First I want to say thanks to the very cool people here at Heroscapers who always help out with good advice and are happy to answer my MANY questions on how things are done and what should I do to get X result.
After seeing so many great customs on these boards, I was inspired to try doing some of my own ( or copies of others great ideas)
2013
January
Repaired and Repainted Flag bearer with crest
Spoiler Alert!
A while back, as part of a trade I was sent a broken Sir Gilbert. He was missing his dice his bag, his card, his purpose in life. Plus he was suffering from Broken flagitis. I offered to fix his pole but also repaint his crest. The member who sent me this figure to repair liked the idea so I asked the Almighty Internet Gods to look up the members Family name crest. It must be accurate because we all know Google never lies!
So once I had the crest in hand I proceeded to convince my self that I had a lot less skill than I originally thought when it came to drawing very very tiny details. My ravens looked like hamsters and my shields looked like eggs. A lot of fine tuning later I hashed out a more or less decent Family crest that looks good from 10 feet away. Any closer and it doesn't work
And to make sure I keep any history buff confused, his battlecry in Nordic runes ( Elder Futhark) I mean, Viking runes goes hand in hand with Eastern European Google Family Crest right??
I swear the voices in my head say it all goes together...
Completed Paint Rack
Spoiler Alert!
This sits on my desk just under a small shelf
Made from 3 plastic tiles and textured stone spray paint, I did a tiny moat too to save bitz and pieces in the water. I painted a thick coat of clear resin to see how it would work, it got cloudy on the thicker parts I should have kept it to a very thin coat to get a nice water effect. ( First try)
Exclusive Repaints
Spoiler Alert!
Last year I did a trade where the other person wanted me to repaint a set of exclusives. ( By the way I'm doing it again this week I hope !)
Still a bit shiny and looking like a glazed doughnut but its because I just coated them with matte varnish from Vajello and they are still wet.
There is a guide on what colors to use in the customs thread called, Exclusive repainting guide or something like that
Replacement Wing
Spoiler Alert!
I was asked a while back to make a replacement wing for a missing wing from Aquilas Alliance. I failed the first 2 attempts as one was hollow the other just distorted
I am using Filthy's technique of using the instant mold as a 2 part mold, do half first let it harden then make the other half overlapping the first. It has been working very well so far.
Problem with the first 2 wings was one had a lot of water trapped causing a lot of distortions and the second came out very very hollow.
So this third try I did the 2 part instant mold, plus Greyowl's advice of letting the half sit for a while with the casting plastic inside until it becomes kind of an ooze, almost starting to harden then clap them shut trying to avoid making a big bubble. It worked but the tip was still hollow so I just filled it out with greenstuff. Here is the mold and cast. I used 3 Drams of material, that's like little over 3 tablespoons?
Now to try and finish this Sam B this week end ! And recast woo, didn't like how he looked.
And almost finished this wing, this is the first 2 coats of red, now just need to try and color match.
Ghost Clones
Spoiler Alert!
And some how I ended up with ALOT more ghost than I remembered, I am fond of the ghost I made so I wont be replacing all of them, as my ghost have cool looking scary faces, but I do have at least 2 squads worth I can trade now.
Sacred Band Clone
Spoiler Alert!
I made a sacred band clone for fellow scaper here to fill out his incomplete squad, and for some reason I didnt just go ahead and make my self a dozen more while I remembered the combination of colors and had the molds ready..
So I never made any more, wish I would have, the 2 squads I have traded for have been expensive!
Random Pictures
Spoiler Alert!
Ever wonder what your figures are thinking? Just saw this old picture from when was making a Sam clone and this is the first thing that came to mind....
Also found this picture of a row of demon statues I was preparing for some extra terrain to give away. I had forgotten I started these. Really creepy mini.
Cheap mini from Mage knight yet, one of the creepiest looking figures I have seen in a long time. Hated how it looked so I ordered at least 20 of them last year
And here is a picture of a woo Clone I was working on a few months ago, I didnt like how the head looked from my original cast so I recast it in a different material to give the face more detail, and patched up any imperfections with greenstuff.
NCP Kobold custom figure
Spoiler Alert!
Brother tells me he needs a custom mini for his weekend pathfinder game ASAP.
Very specific, a kobold with dragon wings, a spear, crossbow and blue scales.
