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I played the second mission of Frostgrave's Dark Alchemy today.

Here is the initial setup, my wizard was able to successfully summon an animal companion between boards (I think this is allowed, I gave her a single chance to cast it). Except for the demon, all the members of the party not in the first mission are taking part in this one. The wizard's apprentice the well dressed pig, a treasure hunter, and the new bear.


The burning skeletons spawned, one ran right toward the party to fight. The rest could not see the group and patrolled according to the special rules.


I really like using the assist action to give a +2 two the other team member's attack. So this double team gave the demon a +5 to attack against the burning skeleton. The apprentice and treasure hunter continued to move forward toward the exit.


Each turn an additional burning skeleton would spawn, and they were mostly all spawning in the same location making a swarm near the exit.


The treasure hunter grabbed a treasure and ran along the back edge of the board while the rest engaged the enemies.


The apprentice and bear won the fight but not enough to hurt the skeleton, so they knocked it back and ran for it after the treasure hunter.


The demon began to be surrounded and took major damage (especially from the skeleton's +2 damage rule) but fought on.


The skeletons won the initiative for the first time this game and attacked the bear and continued their attack on the demon. On my turn, both the bear and demon defeated the skeletons they were fighting. My treasure hunter made it off the board with treasure.


I was very lucky that the bear has a +2 attack to the skeleton's +1. They both rolled 20s for their attacks. That would have been major damage if I lost.


The demon defeated the last burning skeleton that reached it and moved to catch up with the bear. They continued to be chased by skeletons, but many of the new spawns couldn't see them yet.


The apprentice makes it off the board with another treasure. As the demon and bear swing around to grab one more treasure before leaving.


They defeat two more burning skeletons and escape with the treasure before the rest catch up to them.


I was playing greedy, but still trying to escape with reasonable speed as that's what the game says they are trying to do. In meta hindsight, I could have left the bear and demon there to keep thrashing the burning skeletons and get me more XP. The wizard earned 80 XP just from defeating skeletons. However, I don't actually know what XP is useful for yet in Frostgrave. The treasures were a scroll of "Time Store", a potion of Invisibility, a potion of strength, and 55 gold.

Just a quick update of progress on the chimera. I think the change from the giraffe head into a black dragon head is really starting to look good now.

My Ent is finally done!
After weeks of working on the flocking, I painted it today. I am very happy with how it turned out.








If you would like a review of the process it took to get here, I have all the other pictures of making it in this spoiler tag.

Beautiful work on the Ent, mate. Must be such a proud feeling to know you built it from scratch! Nice sculpting on the face (and dragon's head!) too.

I have never played Frostgrave but enjoyed reading the action. Good to see the thrown together table too - a few cardboard buildings make everything better!

Good luck with whatever's next on the painting table!

Amazing work on the Ent, so great to see the finished piece! He really looks like he doesn't like things that are hasty.

 Syro_ wrote:
My Ent is finally done!
After weeks of working on the flocking, I painted it today. I am very happy with how it turned out.

Beautiful... I really want to see this exact shot with something else instead of white as a background! To my eyes You've got the balance of anthropomorphism and alien-ness just right. And the amount of flocking is good too. Congratulations!

I'll add my congratulations on a job well done!

To carry Wirecat's observation one step further, not only is the piece in balance in the areas he describes, but it is clearly not derivative of another concept seen elsewhere- it is wholly unique.

Very successfull and believable ent indeed, well done !
But yeah, now you need a forest to put around it.

@tzurk: Thank you tzurk, I'm glad you like my Ent. Yes, it is a very good and proud feeling knowing I made him from scratch. I'm glad you are enjoying the other things too, thank you for stopping by.

@Viterbi: Thanks Viterbi, and that's a good point about not liking things to be hasty. Maybe he's the reason it took weeks to flock him

@Wirecat: Thank you Wirecat, I was trying hard to have a good balance between humanoid traits without having an actual need to be too humanoid. What do you have in mind for a new shot? Out in nature, or when I get home to craft some forest terrain for him?

@Meer_Cat: Thanks Meer That makes me happy to hear, I like having truly unique pieces.

@KernelTerror: Thanks! That's a good point about him needing his own forest. None of my forest terrain really matches him. Most are evergreen trees, and the broadleaf trees terrain I ahve made was early in my crafting career, so they probably don't look good enough anymore. I'll probably need to update when i get home and have time.

What a lovely ent. He really looks like a tree that came to life. I'm amazed that you built it from scratch.

Thanks so much Josh

Magnificent work on the ent!
He (she? It?) looks kinda friendly yet still very scary, especially from a puny human's perspective (love that picture!).
Not sure if it was the intention, but I think you captured both traits at the same time, depending on how you look at it.

The paint job is well done and there is just enough of flock.

Glad you got to play some Frostgrave. Cool reports!
Never tried it, but I think I should.

Thanks Ezki I didn't make the Ent androgynous on purpose, but I'm happy to hear that it looks that way to you. It would make sense, with most tress being both.

It would be good for you to try out Frostgrave, I hear nothing but good things about it from others (although I haven't played it enough to be able to recommend it from personal experience).

