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_Very_ nifty- nice job! Piece of black paper chad from a hole punch for the pupil?

That beholder family rocks!

DM Scotty is an awesome man...whoever uses his ideas is on the right track! which in essence you prove by showing your beholders... by the way... i really like this special monster creature...one of my top favourite iconic creatures!

120 figs? Well that’s a good goal . Zombicide Black Plague had some kid figs (stranger things characters) as stretch goals.

The beholder family is looking great. If your looking for bulk numbers of spheres to use, you can get different sized slingshot balls at Walmart and then the pellets for air soft are also good, I got a bunch from the dollar store in a container for dirt cheap.

Keep up the good work.

@Meer_Cat: Thanks Meer_Cat. My plan is to paint on the marble for the eye, but that is an interesting idea. What I really want to try is to paint everything but the pupil, and let the original marble show through there. It might give interesting depth.

@Kestral: Thanks kestral!

@Vikto von Domm: Thanks Vik, I agree, about Dm Scotty. He is amazing, I watch a lot of his videos. I'll be making stirges based on his ideas too. I love how iconic beholders are too, to me nothing screams Dungeons and Dragons more than them.

@Theophony: Thanks Theo. That's a great idea for the spheres, I'll look into that.

No progress on crafting tonight, Thursdays are when I play D&D, but I was pleasantly surprised to see my miniature order had already arrived when I got home. In the second pics, the female dwarf rogue Bailey Silverbell (on the right) is a mini I've wanted since last summer, I think I first learned about her on kestral's blog. The rest are Reaper villagers, plus a female cloud giant and sphinx that I just really liked the sculpts of.



Thanks for all the great comments and encouragement.

Very good thought, leaving the just the pupil/iris the green color for depth. Is it too late to mount an LED light in the back? _That_ would give you some depth!

Wow, that's quite a lot of miniatures you need for your campaign!
I bet it will be really cool and the players will surely appreciate all the hard work put into it.

Looking good so far and I'm keen to see more!

Gorgeous Beholder Syro ! Congrats.

i was planning to get me the townsfolk mom with her two kids, then the wench (?) and some other nice minis of reaper...man they are like a candy shop....really...

@Meer_Cat: What a great idea! It's too late for this beholder, but I plan to make a lot of them. I want to try your LED idea.

@Ezki: Thanks Ezki, My players do appreciate it. I get a lot of comments about how much they like my minis and set up. The one veteran player in the group also regularly reminds the others that it's uncommon for a DM to do all this, and not to expect it when they play with other groups.

@KernelTerror: Thanks! I hope it turns out well with the paint job.

Vikto von Domm said:
i was planning to get me the townsfolk mom with her two kids, then the wench (?) and some other nice minis of reaper...man they are like a candy shop....really...

Yeah, it really is like a candy shop, like I said above I always get more than I went looking for. The townsfolk mom holding the two kids defiantly has personality. Are you planning on the Ale Wench with the 6 mugs? The girl with the serving tray, or something else? It's hard to go wrong.

It was nice and sunny today, so I carried all my painting stuff out to the enclosed porch to paint in the sunshine. I didn't get as far as I would have liked (too tired), but still some progress. I probably should have busted out some spray primer rather than so much brush priming.

just had a look....the tavern idea i have is planned for future scenarios... what i meant was the "strumpet".....for ...reasons...

and yes... the mother with kids is a central figure to get my adventure going... i have this "lassie tv show" scenario in my head...so i need to have a railroading questgiver... my family needs to be taken by the hand to discover the fun in adventuring


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also the blacksmith and the undertaker...as it will maybe even be the main villain...

Sounds like a fun adventure Vik. Good luck getting your family into it. If you don't post about it on your blog, please let me know how it turns out. I think the strumpet is one of the best sculpts of the villagers along with the blacksmith, milkmaid, and cooper, so i think she's worth having in a collection regardless. Also thank you for mentioning the undertaker, that's a cool looking mini that I haven't seen before. I've bookmarked it for my next order

Not too much progress to report, but I have started sculpting the spectator for my adventure. Gazer and human for scale. I hope I'm getting the size and proportions good enough.

