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Here's my most recent moment- Syro_ is everywhere on other people's threads, just won the last LoER contest and running the current one... maybe, just maybe, he has a WIP thread?

Late to the party but glad to have made it. Your sculpting skills are excellent. The Squiggoths are awesome and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do to finish up that massive collection of terrain you posted.

Subbed and paying attention now.

and yay, I flipped page 5!

I'm glad you made it too, thanks for visiting my blog. I've been late finding peoples blogs many times, so no worries
Thank you for the compliments, I strive to be a great sculptor and warhammer 40k has been a great way to focus my efforts, but I'm so blown away by the skill of so many people on here that I don't know if I can every catch up. I'm hoping to get back to working on the squiggoths soon, but the terrain is mostly in storage, so who knows when I'll get back to working on it. Hopefully soon, and you and everyone else knows it's really hard to budget enough hobby time.

Thanks for getting me blog to page 5

 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Cam, and I hope I haven't disappointed you with my fondness for making molds of things. Also thanks, for the tips Cam, I'll have to try some of them out, and see how they work.

Hey bud , no judgment or disappointment here. I know how it is. Have been doing some recently myself, bits of bits stuff mainly. Please don't worry, I ain't no Saint to be sitting on no high horse. Was a general remark, not any statement.

You have been showing some brilliant skills so far here, and I look forward to seeing your development, I love that you are trying lots of different things, like myself, enjoying all the challenges and enjoying sharing the experience. Keep at it, your brilliant.

Thanks Cam, I hope it doesn't feel like I was calling you out. I just knew from reading your own blog that you prefer not to mold figures made by other people or companies. That you prefer showing them support. Thank you for the kind comments, the things you say always help keep me energized to tackle the next project.

I took this pic a day ago, but forgot to upload it. Other than priming some figures I don't really have any progress to show today.

I made ears for my oxen. I think the ears are a little weird, but kind of cute. I could put more effort into these, but they are used for such a short time in the campaign, that it feels weird that I've spent this much time on them already. I also made a second much smoother custom 1 inch by two inch round base for 4 legged creatures/animals that will take up two squares in the game. (like the oxen and wolves). I am very happy with how the wagon wheel I made turned out. I made the spokes from bamboo skewers glued lightly together. The central section is made from Apoxie Sculpt, with the raised up section actually from pressing the cap of a super glue tube into it and smoothing down the other sections. Lastly the wheel, which I'm most impressed with was made of many layers of paper covered in PVA glue and carefully wound around. I'm always convinced that I'm going to be making lots of copies of things that i make, so i made a mold of the wagon wheel.

Wagon wheel is excellent work. I am afraid the oxen are a bit cute. Have to say though, you can never spend too much time on a project, what is most important is that it is what your happy with. They look great, can easily be identified and do the job, from here on its up to you how wonderful they may be.

Cool! Good luck and steady hands with them, I'm looking closely!

Regarding tentacles-tails-spikes: it may be too late but in a week or two, if nothing changes on the outside (and inside too) I'll try to put a little report on making a transpanther/displacer beast. Maybe it will one day be useful...

@Cam: Thanks Cam, I get so impatient wanting to play with the stuff I make, I often rush things too much.

@Wirecat: Thanks Wirecat, unfortunately steady hands is something I don't have.

I've started putting a little paint on some of the D&D minis and on my big squiggoth. I didn't get that far, and only snapped these quick pics with my phone:

I've begun painting the goblins and bugbears. I have trouble adjusting to goblins being brown when I've always known them as green skins. I'm trying a mix of brown and green for their skin, with brown highlights. They've ended up with olive drab skin, so far. I'm also planning on nearly all their clothes being browns and blacks with their preference for hiding. I'm starting with a light brown basic coat on the bugbear's fur. I'm planning to use a dark brown wash and then some reddish highlights on the fur. So far I've only used my Apple Barrel acrylics, which has a different consistency from the citadel paint in th background of the pics.


