Big Bird

Terror Bird
28mm scale

This large and muscular flightless bird could be a species of Gastornis/Diatryma (55 mya) or the more recent and savage Phorusrhacid Titanis (1.5 mya).  

I included this amazing Antediluvian Miniatures figure almost as an afterthought when I ordered Mary Anning.  They have some other really nice looking prehistoric creature figures referencing the history of paleontology itself.

The filming of "Lemurian Explorers", 1928: Burt Hardcastle couldn't help feeling that this was awfully realistic for a special effect...

Harry Cryptid

Bigfoot
28mm scale*

Bigfoot, or the sasquatch, is one of the best-known North American "cryptids" or animals that are claimed but not proven to exist.  Almost everyone has probably seen the classic photo, which is a still from the "Patterson-Gimlin film" supposedly showing a large ape-like bipedal creature walking along a river gorge.

Totally not a guy in a rented gorilla suit.

The creature is an American icon, appearing in countless media and with statues showing up in countless parks, businesses, and tourist attractions. It's even made forays into politics.  As for whether it truly exists or not, according to well-known primatologist Jane Goodall, "maybe they don't exist, but I want them to"... which is good enough for me.

"They told me you were all right, Jane."

This Bears Head Miniatures figure is a great version, nicely combining the loping gait of the classic imagery with a slightly more human-like "Harry and the Hendersons" style face and hands. 

(* At 55mm tall, its scale may depend on exactly how BIG you think Bigfoot should be...)

Ursus arctos horribilis

Grizzly Bear
28mm scale

The bare necessities
That's why a bear can rest at ease
With just the bare necessities of life

Philip Hynes' animal sculpts are really incredible; more wildlife art than gaming figures, really.  I got this lovely figure as a miscast in my Bears' Head Miniatures order.  I just had to fill some large bubbles on its stomach and do some dental work.  North American brown bears come in a variety of coat colours, so I had a fair bit of leeway in that regard; this reddish hue was a purely esthetic choice.

The base is an ambitious improvement on my old "Italian seasoning forest base" method... I added some fallen North American tree species and woodland flowers to liven it up a bit.  This was a really enjoyable project; expressive, beautiful, and quite a change from my usual subject matter.

Living her be(a)st life...

Time War Veteran

The Ninth Doctor
28 mm

The Doctor: I'm The Doctor, by the way.
Charles Dickens: Doctor? You look more like a navvy.

Finally done!  I'm not 100% happy with some aspects of this guy, but are we ever?  Mostly his skin seems too dark, #9 was actually pretty pale.  And in retrospect, some brown tint on his leather jacket would have looked good.  I thought of adding a tattered British war poster ("Keep Calm and Timey Wimey On"?) to the base but that might clutter it.  Maybe later.  Anyway as I mentioned last post the base is supposed to be vaguely London Blitz, brick rubble and dust.

'Cause I'm a Rocket Man

Star Pilot
15 mm

Finished my spaceship pilot from 15mm.co.uk.  Not a great sculpt, TBH, but not difficult to paint.  I tried for a shiny gold NMM visor on the spherical lump that is his helmet, I'm not sure if the effect is so great, but oh well, still learning.

The stripes on the base are outright cheating.... I colour printed a web graphic and sliced it into thin strips, then glued them down and blended them in with a little grey paint around the edges. 

"Uh... I'll just use the other landing bay."

Eccles-cellent!

A couple of new projects:

Ninth Doctor
28 mm

Heresy's "Doctor Malcolm Ecclescake".  Great name, and so horribly British ;)  Again, the likeness is uncanny.  I gave him a "London Blitz" themed base, to tie in with one of my favorite episodes:

"Are you my mummy?"

Star Pilot
15 mm

A figure from 15mm.co.uk.  Just your classic space jockey, as found in every grimy fictional space port ever.

Black Mesa Survivor

Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance
15 mm

"So Gordon, nice day huh?"
"..."