Ooohhkaaaayyy... let me see
D&D mini kobold + battlemaster knight spear tip + Sonlen's Dragon's wings ( poor fella) + D&D mini kobold crossbow (from another kobold) + paperclip for the spear shaft + blue paint
Mix it all together and you get this!!
So when I deliver the mini I have to ask!!
Now tell me this is a super cool main character for one of your players and hes pivotal in the storyline and has some great adventures through out the rest of your campain????
He replies... " hmm Nope, ncp messenger, gets killed off first encounter I think, maybe second.. thanks, cool mini..."
...... gotta love family....
Found the prepainted pic
2012
October
Mossman's Wall
Spoiler Alert!
Walmart ruined wall $12
Mossman posted on his thread about this wall, the next day I had to try find it.
I found one in Walmart for $12 and soon as I got home I decided it looked good but I wanted it to be something the units could climb and use. First I took 7 ladder peices and grinded off the back part to make it flat. I chopped off the top two pegs then I framed it both sides and top with a long popsickle sticks.
I tested it out to make sure it was flat and then sprayed painted it brown. When it tried I gave it a light tan drybrush then a mate varnish coat.
Top floor holds 3 figures and the middle window can hold one more.
I traced on the top 3 hexes with a micro tipped black marker to make it look like heroscape terrain.
Im glad I saw Mossman's post the day before I left Florida, this is a really cool terrain peice and it only took about 15 minutes to make the ladder.
It was really easy to paint. I also marked on the ladder the hight of the wall top and window for future reference ( I piled up tiles next to it until I knew the exact hight)
Top of the wall is 14 hexes high, and the middle window is 5 hexes.
June
Sea Monster
Spoiler Alert!
Saw this on another minis website a while ago and had it on my Will-do-eventualy-list. Seemed like an easy enough project. First I had to find where I could buy the Wild Republic Octupus, for $3.75 on amazon and a measly $25 shipping charge to Puerto Rico since Amazon vendors think Puerto Rico is located on the dark side of the moon....
So I had 2 of these shipped to someone stateside and he was nice enough to forward them to me. Easy mod to do
Very soft rubber, easy to slice off, remember when cutting off the tentacles that if you want to keep the body try to trim it so a little of the tentacles stick out of the base.
The base is a little high so slice off the bottom half to lower the heads profile to the water. Very easy to do since the rubber is soft. Also carved out a little the stumps to flatten them out when I glued them.
I used a mage knight base for the body, I think it was the giants based thats being used for CV3.
I grabbed some 25mm bases and spray painted them a krylon blue. I like how bright the blue is, but next time I will use larger bases for the tentacles as they are all top heavy and these tiny bases where not a good call. Normal Heroscape bases would have been better to stabalize the arms.
To help hold them in place and to give them a little weight in the bottom I used screws and nails, I would slice a slit into the arm and the tricky part is to trim the arm so that it sort of stands up by its self and balances the weight to the middle. These are easy to trim and I would just keep slicing thin slices at different angles untill they almost stood up by them selves.
Next time.. bigger bases
I think I used goop to glue these down but any glue would have worked, I could have used the hot glue gun but since these should see some play and handling they might have just popped off, so regular glue seemed best.
I bought Water effects specificaly for this project. It was really fun to work with and looks great. I have seen similiar results with clear silicone and it might have worked just as well. I dabbed the water effects around the bases, and used a paper clip to pull up and away to create the splash effect. After leaving it 24 hours to dry, it turns clear, but I painted them a dark blue to match the base, then a very heavy drybrush of white for the splash. It was surprisingly easy to do.
I dont have a card yet and I am not sure how I will be using them but here is the sea monster attacking Griffon's future ship.
The watereffect is not really needed but helps alot, I am sure clear silicone would have worked just as well, this project can be done under $6 if you order the octopus stateside through amazon.
April
Undead Roman squad
Spoiler Alert!
Part 1
So this is all I got done today, I am supposed to be doing another project first but the shiny objects on the road keep calling to me, this time It was undead Romans. C3V is going to give us some cheap armor less Skelly and some armored up ones, I wanted these to be light troops so I avoided using body armor.
My first try was carving out the face of a spare roman I received in an ebay lot. He was missing his weapons, hands and foot.. he was halfway dead when I saw him any way.
This didn't work, even when I tried squeezing in very reduced size skull from the Kings of War skeleton troop. It just wouldn't sit right.
I made a copy of the helmet alone, and that worked it was using Auggies Casting resin and instant mold. Took about half an hour to hollow out.
