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Amazing amount for just two hours!

Your glue gun casts look like commercially mass-produced resin castings- outstanding work!

Thank you Cap'n Facebeard, Thank you Meer_Cat. Unfortunately, it seems fate is working against me. The morning after I started my personal challenge both my wife and toddler got sick. I haven't really had much time to do anything other then take care of them and do chores. And thanks, Meer, the casts are definately looking better than they used to, but once you can see them with more detail rather than translucent, their sins of being recasts will be evident
I do feel like I have gotten better at making molds than I used to be though, so there is improvement.

Am I understanding your whitescars project photo correctly? Are you casting your models in hotglue?

Yes, you are correct Warboss_Waaazag. I am casting them in hot glue.

I really like those Iron Hands, some of the best I've seen quite honestly from a Chapter that makes me fall asleep.

Awesome Ork trukks and fungus! And I was looking at Tyranid Spores just this morning... Uncanny that...

Thanks so much Ragsta and that is unexpected that you were looking at Tyranid spores the morning before seeing mine.

I'm almost done painting 5 of my White Scars space marines, they should be done by tomorrow.
I have given up trying to paint a scratch-built stompa for this month's painting contest, and have switched to two homemade Big Squiggoths.
This reddish-brown one has been nicknamed "the naked mole rat". The blue one is being painted by one of my students. He liked my squiggoths so much that I gave him one.

The final squiggoth will be green.


Here are the White Scars that I'm not currently painting. I dropped the terminator sergeant's head and can't find it. I'll have to make a new one. Two of the tactical marine's had pretty bad bubbles and needed gap filling since I already long ago failed my one weekend plan to finish these, I'm increasing the quality a little while still focusing on speed of quality.

I'm liking those home brewed Squiggoths. They add character to an army.

Looking very nice, especially as homemade projects go. You won't need GW at all anymore.

Thanks Tommygun and thanks Cap'n Facebeard. With GW's constant price hikes, I would like to rely on them as little as possible.

Here are the five finished White Scars

You would never guess they weren't official minis

Thanks so much Cap'n I'm showing them from their best angles, so sadly they don't look as good from other angles. Sorry for the slow response, real life has been kicking my butt lately.

Squiggoths are looking good. Are you planning to put guns and stuff on them?

I admire your bravery in attempting White Scars. I find predominantly white minis almost as difficult as yellow.

Been listening to the R.A Salvatore's Dark Elf trilogy as audiobooks lately and ever since have had the burning urge to run an Underdark adventure. Or at the very least, paint and build more Underdark dwellers. Those Violet Fungi really look the part and now I really have to have some. If the stars align, I might even try follow your guidance into sculpting some!

That being said:

Meer_Cat wrote:You really have the potential to quit your day job Syro, and go all in on a specialty gaming figure and terrain maker. The range and breadth of the pieces you're turning out is amazing and the quality is very high. Your gladiator pieces are top notch and the casual way you drop mention of making them is on par with Ezki's "I had nothing better to do one afternoon than make this sci-fi armoured car out of an old biscuit box".

I wholly agree with this statement. Like I've mentioned before, your knack for scratchbuilding and sculpting stuff out of nowhere is admirable and keeps baffling me still. It is truly inspiring.

And thanks for the lovely mention Meer_cat, even if I'm a bit late to the party

Great work on the white armour Syro! That's a daunting task. I'm cheating on my in progress white armoured sisters and using an aibrush.

Keep it up!

The Gluecast Scars are already looking real good, with a little more time Im sure youll get perfect casts, if it wasnt for you saying that some angles are not as good and that they are gluecast, I wouldnt have thought they werent plastic minis. Its a really interesting project, keep it up

@JoshInJapan: Thanks, Josh Yes, I plan to put armor, the howdah, and guns on the squiggoths. Hopefully I will have time, eventually.

@Ezki: I love R.A. Salvatore's dark elf series. I say go for it, with making some violet fungus. They are pretty easy. If you want more Underdark inspiration pages 46 of my blog has most of the Underdark stuff that I have made. And thank you, Ezki. I really appreciate that you and everyone here acknowledges my efforts and passions for sculpting stuff. I luckily like my day job, but it wuld be amazing to have the time to pursue a secondary career doing someone with these hobby sculpts and builds.

@The_Retromancer: Thanks so much, Retromancer. I'm glad they White Scars are turning out well. If you want to see the models' sins check the spoiler below. I have finially finished more of the White Scars.

Everyone, Thank you. Real life is leaving me with basically zero time and energy for hobbying, which has been stressful. I've finally squeezed a little time in the last three days, and have finished the rest of my White Scars tactical marines and terminators. All that's left is the captain and dreadnought to have a full Assault on Black Reach force of White Scars.


The whole tactical squad, together.


Terminators


If you want to see the bad angel of these guys' mold lines:

Tbh, the mold lines and the "bad" side of the minis are not that bad, and even less taking into account is hot glue! Yeah, real life can be really antihoby sometimes, similar situation here, but any little hobby step is progress

Thanks Retromancer, I'm glad you think they don't look too bad. I want big battles, so I'm more into quantity over quality for most of these guys anyway. I could never afford my crazy ideas if I bought all official minis. I'm sorry to hear that you're in a similar situation with a lack of hobby time.

I set up a glue gun in the corner of the kitchen yesterday and cast 20 Tyranid spore mines while I was cooking and watching my son. I have also been painting my riper swarms.

They look better than the old Space Crusade marines, my ones had atrocious slipping

Thankss Cap'n Facebeard

Slow progress on the ripper swarms.I'm experimenting with how to make the color scheme that I want in as simple of an manner as possible.
Sorry that the pic isn't too clear.

Nice work. I need to look into hot glue casting for some of my basing bits.

Thanks, Tommygun The key to hot glue casting is silicone molds and a flat silicone surface.

It takes too long to accomplish things, these days. But I have finally finished painting my Tyranid ripper swarms and spore mines. I hope to sculpt myself a Biovore when I have time.

It feels good to finally be finishing these minis. I have been slowly working on them in spare moments for two months. parts of the painting may look a little different because my students helped me base coat come of them. For the first time in the more than 10 years since I started in the hobby, I am more in the mood to paint minis than to build or sculpt. I figure I should ride this while it lasts

Looking great! It feels good to clear the backlog. The older the better.

Excellent quality stuff happening here! I see your painting game improving as well!

@blockade23: Thanks It definitely does feel good to clear the backlog. And the older, the better indeed. I realize you are talking about how long the mini has been in your backlog though, I find it funny that my two newest minis are physically the oldest. I just got two old metal 40k minis.

@Camkierhi: Thanks so much Cam I hope my painting is improving. I don't focus on any particularly fancy skills, more how quickly I can get stuff tabletop ready. but I would still like to improve.

I've also hit a little patch of indecision, having finished three groups of minis that I had been working on. It's hard to decide what to work on next.

It's hard to decide what to work on next.

would love to see some kind of terrain from you again... to motivate me

Thanks Vik, that's a good idea. And one of the options I was trying to decide between. IRL is was too busy this week with parent-teacher confereces, but hopefully I can work on some terrain along with my minis for the monthly challenge.

Unfortunately real life is still leaving me close to zero energy and hobby time. I did quickly wip up a pigeon for one of my D&D players who tamed a pigeon to use in his circus act and seems to have gotten quite attached.


I was planning to paint my last four Dark Angels from Dark Vengeance along with Azerael for this month's painting competition. I have found that I don't have all the pieces, but I have nearly finished building them, and making replacement parts.


I have also been re-priming three pieces of ork terrain (Thanks Vik ) and gotten one layer of paint on them, but having taken photos yet.