it since reading this.

For the Warhammer fans out there, I noticed that my last post of the beholder brought the number of pictures in my gallery up to a number that pleases Khorne.
(I can't remember if I mentioned that)

Khorne will be pleased, even though they are magical beasts with poor fighting skills. Still a Beholder skull would fit nicely on his throne right next to the Aardvark one .

You can never be sure who wouldn't survive an encounter with beholder. Neither who would.

Thanks for the funny comments about the beholder guys

I'm currently sculpting a Dungeons and Dragons sphinx for a sculpture contest, but I have had no time to work on it. I've only gotten to work on it twice.

I think you’re off to a good start with that sculpt. I always find that getting the initial pose and bulk done is crucial to getting a nice miniature in the end.
Definitely think it will turn out great!

Thanks Pneumo, I am happy with the pose and think it will speed things up. Often I'm cutting and clipping and applying new putty to get the pose the way I want in the end. It's a homebrew monster so the plans for the head are strange. it's the part I'm most worried about messing up the piece.

Hope you will get some more time in for the sculpt, it is off to a good start!

Thanks for the words of encouragement Viterbi. This is how far I got on the sphinx before the contest ended (the wings are from a toy). I haven't worked on it since, but I plan to get back to it.

Sphinx starts to look amazing. Reminds me of Chimera of Light from Confrontation fame a lot - but she had a sword and her forepaws were in the air. Good luck with her!

And that trick with alu foil is something I'll definitely try when I go back to larger models But right now I need to scrape some courage for a petty griffin.

Thanks Wirecat, and wow that Chimera of Light from Confrontation looks incredible. I'm looking forward to seeing your griffin.

The current contest is for Lord of the Rings so I am making hobbits that will also be halflings for D&D, specifically halfling townsfolk. I have finished 2 of the four I have planned, a young woman collecting mushrooms and an old granny. One possibly interesting thing is that I am making all of these without using wire armatures, instead I jsut make pieces and attach them, or super glue on a piece of epoxy putty skeleton and then sculpt on top of that.

The mushroom collector


Granny


The starting point


I was very happy with this face, as I sculpted the entire face in a single sitting after attaching the green stuff to a prepared sphere.






That's all for now, thanks for stopping by.

I've finished the third that will double as a halfling and a gnome. In the adventure I made him for he is grumpy because he has been insulted about his big chin.



I squished down a foam ball and used putty around it, to give him his potbelly

Third guy looks amazing the other two too), love the bit of background and am also a bit sorry for him. Maybe he should try to get an audition as the next batman with a chin like this

Thanks Viterbi, I'm glad you like them. That's funny idea about being the next batman

I finished the fourth and final halfling/hobbt for the contest today, the chubby and jolly mayor of the halfling/hobbit village.
Here they all are with the best lighting I could manage (Mayor is farthest on the right).

honestly mate...it seems you are leading a life with missed opportunities... your sculpting prowess is getting better´n´better... imagine if you had started earlier...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
it seems you are leading a life with missed opportunities...

In the nicest possible way.

The halflings are looking good. I especially like the mushroom picker. And I'm a bit late to the game but I get a kick out of all the terrain and dungeon furniture earlier in the thread.

Also, you went a step further than I did. When I tried to come up with a setting, I only started with ocean gyres and Hadley cells.

Nice work on the halflings-- I particularly like the old lady.

@Viktor von Domm: Thanks so much Vik, that's very flattering. I do wish and wonder what would have happened if I had discovered epoxy putty sculpting earlier. I certainly can't compete with the artists of minis today, but I think I could have made it in the 90s as a profession. Unfortunately I was a little kid at the time. You kind words mean a lot to me, thank you.

@Vermis: Thank you Vermis, and welcome. I'm glad you like the halflings. Once I'm finally back home again in America, I'll be able to get back to more dungeons and other crafting again.

@JoshInJapan: Thanks Josh. Out of curiosity, are you a Studio Ghibli fan? I based some of the design of the old lady on the two witches from "Spirited Away".

 Syro_ wrote:
@JoshInJapan: Thanks Josh. Out of curiosity, are you a Studio Ghibli fan? I based some of the design of the old lady on the two witches from "Spirited Away".

Fan or not, Ghibli is inescapable here. Now that you mention it, though, I do see the rememblence.

What a colorful (OK, right now that is more of a green) company of haflings! Liking them all, but the old lady and a mayor get a bigger share of liking from me.

Thanks Wirecat
I like how everyone seems to have a different favorite. For me the mushroom collector was my favorite until I finished the mayor, now the mayor is my favorite of the four.