The very beginnings of painting the squiggoth finally too. Once again Apple Barrel acrylics so far, but will be using a wider range soon, especial;ly since I love metallic paints.

Hey everyone, it's been a while. I've been busy, and the progress I made earlier in the week wasn't enough to get me to dig out my camera. But with (I think) a week of progress it's time for a small picture dump. I'm DMing my first D&D game this Monday with the 5th edition starter set quest, Lost Mines of Phandelver. So I'm hurrying to finish everything I need, and not making or painting things to as high a standard as usual.


The goblins are basically done now, though I forgot to paint the horns on that one goblin's helmet.


Bugbears are done too


I'm using/converting Lord of the Rings Heroclix as the PC heroes. This orc is becoming a human hero who uses a bow and great sword. I cut off his weird axe, and made him a bow from wire. The great sword is a space marine power sword with the circuits, and eagle cross guard removed. He still needs a repaint.


I slapped this wagon together, since the heroes will be guarding a wagon of supplies. Now my oxen have something to pull. Speaking of which...



Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed my post.

First D&D game is tomorrow. Here's my latest progress preparing for the game.


There's still so much I could do, but I'm considering the supply wagon done, for now. I really like how it came out.

This angle shows the crate of tools better, I should really spread them out for a pic. They were super easy and fast to make, but look presentable.

Front view.


These are the minis I'm using to represent the 5 heroes in Lost Mine of Phandelver, All started as Lord of the Rings Heroclix, which I believe I mentioned above. Bilbo Baggins is used for the Halfling rogue, Legolas for the short sword wielding Elf wizard, In the middle a guard is the minor noble wanting some adventure, 4th the dwarf mercenary cleric who has two war axes, and lastly the folk hero who specializes in the longbow and greatsword. I gave the dwarf a full head of hair, and did a lot of work on the folk hero. The folk hero started as a LoTR orc with oddly revealing armor and a weird axe. I also gave him a more normal hairline. I'll have to see if I have another copy of the orc for a side by side comparison.


This is the quickly slapped together general wilderness encounter board I made. It's made from one of those corrugated plastic signs that get left in a peoples yards as advertising by companies who do renovations. I covered with green paint, a layer of PVA glue, and then the contents of a bunch of tea bags of chamomile tea. I drink a cup every night, and save each bag. I let the used bag dry for a few days and then cut them open and dump them into a tube to collect the free flock. It doesn't look too bad.

Congrats, you just re-made some GW flocking from the 80's. That's one of the old techniques.

Looks great!

The cart and oxen came out brilliant bud, excellent. And great work on the adventurers, looking the part. Good luck with the game.

@Brian: Thanks, I'm glad you like it. That's funny, I didn't realize flocking with tea has been around so long, but I can see why it is. It's not amazing, but for how easy it is, it looks surprisingly good.

@Cam: Thanks Cam, I am very fond of the cart. It's my favorite piece that i made for the game so far, which is funny being that it's used for the first 40 minutes and then will never be seen again in the campaign. My players had trouble settling down, and we were trying to figure out the rules together. We didn't get much actual play time in, but they seemed to have fun, and that's what's msot important.

Thank you both for stopping by

Way to go, Syro! I unique and characterful adventuring party- complete with transpo- well done!

Love the cart!

Thanks Meer_Cat, Thanks bunnygurl! It's not much to look at, but his a pic of the actual game:

Lovely work Syro, as always - and looking great on the table!

 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Meer_Cat, Thanks bunnygurl! It's not much to look at, but his a pic of the actual game:

No, this is everything to look at. Snacks, dice, drinks, character sheets, minis, and some nice, fast terrain. This is people having fun.

And that's important.

 Briancj wrote:


No, this is everything to look at. Snacks, dice, drinks, character sheets, minis, and some nice, fast terrain. This is people having fun.

And that's important.