Loving these evil eyes!

Thanks Wirecat I'm tempted to make another kind to add to the "family" even though I will probably never use it.

A little more progress on the spectator as I now wait for it to cure once again. It's looking a littl goofy so far, but hopefully will look good in the end.

I love painting in the fresh air/sunlight when I can. Great minds think alike - I painted that cleric for a friend's D&D character. Had to convert her to a Teifling though. I didn't know there was a halfling cook in bones though! Nice find. Bailey is indeed a great figure.

I'm sure the Spectator will be good - though the eye position is a little"down". Maybe that member of the family is a bit gloomy!

It's all the crew that showed up to audition for the part of the Eye Demon in Big Trouble in Little China!

@kestral: Great minds think alike indeed Unfortunately the weather is cold again here. That's funny that you mentioned converting the elf cleric to a Teifling, because I just converted a barkeep to a teifling. I made a mold that had a mistake in it where the face turned out poorly and looks like it has a horn. Made me want to make one of them a teifling. I think this update the spectator is looking a lot better.

@Meer_Cat: I can definitely see the resemblance now especially in that last post's picture.

I've worked some more on the spectator, repositioning the wires for the eyestalks and beginning the detailing in green stuff. I think he's looking a lot better, and kind of scary (Which is kind of a shame, unlike the other beholder kin, there's something about spectators that look cute to me).




Thanks for stopping by

I had to look up the Spectator, as I'd never heard of it before. An interesting take on the beholder.

I continue to be impressed by your scratchbuilds. I look forward to seeing this model finished.

Thanks Josh

Impressive and inspiring work again bud, really great stuff. I think I am seeing quite a bit of improvement, though that is not to say anything was ever bad.

Latest is my fave, nice size and creepy enough.

Thanks Cam. I do feel like I'm improving with the putties, though I still have a long way to go. I feel like I'm much better at sculpting in unusual materials

that bugger is developing really nice...

by the way... looked through this blog finally...(because i am looking for scratch building a golem...man...your own version is super cute! speaking of the gingerbread man golem

also... you have had your hand into almost every kind of creature already... to all the other newcomers: go, take a look and see what has been done before by Syro_!!!

Nice job on the teeth - that must have been a serious pain.

@Viktor von Domm: Thanks Vik, both for the kind words and for checking out the whole blog. it's getting surprisingly large, and I should probably try to organize it more. I'm glad you like the golem that looks like a gingerbread man. I put him together very quickly in a pottery class as a clay golem. My thought was a wizard wouldn't waste time making a fancy complicated clay golem and would go for something thick and sturdy. I'm looking forward to seeing your golem, it's more fun when everyone builds off ideas we get from each other. I'll never have enough hobby time, but speaking of every kind of creature I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to make every monster from the Monster Manual.

@kestral: Thanks, it luckily wasn't nearly as much of a pain as I expected. I tried out a crazy idea I had, which I used very narrow tweezers to squeeze and pull on the green stuff to make the teeth. I then used a hobby knife to make sure the teeth were separated and straighter. I think it worked very well.

I don't have any progress to show on the expected projects, but I figured I should share something that has been taking up a lot of my time for the past few weeks. I DM for a group of my students (plus one father to help me and help keep them focused). My students really like my minis. Because I saw some interest already, I'm trying to help them become DMs for their own groups of kids. We have a session every week, and each week I give them a little prize of a mini or some such to help them have their own collections.
I use minis I have many copies of, home made stuff, and minis I make from molds.

I have given each of my five students in the group each of the three dwarves in this picture. I also let each student choose one of three choices of elf. The session they spent the whole time in town, I gave them a crude copy of a townsperson I made. Last week, I have them three heads and three tails each, of my custom made wolves to see if they can make their own. I feel like I have given them more than that, but I don't remember what. I'll have to ask them.


