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since an old terry pratchett book I always had a different image of a rat king in my mind... five or more rats bonded by their tails...

I love Terry Pratchett, but still have many books of his to read. Which book is the rat king from?

maurice and the amazing rodents.... one of the rather good ones!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
loosely based on the story of the The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Cool, thanks Vik. I actually have that one, but haven't read it yet. I'll move it up in reading priority. I've read all of the witches and Moist von Lipwig books, most of the guards books, Sorcery, Pyramids, and The Colour of Magic so far.

Not from madness of the rat king, but I finished sculpting final details and painted up these 4 D&D minis, more to get more space in my work area than anything.

Every garden needs a gnome with a big-a** sickle!

second the need for violent looking garden gnomes!!!


as for the books.... all guards books are the best.... second to the witch branch! then comes moist... in my opinion of course...(I don´t know where to put death tho in my top tier list...)

Heh heh, I might need to have that guy show up in an adventure now charging out of a garden.

@Viktor von Domm: Sounds like we feel pretty similarly, but Moist is my favorite character. His first two books are probably my favorite of all of them. I didn't like "Raising Steam" as much though. I'm currently on a Warhammer kick right now. Of the 14 novels I have finished so far this year 10 have been Warhammer.

I envy you, I am currently not able to read... concentration is at my lowest atm...I have to read a whole page at least three times to understand....

I'm really sorry to hear that Vik, I hope things improve for you soon. It doesn't solve the larger issue, but you've probably tried audio books if you miss the story side rather than the concentration.

I've finished painting 10 more minis for Madness of the Rat King: dragon rat, spider rats, and Nibbles the the intelligent albino rat familiar. (My new phone has a lot of trouble focusing on multiple minis, I don't know if there is a setting I need to find)


I've also painted up the scrap counters for GorkaMorka that I made in 2016.

never tried an audio book...hmmm

I'm reading through Henry Hyde's "Wargaming Compendium" and have gotten to the section that has multiple rule sets for different size games. It seems like it could be fun to try these out. The first is a 1 v 1 Roman Gladiator game. I have made these two gladiators.


The second is a Wild West skirmish game. I don't know if I really want to buy or make cowboys and bandits. I'm already pretty low on space, but maybe. I also had the idea of using Warhammer 40k as the setting for the Wild West game, either an Inquisitor's band vs a choas cultist cell or two rival ork gangs similar to GorkaMorka but as a Wild West shoot out.
Which of the three do all of you think I should go for? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

would love to see the wild west theme... I have for years quite a small army of cowboys sitting in a box... my son always asks me to make terrain to go with these...
inquisitor is a good idea, gorka morka is probably the best... the cultist idea doesn´t swing with me so much tho...

gladiators...that is also a nice idea!

Making a Wild West Game out of Inquisitor would be a bit of circular history as it was itself inspired by old cowboy skirmish games.

Thank you both for your comments. Hopefully a few more people will chime in as well.

I should probably go back and paint the bases black, but I have finished the 5 Fresco Spirits for "Madness of the Rat King"

They are described as 2-dimentional along with this description:
Created as guardians for malevolent entities,
these spirits appear as faded frescoes of robed humanoids with
fish-like heads and webbed appendages. When disturbed, the
paintings animate, darting across the walls, ceiling, and floor to
attack their foes

now that is a nice concept, 2D enemies! you do know you could get these apertures from amazon , but thumbsup for scratch building them!

Thanks Vik. Yep, I know about buying those 2D paper or acrylic standies, but much prefer 3D miniatures. For a 2D monster, you're right I probably could have just bought some fish people in that form, but they were pretty easy to make.

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".

Rock on!

I don't know if you realize how much what you said means to me Meer, but it really does. Truly, thank you.

I've been really busy, lately. I'm happy that I banged out the paint jobs on the rat-bear-pigs (Sorry can't see the rat tails too well)


I also finally primed and put a wash on the orks for this month's painting contest.

"ROUS's?"
"Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist."

Nice work, Syro!

Rig...rabig...batrig...peart...Looking great with a coat of paint.

Good luck in the contest with your orks! Let's goooooo

Thank you both I'm nearly done with the minis for Madness of the Rat King, but there is always more hobby stuff that I want to do, than I have time for.

I forgot to mention that my Reaper Bones 6 Kickstarter order arrived close to a week ago. I went for the core set and some paint. Like I have mentioned in the past, I buy minis with the plan to paint them, but then make my own and paint those instead

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas, since I have only gotten down red and green on my ork nobs, so far. But it's some progress.

I'm finished my five nob body guards in time for the competition. These are the personal guard of my warboss/warlord all wearing his personal symbol.



I have also finished the two laser rats for Madness of the Rat King.


The description in game is:
"Laser rats appear as giant rats that have been
inflated like a balloon with alchemical gases. Grafted onto their
raised bloated bellies is a great beholder eye, along with two
eyestalks writhing at its sides. Why? Because SCIENCE, that’s
why!"

All looking good, nice work all round, but HELL, those bloated eye rats are next level horrific and skill.

Thanks Cam

I've finished painting five and a half merfolk


I will also be building five Iron Hands space marines to paint for this month's painting contest.
This is what I have so far:

I've put together this little scene on display for everything I have made for undersea encounters in D&D. (I didn't make the sand castle)


The giant sea horse is the newest addition


Here is my progress on my Iron Hands space marines

Did a bit of catching up on your blog as I have missed quite a bit
Really lots of awesome stuff in here that you are working on, especially loved the rabbit bard a couple of pages back

What are you using for your space marine molds? Looks like an easy way to replicate things quickly

Thanks Pneumo

For the space marine molds I'm using three different silicone mold making kits. The yellow molds are "Alumilite Amazing Mold Putty", the white molds are "Alumilite Amazing Mold Rubber", and the blue ones are "Let's Resin Silicone Putty". I also have "Let's Resin Silicone Rubber", but haven't tried it yet
The two called mold rubber are the pour-able liquid kind with a catalyst. For the figures I am currently using "Aves Apoxie Sculpt" which if you really time it right, you can get three casts per day. When I need a lot in low detail, I crank out as many as I want using cheap hot glue. I think you use liquid resin for your casts, right? I expect that takes longer to cure, but I'm curious how much you have to deal with mold lines and flash? In your pictures it looks like it's mostly just removing vents. My method can get such ridiculous amounts of flash that Viktor von Domm jokes with me that I must really love removing flash and mold lines.

I am really enjoying customizing these guys into Iron Hands. It's slow and messy, but here's my progress.

Ah cool, so it’s a pourable silicone as well. I have some silicone putty as well and really love it for quick molds of parts, super useful!

The resin I’m using actually almost has the opposite problem. 6 minutes pot life means I have to be super quick with mixing, pouring and pressurizing. Especially since I’m using a bike pump for my pressure pot
It’s cured after 30 minutes, but I tend to leave it for an hour as I had some weird leaking happening after taking it out with just 30 minutes. After an hour the thin parts are still flexible (shoulder pads on my marines for example) and can easily be bend, but in the end everything cures like hard plastic. If you want I can look up the product link again(company is called smooth on) but I would only use it with a pressure pot. Too many small bubbles otherwise.

In terms of silicone molds I can recommend this channel: https://m.youtube.com/@RobertTolone
I’m using one part cut molds now and have virtually no mold lines or flash. With two part molds I used to have a bit more flash as well. But then again, never used these with putty