^^This exactly. This is perfect. This is what it is all about. Friends together having fun.

Thanks Brian, Thanks Cam! I was a little worried about the sloppiness of the pic since I took it to keep track of where everyone was when we had to stop. I was tempted to crop it, but now I'm glad I didn't because you are both so right.

Completely unrelated, but I wanted to show all of you what just arrived from Russia:


My new non-GW Emperor of Mankind mini. I want to try to sculpt and kitbash every single primarch, but I couldn't see being able to make the Emperor well enough to do him justice. Hopefully I'll get good enough that I can prove myself wrong. This was the cheapest Emperor of Mankind mini I could find that I still liked the look of, and I still spent far more on this than I ever have on a single mini before. It looks like it was 3D printed, but in surprisingly good detail.

 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks Meer_Cat, Thanks bunnygurl! It's not much to look at, but his a pic of the actual game:

Just for this quick moment - it was worth it! A pretty baggage train and a very nice touch to gaming. This stirs some good memories of both gaming and DMing. Thanks and congratulations on Your work! Good luck with Emperor!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As promised, I've made a little tutorial on tentacles, spikes and tail making.

Thanks Wirecat! I hope you can get back to gaming and DMing sometime. The supply wagon was quite a hit with my group, one guy was so taken with the oxen that he said his character wants to keep one ox as a pet.

I haven't been accomplishing too much the last few days, been tired and very distracted by video games. I decided I should really try to get a bit further on the craters, so I painted a base coat of several, and touched up one, that I already applied sand to, but had a lot of white showing.

I started making a room from a cave system the goblin bandits are using in the starter campaign, but I forgot to upload it last night . Even using quick, cheaper materials in the style of DM Scotty this is much slower than I would like (of course I always feel that way). This is 2 hours of work with cardboard and hotglue, Legolas in there for scale for scale:

When I'm doing this sort of thing, I cheat.

I have a sheet of 1/16th inch thick plasticard that I drew out the one inch grid upon. I made sure I wasn't putting the grid right to the edges. Then, at the grid intersections, I made holes.

Now, I can lay that sheet down, and just put sharpie-dots on ANYTHING. And, if the piece is larger than my sheet, it is easy to re-position over the now-convenient guide marks.

Bon chance!

--Brian

Nicely done- even with rough material your cuts are very precise. My methods are to measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a crayon and cut it with an axe.

@Meer_Cat: That is hilarious! I really want to try to make something with that method now

@Brian: That's a great idea, I'll have to try making something like that. Making the grids is frustrating, and on that piece, all those grids I drew were just to get the size and shape as close to the book as possible, it'll all be covered up when I paint it, and I'll have to make a grid all over again...

 Syro_ wrote:

Looks good for a start, thumbs up! But now I want to order some pizza just for a big sheet of cardboard.

@Wirecat: Go for it! Eating pizza is just one of the sacrifices we must make for our art
I often carry out the big shipping boxes from my school to the recycling dumpster, so I can help myself anytime I want some cardboard. This started life as a huge box of paper towels, I think.


A bit more progress, I didn't realize that the stairs that I carved into the styrofoam didn't really turn out in the picture until I uploaded it. I also finished adding the rest of the 1/4 inch walls to the room.

I've made some more.


The beginnings of a river/stream section and another room in the cave, with a collapsed area leading into a vertical shaft.


A third room of the cave, which connected to the room above on the left and to a passage way near the top of the pic.

The D&D stuff looks great Syro! The ox and cart are great, really old school vibe to it

Thanks boundless! I'm glad you like them. Since my last post a few hours ago, I've made on more room for the cave system, though it honestly is hard to tell it's a different room from the last one I made, unless you take a good look at it.


Still the beginnings of these of course, I'll be adding sand, stones and paint some time soon. I'm almost done with all the rooms, now I just need to make all the corridors, the rest of the river, a thicket, and a bridge.