Nice work Syro_

Cheers,

CB

Thanks CB

Many of you have seen me on your blogs, but I have been quiet on my own for quite some time. I haven't been feeling enthusiasm and inspiration for sculpting even though I wanted to.
I have managed to finish the wererat mini I started last year. I made it to be able to have the entire piece copied with a two-part mold.




With the school year starting I should have less time now, but a person in a sculpture group shared a "Sculptember" calendar, an intense self challenge of daily sculpting prompts for September. This got me excited to start sculpting again even though I am still ignoring my half finished sculpts that would be more useful.

I started a week late, and most sculpts take quite a while to complete, but I am having fun with it and will be posting more this month.

Good to hear you've got your creative mojo back! Hobby burnout is something i think we all get from time to time, luckily the craft is always there when we decide to return.

The wererat looks great, it has a very old-school Citadel feel to it - I think it's the pose, I have a very old Bloodbowl elf mini that came in a bits bag that looks very similar.

I'm excited to see what your take on "Captain Hell" will be in the Sculptember challenge. That challenge looks like a grueling undertaking, but also a way to come up with fast sculpting techniques and trying out new concepts. I hope you have fun with it.

Rock on! I'm picturing every one of those Sculptember figures holding a storm bolter, to include the Ear and the Nose.

Especially the Fairy- I can just hear the conversation in a D&D game "Who you callin' 'Fairy'?!" [Dakkadakkadakkadakkadakkadakka]

Going to be fun dropping in here to look around for awhile!

Sculptember. I like it. Of course now it's the 10th as I'm reading this, so already behind. But could be fun to jump in.

Good to read from you again, wererat looks fun and I'm excited to see what you have in store for Sculptember.

Thank you everyone, it made me happy and flattered to get this warm welcome back to my blog.

@Thumpingbear: Thanks, I'm glad to have my mojo back too, I'm not used to getting hobby burnout but I'm glad to be back. I'm glad you think the were-rat has that old Citadel miniature feel to it, I was thinking about those miniatures when sculpting it. As for "Captain Hell", that one really stood out to me also. It sounds like it should be from some established lore or product, but I couldn't find anything with research. I was considering some kind of D&D devil commander, but I'm not really sure yet.

@Meer_Cat: Heh heh, Thanks Meer_Cat I have made any storm bolters yet, have any bits, or thought of that, but it is a very funny idea.

@DJJazzyJeff: Yeah, starting late will make it even more intimidating. I didn't start until the 5th. It might still be fun and worth trying for you too.

@Viterbi: Thanks Viterbi, I'm glad you like the wererat. Below is my progress on Sculptember.

I haven't finished the dog yet, but here is the cat for September 2nd


I thought having to sculpt a nose was weird, and I thought there was a second list for "Sculptember" that said the 3rd should be Deep Sea themed, I decided to combine the two (even after I found out the second list was actually for "Sculptober" in October. Here is my Deep Sea Nose that I imagined as the nose portion of a giant statue broken off from the head and lost in the sea.







Last, here is the gnome for September 4th:

Scale shot:

Without the hat:


Thank you again for stopping by and commenting.

That gnome is great!

Thanks boundless, I'm glad you like it

Love the Deep Sea Nose combination, the lobster looks so cool.

Thanks Viterbi, I'm glad you like it. I am found of how its face turned out even though it is very simple.

I finished the fairy for September 9th (not that impressive, I carved it from a bamboo skewer) and for September 13th "ear" I decided to sculpt an ear of corn.


I also found this while out shopping in the equivalent of a dollar store, I thought it could work as an interesting texture roller.

Glad to see you back!

Hobby burnout is something most of us get from time to time.
For me, the trigger is the feeling that "I have to outdo myself and improve from my last mini". And I might even feel stressed if I don't update my thread too often.
It's weird that the thing that should help with stress, soemtimes causes more of it.

Astonishing work as ever!
Loved that gnome.
One can only hope to possess skills even close to yours

Thanks Ezki, it's good to hear from you.

I think my corn and fairy shows that I don't feel that I always need to outdo myself , but I totally get what you're saying. Thank you for your kind words, I am happy with the way my sculpting has been improving. I guess we just all improve and focus our energies in different ways. I know that I don't paint minis as well as you, and I expect that I don't have the vision to kit-bash as creatively either.

I am at a loss here - which snoozel to chose for the best nose, the underwater one or a gnome one. And congratulations on that find - it may indeed be a golden nugget of greenstuff-rolling!

Good luck and good time to You, Syro!

Heh heh, Thanks Wirecat Looks like you noticed that I gave the gnome a unique nose.