So I finally decided to tackle these two figures, Khurasan's "Dave Rimmer and Desiree Kim", pretty decent proxies for the protagonist of Half-Life 2 and his surprisingly resilient NPC sidekick.  It's a bit intimidating.  They're some of the most amazing miniature sculpts I've ever seen, in ANY scale let alone 15 mm!  The incredible paint job (edit: by Jen Haley, so yeah) posted on Khurasan's website doesn't help... O_O

Anyway, I hope my results are even half as good... I did try to make a cool base for them, matching the game's post-invasion wasteland atmosphere.  This was done mostly with Instant Mold: taking a texture impression of a rough stone and dabbing the IM against the putty base until it looked irregular enough.  The half-buried drum and tires were duplicated from some bitz using IM, and pressed into the base material.  It doesn't perfectly match my headcrabs, but it's close enough and looks good IMO.

"Staging" miniature photography

I've been envying certain bloggers' terrain collections for a while.  Not because I want it for gaming, but because with the right set-up,  it can produce some really impressive photos of miniatures that "bring them to life" as it were.  Some good examples from some of my favorite painters:

Yeaaaaaah, pretty nice.  I don't have nearly the time to make this kind of thing, or the space to display it, but some kind of thematic backgrounds might be an improvement over the blue-white gradient or simple coloured paper I use now.

The other day I found a page with a pretty amazing collection of  free Star Wars-themed downloadable paper terrain, that I thought might do the trick and be simple to use. I printed some off, and quickly whipped up this super-basic backdrop:

Your typical Death Star corridor, nothing to write home about.  But even this produces some fun photos:

"Only a master of evil, Darth!"

Trying something a little more elaborate:

"Hey, what's HE doing here?"

Wow, right out of the movies!  OK, maybe not exactly, but I like it.  And it gives the figures a bit more "story" or context, which any even halfway-decent sculpt should already be trying to evoke.  Also, while it's not very creative on my part, I could print these at different scales to display 15 or 28mm minis.

Easy sci-fi basing with Instant Mold

For the next couple of 15 mm figures I'm doing, I wanted nice, high-tech "spacey" looking bases that would complement the minis' genre. The trouble is, the found objects I was going to make them out of are composed of soft, non-paintable plastic - ever try to paint those green vinyl army men?  (Also, sometimes an original object may be valuable or unique and one doesn't want to use it up to make bases.)

Enter my Instant Mold, and here I'm going to show you how I easily made multiple great-looking bases from a single textured original. Not rocket science, for sure, but since my basing posts here seem to get a good response, I thought I'd show you how I did it.
 

The object I'm using is an "embedding cassette" used to prepare tissues for microscopy.  Looks sort of cool and tech-y... but it's an unsuitable material.  Here, I've trimmed it down and stuck it to a tape backing.

Pressing the Instant Mold firmly onto the original produced a nice impression.

I usually base 15 mm figures on a Canadian penny, so this, covered with green stuff, is the substrate here.

The putty-covered coin is pressed onto the mold.  I tried to ensure that the putty layer wasn't too thick, and was of even thickness to produce a ~ flat "floor" for the mini to stand on.

Ta da!  Looks pretty good!  Once the putty was set, I peeled the mold off and carefully cut away the excess putty with an X-acto knife.  By varying the location on the mold where I pressed the putty, I made multiple  slightly different bases with the same general appearance.  And of course, green stuff is always guaranteed to be workable and takes paint well.

I can easily imagine a single dollar-store toy or random thing you found by the side of the road generating many bases using this method, and with a little ingenuity different textures could probably be combined on one base. I should also try it with rocks and other natural materials to see what kind of surfaces I can produce.

Jungle floor bases

So I've had a few requests in the comments here to explain how I made the forest floor bases on my Huntarr.  Pictures = 1000's of words etc.,so I've put together a quick demo.

Most of the materials I use: oregano flakes, a stick, paints, white glue and clear coat.  I'm using a 25mm base for visibility.

Some cut-up pieces of stick become broken saplings and logs on the ground (I forgot to take a pic of this step).  For 15mm scale you don't need to cut these very carefully.  Glue them down with epoxy or white glue... crazy glue will just soak into the wood.