The Treant came out great! And I second Frostgrave, for the fun!

--Brian

@Briancj: Hi Brian! It's great to hear from you. It's been fun reading about your Tarus battles with kestral and Insurgency Walker. Also thank you, I'm glad you like the Ent.

I'm close to finishing painting a surprise sculpt that I don't think I have shone yet, and I continue to plug away on various sculpting projects. But, this update is because I just finished painting the gibbering mouther I made last mouth (and last page).





Thanks for stopping by.

Here is the surprise I was talking about. I finished him two days ago.





The process started with these humble beginnings of putty wrapper around a trapezoid of styrofoam.


added the feet


And I forgot to take any more pictures until I finished the body.


Painting the tattoos took a long time.



My original plan of using actual miniature leaves weren't holding up very well after pressing and putting PVA on top wasn't working well, so I decided to sculpt some leaves instead.


I made the leaf skirt and glued on thread to show how it's held up. I then bought, cut, and frayed button thread for the hair.

That's an amazing sculpt and great work on the tattoos. May now have to throw the soundtrack on while working

This fella is lots of fun. Made me smile. Really liked your big tall freeman too. Great work.

I forgot to mention that the Maui pictures brought my gallery to over 1000 pictures

@Viterbi: Thank you, I'm glad you like him. I'm fully in support of you listening to the soundtrack while working, that is a very good soundtrack.

@theCrowe: Thank you so much, I'm glad you like them.

And thank you both for stopping by and commenting.

I realized that October was almost over and I hadn't done anything for "Orctober" yet. This would be the first time that I hadn't done anything for Orctober since getting into the hobby. I didn't want that, but don't have any ork bits with me or room for my usual vehicle scratch builds. Having only a few days left, I chopped the face off of a toy elephant and the arms off of a toy chimp to speed things up, and got started on making an ork. That turned into this ork shaman:






These are the WIP pics if you would like to follow the process


Thanks for stopping by.

Hilarious! My favorite monster hunter with a hook and attitude! You've made me more that a day of happy giggling, Syro! Thank You!

Drat. Now I am going to sleep to the tune of "You're welcome"...

Lots of lovely characterful sculpts there - especially the Dog Knight, IMO. That Ent is a really nice piece as well. I like the way the face is peering out of the bark.

@Wirecat: I'm very glad to hear that seeing my Maui sculpt made your day. What can I say except "you're welcome"

@kestral: Thank you kestral, I'm glad you like them. They are too of my favorite sculpts this year.

Not too much of an update right now, but here is a WIP picture of three multi-headed monsters I am sculpting right now. A cerberus, a two headed demon goat, and a chimera.

It's been a while since I posted on this blog, but many of you have seen me on yours. For over a month I just wasn't feeling any enthusiasm or energy when trying to do my hobby. Luckily Pneumo gave me some good advice to not worry about trying to finished any of my unfinished sculpts, and just try to find something that would excite me. For me this turned out to be a Tech-Priest Dominus for 40k. I really like the look of the model, even though I haven't gotten to play 40k in a few years and I don't have a Mechanicus army. Thank you Pneumo

After looking at the kit for several days and letting my imagination wander, I decided to make him some friends. I decided to make three Tech-Priest Domini, the one on the picture of the kit, one using the spare parts from the kit, and a third mostly sculpted with a few pieces kitbashed. Here is the progress so far.


earlier pics


The enthusiasm and momentum I gained from this project got me back to finishing my old sculpts also.
I finished my female adventurer in a wheel chair from September



I also finished the Cerberus I made from an animal toy. I really like how the howling head turned out.




I am also working on a satyr bard adventurer


Thanks for stopping by. I'll be doing a year review in a few days.

Great stuff with the wheelchair and mermaid combo. Great idea.

Thank you

Nice to see you back at it again! I always love the stuff you come up with, great source of inspiration .

Dude, you come up with the most interesting ideas. I especially like the modular wheelchair adventurer.

Good to see you back and a nice update. Love the wheelchair adventurer, although that pose combined with the pitchfork made me immediately hear him yell "Get off my lawn!"
Interested to see how the bard will develop!

@CommissarKhaine: Thank you Commissar, it's good to be back. And thank you, that's flattering to hear.

@JoshInJapan: Thanks Josh!

@Viterbi: Thanks Viterbi. That's some funny imagery, but there's no reason why the adventurer wouldn't be yelling at others to get of her lawn. That home and lawn were hard earned with treasure with dungeons. She wouldn't appreciate loafers on it Also, I'm happy to say, the bard is now done.

Here is the finished Satyr Bard. I like how the head turned out, I wasn't planning on him being bald, but I liked the look. I also decided to give him a scraggly chin beard like a goat. (Sorry the pictures aren't more clear).

I sculpted this rothe for Dungeons & Dragons. In D&D rothe are a domestic cattle similar to a musk ox.


I'm planning to make a mold of this guy and cast an entire herd, so he is in pieces for the mold making process.


There is one more miniature that I'm hoping to finish sculpting before New Years, wish me luck