Work was rough this week, but i have been anxious to get back to "Sculptember", I basically spent the whole day sculpting which was a lot of fun.

I finished the tree for September 7th (I'm looking forward to painting this one)




I finished sculpting the hand for September 15th which I plan to turn into a D&D spell effect


And I am really close to finishing my Dog Knight for September 1st's dog:




I only started on my Ent for September 13th today, but I am having a lot of fun making it. At the moment it's fun how creepy it looks:

Dog Knight looks amazing, like some 70's Hanna Barbara character, love him!

heh heh, Thanks Viterbi, I'm glad you like Dog Knight With some pauldrons to make a space marine proud, Dog Knight is now finished.



I also sculpted the face for my ent/treant



And as soon as it finishes curing, I will have actually started and finished a sculpt on the correct day for "Sculptember" the Bat for September 20th. I also made a base for it today.


Thanks for stopping by.

I am loving how my ent/treant is turning out. The paint hasn't even dried yet, but I wanted to share the most recent progress.


This is made from nothing but a few bamboo skewers & tooth picks, styrofoam and a small piece of cardboard for bulk, and a lot of hot glue.


The details on hot glue are hard to see, so as I was building it up and carving the wood grain with the hot glue gun tip, I tried out my new black artist's ink. I have never used artists ink before.

The Ent is terrific! The proportions are very 'natural' for such a fabulous creature, exactly how it would look, if real. It's amazing the texture you've been able to convey with it as well. Really cranking through Sculptember!

Thanks Meer_Cat
Even though I sculpted a face for the ent, I'm thinking of making it removable, maybe magnetize it? I'm liking the look of that hollow where the face goes more and more as is.

Gotta echo Meer_Cat, the Ent is looking great! Maybe put an owl in, if the face is not on

Thanks Viterbi, I have to say, I like that owl idea I may have to do that. Too many more good idea like that and my ent will have as many magnatized swappable parts as a 40k dread

I have some more finished sculptures. A gibbering mouther, Bastet as ancient Egyptian goddess, an ancient Egyptian looking guy to accompany her, and a pig-mermaid.

I had left over blue paint, so I painted the mouther while I was working on it, to see the texture more easily. It will eventually be brown. I found a bunch of thorn bush trimmings, and trimmed some thorns as a crafting supply, I think they work very well as fangs.




Bastet and friend



Pig-mermaid

and WIP


Hopefully it is okay to do some conversions too. Chimera is one of the Sculptember themes, so just like the last one I made I am dismembering cheap animal toys.



Thanks for stopping by.

That ent is just pure awesomeness!
Its so cool to see the step by step transition from the bare bones structure to the painted result.

That chimera is lookin pretty scary!
Cool idea to combine those animal toys.

Thanks Ezki I'm thinking the giraffe head will work well as a base to sculpt a dragon head. And thank you, I am thrilled how well the Ent is coming out. I'm still working on it, but it is a slow process. I collected some small branching twigs and I am flocking them for the ent's leafy canopy.

For Sculptember 25's "eye" I decided to finish the spectator I had been sculpting. This was an experiment in what it would look like if I gave the whole thing a really wrinkly texture.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was inspired by Cam's genius idea of making his flexable hobby helper with alligator clips and a flexible tripod, so I bought some alligator clips too. When I found they were steal, I started using magnets to stick them to my lamp as a drying space for the flocked branches for my ent.

That hobby hack with alligator clamps and magnets is really cool!
And crinkly beholder is fun. Telling the young beholders how he still remembers the time, when he was a smooth floating eye, guarding the dungeon...

Some great sculpting going on, love the Ent!

Giraffe+dragon... why do I think of kirin?

Lots and lots of great stuff here, Syro. Good luck with all these projects, they deserve to be brought to completion! I am particularly stirred by that ent face/mask. It is so close to dozens and dozens of wooden sculptures, scattered here in local woods...

Curse that virus, I should have run around and brought some fresh pictures to make a point. :(

The alligator clips and a flexible tripod is a great idea. I just use paper clips on a string.

