An old work this time: a blue dragon diorama I made eons ago. It was before the time when I learned to use washes. The main techniques I knew back then were dry-brushing and layering. But still, I like this little scene.
Miniature
All posts tagged Miniature
A friend of mine asked if I could post some photos of some projects I did in the past. Here are 3 ‘mini’ sculpts I created a few years ago: An evil tree-man, a huge earth elemental and a giant owl-bear from the D&D universe.
All these were sculpted mainly using Magic Sculpt putty.
See: brushing your teeth IS important…
I did a conversion on my Barbarian Hero miniature from Reaper.
Barbarian Hero, a very nice 28mm mini by Reaper Miniatures.
I wanted a barbarian with a 2 handed sword instead of the axe this big guy is wielding. I also wanted to make a nice, small (1 inch) base for it. The base “provided” with that mini (actually, the mini is molded with a thick wide base) was too wide, so I had to cut it partially to make it shorter, so it could fit on a standard 1 inch square base. I change the “stance” of the barbarian by raising a bit his left foot, so he’s more upright (almost like “climbing”).
Barbarian Hero, with custom base and sword.
As for the base, nothing special here: standard techniques with small rocks, Magic sculpt, a bit of mortar and toothpicks.
I plan to make a winter theme base for this one, with some snow. That will be a first for me: I never made snow on a mini base.
I’ll post some pictures when this little project will progress.
I just got my Raynox DCR-250 lens and did some tests.
Wow! I knew I would get close to my minis, but I’m still really impressed by sharpness of the details. All photos were taken directly on my work area, with only one desk lamp as a light source, and they are great anyway! Just imagine if I had set up a proper lighting array… Here are some examples:
Elf archer, 28mm. Shot taken with a SX-50 HS camera equipped with a Raynox DCR-250 macro lens.
I was playing with tiny bits of Magic Sculpt and came up with these:
Yep. 28mm scale human skulls. It’s tiny. Each one took me about 10 – 15 minutes to make. They were sculpted with a needle tip and a precision screwdriver. They are mounted on finishing nails for handling.
I plan to make a mold and cast dozens of them in resin, so I’ll have my own little skulls for decorating miniature bases.
I’ll keep you all posted with the progress of that micro-project.
Just a quick test I did for a miniature base.
I had a left over small ball of Magic Sculpt. I made a thin ‘sheet’ out of it and I textured it by pressing a piece of cheap jewelry that had a nice “mosaic” pattern to it. I wanted to see if I could get a ‘ruin’ or ‘mosaic’ effect for basing minis quickly this way.
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I love basing minis and making dioramas. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of room on a 1 inch square base to create much environment and effects.
Things get more interesting on a 2″ X 2″ (like those below) or larger base…
Just for fun, I have put together those 2 bases recently. I have no idea what mini will go on these but anyway, they were fun to build and will certainly be useful eventually.
This woodland theme base was made with cork, a small broken branch, some dried roots and rocks all glued with PVA glue. I used a bit of Magic Sculpt putty to soften the transition between the elements and to sculpt bark.
Then, I tried something different with a ruin theme base.
For this one I casted a 5mm thick “plate” of plaster. Once almost dried, I used an x-acto and a pin to scribe brick and mosaic patterns on the plaster. I then waited for it to harden fully. The following day, I broke the “plate” in small fragments of various sizes and made this base by gluing interesting pieces on a plastic base with PVA glue. Again, some rocks, sand and a bit of Magic Sculpt (and a Games Workshop plastic skull) were used to blend in the different elements and give a sense of realism and scale to the whole base.
I still have a lot of plaster ruin pieces left from this experiment, enough to make 2 or 3 more similar bases. Cool!
Hi world! I’m sorry for the lack of posts recently: I’ll feed this blog soon with cool stuff… I have worked on many great projects recently.
First, let me introduce you to my dipped orcs friends. I have completed the painting and basing for 18 of these bad guys (just 16 on this photo as the 2 others were still drying).
Overall, I am very pleased with the result: they look great on the gaming table and didn’t take forever to paint.
I just completed the dwarf fighter miniature for one of my friend. I used the same technique that I used for my orcs: a “quick” plain color painting, without shading, followed by a dipping in Minwax Polyshade. Then Testor Dull coat to kill the shine of the wood varnish, followed by a little detail work (mainly hitting some edges and metal surfaces with a lighter tone to restore the highlights.
While at it, I dipped a prepainted Pathinder Troll miniature. I must say I’m quite impressed with the results: No post dipping work has been done on it yet and still it looks a lot better then it did straight from the box…
Cool!
MINIONVAULT 