I'm trying to give them a base of typical adventurers, along with those dwarves and elves, I'll be giving them other stuff too. One of which is, I made a mold so that they can each have a halfling.


They have spent the entire game fighting goblins, so I've started making goblins to give them.


When I was watching a Youtube video on cheap D&D minis, a lot of Magic the Gathering minis came up. The Youtuber talked about how he thought these tangleroot elementals could be painting differently to represent many different elementals. I have made enough for each of my students to get three and for me to have three to paint as examples. I'm planning on earth, fire, and plant based.

I'll be giving each of them 4 "rat swarm" minis. A very easy mold to make, and fighting rats seems like another staple of 1st level parties. I also plan to sculpt myself a giant rat, make a mold and mass produce those too.


I still plan to continue my own projects to finish the 120 minis for the starter campaign, but I wanted to show why my progress is slowing down.

first things first: i think this is very generous of you to support your students with these self made minis! it will help motivate them to grow...as players and DM alike. also...it is quite amazing how you managed to produce them in this comparable good standard...i only ever tried one silicone chocolate mold with hot glue...it worked...but i felt unsure yet and haven´t tried again for something usable in my own projects. but i guess it´s rather inevitable in the long run...especially since i have some quite interesting plans ahead that literally forces me into casting my own stuff soon.

also...i am currently more than just a bit interested in making my own monsters from scratch... so your golem was a very good example and a nice hint in the right direction for me...considering some of the rather low detail D&D and magic the gathering minis out there it is rather a shame to not try yourself and make some monstes by DIY...(something you are a shiny good example of to have already done in numerous occasions!)

so following this idea i will create a new thread here that will star this idea...for inspiration and show and tell reasons...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/773264.page#10392309
link to this as i don´t want to highjack your thread for this

Thanks Vik, I hope it does motivate them. And thanks, I'm glad you think the standard of what I'm molding and casting is decent enough, certainly not anywhere new what people can buy, but for massive hoards, or giving to friends (the two things I do with my mold making), I think it's good enough. Huge mold lines that I have to trim off. I use Alumilite Amazing Mold Putty almost excusively, and have a ridiculous number of molds I've made.

I'm very interested in what you'll be casting. You are really good at terrain already, how are you at making figures? I'm not a master sculptor and there are many on Dakka better than me, but I'd be happy to help with examples, explanations, and suggestions on making minis. I'll try to help out on your new thread, and plan to enjoy it as well.

I didn't get much done worth showing, but in the nice weather I did spray prime the huge number of rat swarms I've made. It would be fun to unless them all on the heroes at once But I'm giving four of them to each of the students I'm encouraging to start their own D&D games and keeping eight for myself. You can see some actual details now that they are primed instead of being fuzzing white blogs.

Awesome work, I friggin love the hot glue beholder! Fantastic stuff.

Thanks Da Boss, I am surprised and happy how the beholder turned out.

I just sent in my LoER #28 contest entry. Here's two pics of it.


I think scale shots with coins look really good, and work well for showing just how small the work we do is.


I have been sculpting more detail on the spectator for D&D


And added the tongue


I also painted up the three dopplegangers that came in one of the D&D board games I bought. I like how simple their color scheme is in the official art. You can expect some more of my stuff painted as I have my painting station set up.


And lastly, I've begun working on making a flesh golem for D&D in support of vik's new thread about sharing techniques and ideas for crafting D&D minis.
I started with a zombie type figure from Sedition Wars and a second pair of legs. A cheap dollar store animal pack gorilla, and three cast parts from 40k, a grot arms holding a sword, a dead human's head, and a trench knife.


I want to really draw attention to how flesh golems have mismatched parts, so I'm having noticeably different length arms, and strange proportions.




Thanks for stopping by

The coins do indeed make the scale shot sing- marvelous work in miniaturization!

Thanks Meer_Cat