The basic cover of oregano is laid down by sprinkling over white glue.  This will generally need to be touched up by adding single flakes to fill the gaps.  Then, a tool is used to squish the flakes down and compact the surface.

The leaf litter is liberally soaked with a mixture of acrylic matte varnish, brown, green and black paint.  This will darken it and help to physically consolidate it.

The litter is drybrushed with lighter greens and browns, all mixed with a light tan to desaturate them.  The logs are just drybrushed with bleached bone.

This should all give you a passable jungle floor for 15mm, or even larger scales if you are a bit fussier with how it looks.

Waterside weirdo

Cultist of the Octopus God
15 mm

God knows what the acolytes of the Tentacled One are up to down by the pier; it can't be anything but horrific.  Perhaps a shipment of ghastly idols and arcana, or doomed sacrificial victims being brought in from wherever they were kidnapped.  This guard is ready to skewer any interlopers with his sacred trident and send their remains to sleep with the Deep Ones.

A companion piece to these cuddly fellows.

"Would you like a jelly baby?"

I'm pretty busy these days... but I still managed to start a new project, in between diapers and naps...

The Fourth Doctor
28mm



Between the dark and creepy nature of many of his adventures, and his character's Bohemian charm, the Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker, is many North Americans' favorite Doctor Who, and is definitely mine! This is another Black Tree miniature, a nice sculpt that is instantly recognizable.

I decided this figure deserved a unique base, and I came up with the idea of using my new Instant Mold to steal some detail to jazz it up. It was pretty easy to duplicate parts of an unpainted Dalek figure to make the wreckage seen here. The result looks pretty good, and fits well with his satisfied expression. I know the Fourth Doctor never encountered white Imperial Daleks... but I was never much for continuity anyway :)

Für das Vaterland!

Gepanzerte Truppen
15 mm







Some Eureka sci-fi WW2 Germans, first posted here back in 2009, sans bases. I figured that since I just ordered a set of Khurasan's "Control Battalion Infantry Riflethings", I should finish these guys up and get them off my work table. Great little sculpts; they really have the feeling of being the menacing elite soldiers of an evil war machine, even at this tiny scale.

The Riflethings will probably end up as some kind of WW2-era strangeness as well. I'm just not sure what. I ordered a sci-fi walker as well, so maybe I'll do the lot as Allied gear, since the Germans usually seem to have the Weird War advantage.

Papercraft basing

Well my security bot is almost done, so I was thinking it needs a base. It has too wide a stance for most regular plastic bases, so I figured maybe I could build something a little more interesting.

I put this together in about an hour... aside from the little grey gubbins and bit of screen, it's all paper. Largely some 5x5 cm pieces of foamcore board, and card stock. Hopefully it'll look as good as plasticard construction once it's painted.



I suppose the idea here could be that the door is jammed open and the bot is preventing anyone from entering. Or leaving... I really just built it halfway open because it looks a bit more interesting.

Basing Basics

A good miniature tells a story. Maybe not a whole Russian novel, but it should at least stimulate the viewer's imagination to think of the figure as a "character", with context and background. A good display base can enhance or strongly guide how the viewer sees the figure, depending on the creator's preference (and skill). For example, I chose a rustic forest floor base for my Mousling to suggest he is a wandering minstrel traveling between towns. However, more futuristic figures like Princess Leia or "Greybo" require something more artificial/technological.

Right now I'm working on a base for my Black Legionnaire. I contemplated a stone floor representing a temple or palace, but I decided that he too is a wanderer, questing for some arcane knowledge or artifacts for his own mysterious purposes. So he gets an outdoor base. The base I'm making uses thin slabs of cork (from cheap IKEA coasters) to simulate weathered rock.

I'm using snow to indicate the season, mostly because I want to practice the technique, but also because it makes his milieu a little more exotic. The "snow" is sodium bicarbonate mixed with white Elmer's glue. Quite simple, but I don't want to distract from the miniature itself.