Have to keep Ms. Captain Brown from seeing those plastic animals chopped in pieces.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks for all the comments everyone

@Viterbi: Thanks, the wrinkly spectator did turn out looking quite ancient, didn't it I like the back story you came up with for him.
@aku-chan: Thank you I hope everyone will enjoy the Ent once I finish it.
@Wirecat: no worries, it's not worth taking a risk with the virus. I'm glad to hear that it look a lot like tree faces. I'm definitely not going to finished by the end of September, but I do feel driven to try to complete all of these, so thank you for your encouragement.
@Captain Brown: I agree CB, I'm seriously considering making one like Cam's set up when I get back home to my true crafting area. The paper clips on a string isn't a bad idea for drying stuff, it reminds me of a clothesline. And yeah, it might be distressing how often I dismember small animal toys, Toy Story fans must hate me

Last night after work and this morning have mostly be devoted to painting. I can't progress on one sculpt until I paint what I have done so far. My favorite paint job is having painted my miniature potted tree:


I painted the Ent's face to try to catch it up to where I am with the rest of the body.


And base coated the gibbering mouther to the correct color, rather than blue.


I am continuing the slow process of adding layers of flock to my Ent and waiting for them to dry.

Haha, I was wondering if one of these sculpts for the Sculptember would be a Spectator or a Beholder. You did not dissapoint

That face looks even better with some paint on!

Heh heh, thanks Ezki. You know me too well, I was considering making another beholder for "eye", but since I had a partly finished spectator I decided to do that instead.

I am very close to finishing my Ent, but unfortunately I dropped my entire container of homemade flock onto the carpet yesterday


The Ent earlier this week:


Also being that it is now October, I guess Sculptember is officially over. I was able to finish sculpting 14 of the themes for Sculptember (group shot below). I have another 5-6 in the WIP stage. I'm thinking of continuing and completing all (or most) of the Sculptember themes in the coming months. Maybe I'll make it my goal to finish a certain number in October. I also have special 40k plans for 4 of the themes, which I will probably take longer on, the rest have been fantasy.

Back row: Dog, cat, deep sea nose, gnome, mermaid-pig (capibara), Ancient Egyptian style man, and tree.
Middle row: fairy, ear of corn, Bigby's hand, bat, Bastet (Egyptian goddess).
Front: gibbering mouther and spectator

Really cool sculpts man, fair play for doing as much as you did. One a day is an insane amount to ever finish! I love the dog knight, it seems very studio ghibli-esque to me

Thanks boundless I agree about how insane it would be to finish one per day. The original concept was,each day, to rough out a sculpture of the theme for 50 minutes. And then return to finish the ones that inspire you. It's originally intended for regular clay, I think. With epoxie putties, I wouldn't be able to work for 50 minutes anyway and it would be a waste of money.

As a change of pace, I finally went back and tried out Frost Grave for the first time today. I was so excited about half a year ago, but I got so caught up trying to have enough stuff to play while abroad that I burned myself out and always found something else I still needed. The last of which was giant rats (which I just made a few days ago with origami. Below is the battle report for the first mission from the solo adventure book "Dark Alchemy". Please forgive all the rules mistakes.

Here is the set up with a very eclectic collection of terrain. You can have 3 soldiers from your retinue join your wizard, I brought the knight (Dog knight), a theif (a hobbit), and a construct. I used my fleshy helbrute as the alchemical monstrosity (which I think is fitting).


I misread the rules, and thought the alchemical monstrosity would move to guard one of the doors. So the beginning isn't too interesting. For the first three turns my wizard failed her role to summon a demon. So there was just a lot of movement and picking up treasure.



On the third turn, I rolled a poor enough initiative to spawn a giant rat. On the fourth turn my wizard ran up and I thought crushed it with her staff in a single attack (Turns out this was a rules mistake).



Nearly the entire warband carried treasure toward the one door, while the construct guarded the entrance to the rat's nest.


There was a 25% chance it would be the right door, but it wasn't so the band would have to bypass the alchemical monstrosity, and the wizard was finally able to summon her demon (spectator).

This was when another rat spawned, which was easily defeated by the construct (Using correct rules this time if I remember correctly),


This was when I reread the rules and found that the alchemical monstrosity would move to engage the closest enemy in line of sight.



The first few turns of combat both the demon and alchemical monstrosity were unable to hurt each other. The warband took this opportunity to hustle passed the monster while it was engaged.



The knight's armor protected him from the waving tentacles while they hurried passed but the thief was slapped for 4 points of damage. The wizard moved to the far side of some terrain to avoid damage and take advantage of one of her spells.

That was when I read that she can't do that spell while carrying treasure, so she had to run back.



By this point, the alchemical monstrosity had taken heavy damage. The bonus the construct gave the demon was helping. The wizard was able to get passed the tentacles without injury. The same turn she exited the monstrosity was defeated.


The hero earned 75 XP from this mission, and in the treasure found 50 gold coins, a magic scroll of control undead, a new spell, and 8 potions.

Congrats to the Warband on a successful adventure!

Very nice batrep and love how the Ent is coming along!