You cant see it but the details are very sharp, I had to carve out the face ( I made a mold of another roman with his normal head and face since I wanted the side * cheek* armor looking things. I tested this one out and it actually works if I insert the tiny skull from the bottom up.
Then I tried making a helmet from greenstuff, this was a combination of both instant mold to get the rough shape then lots and lots of cursing and shaping with a modeling tool to get the right cheek armor look and the bends and folds in the helm
Then the posture, I made 3 bodies, just need make 2 more helmets.
I am not having any luck taking close pictures to show the details but I guess when painted they will show up better
READY FOR TSA !!! ( the airport scanner) I tried to match the pose of the original Romans.
And of course the shield had to look beat to hell to sell the effect.
Will try finish up the other two and paint these guys soon.
Part 2
Almost finished with my UNDEAD ROMANS !! Rawr!!
Ok took a bunch of pictures to see if could get the details to show, but its kinda tricky as they lighting was terrible and I took the pictures super quick as I was late for work.
First I had to choose the Romans I wanted to imitate, then tried to find similar poses from some bitz of GW skeletons. I cut a couple of arms and legs into smaller segments to re-glue them in the correct pose.
I cast the shields using the casting plastic for Auggies.
Making the helmets was fun but tricky, I tried 3 different ways. I made a greenstuff helmet and inserted just the face of a skeleton into it. I casted a helmet from plastic and hollowed it out and placed it over a modified skull, and then a combination of casted top part of a helmet with a skeleton face made greenstuff plus the side plates ( cheeck armor? ) made of greenstuff.
To try to make them look more like their original squad, I tried as best I could to pose the skeletons the same way as the "live" infantry was. I kept the squad at 3 since the new C3V bare bones *cheap* skeletons are shield and sword only, no armor.
Here are the 3 poses or stances I tried to copy.
Here are some pictures of 2 of the undead romans side by side by their counterparts
The shields where fun and I figured they would be the main focus point on this squad. They took me a while, from casting them to trying to figure out what kind of damage to cause. I started to bend them and break them while the casting plastic or greenstuff was still soft so I could leave them all bent out of shape.
I used GW skeleton swords and chopped off the tips and squared off the swords to make them look like Roman gladius. Then chipped them all over to give them an old abandoned look.
Painting; Spray paint a white undercoat. Painted the skeletons GW Bone white. ( looks more like a light sandy tan). I normaly would try Sephia wash, a brownish wash like the Pathfinder skeleton, but instead wanted them to look like the reaper prepainted skeletons, so ended up using a black wash. ( Dabad Black wash)
The weapons and helmets where first painted chainmail silver, then dabad black. When dried Vallejo Smoke thinned in paint to give it the rust look.
Shields took me the longest. I first painted them as if they where brand new, then did a few more cuts with the scapel. I used Blood Red for the shield, Mithril Silver for the basecoat, ( after a white spray paint primer) Khaki brown for the design over the red, more mithril silver for the scratches, and Vajello smoke for the rust effect.
The hardest part of this custom was trying to figure out what to do next, I really wanted to give them a full set of damaged armor but they would not have been * Light * infantry skeleton troops then. Also I made their sandals using black dental floss with brown drybrush on top.
Hopefully the the end result I wanted was for the skeletons to blend in with the live troops at first glance. I wanted them to look as close as possible but just the night of the living dead version.
Sorry for the very long post, was waiting for the pictures to upload as I typed.
Thinking of trying undead sentinals of jandar or monks or knights of weston next.
Sniper Sam
Spoiler Alert!
First, this was my first attempt making a full figure using the casting plastic Auggie sells.
Worst part when trying to make a copy, tearing apart your precious originals to make the molds, this was done with a mix of the Casting plastic from Auggies site and instant mold. I tried Filthy's technique this time. I cast half the figure first, when the instant mold was cold, I smashed the other half over it making a sort of clam shell mold or 2 part mold. Worked pretty well. Poured the casting plastic in each half and when it turned "gooey" or started to become firm I smashed the 2 halves together tying to start from one corner to the next to force bubbles out.( This was suggested to me by Greyowl) . Worked pretty well, had 3 decent cast from 5 tries.
Here is a normal Sam Brown clone
And of course, Sniper Sam!!
This guy isnt finished yet, need to lighten his skin tone, drybrush the rifle to make the details stand out more, carve up his hand so his fingers show a little better and touch up minor details on his paint job.
Lost statue
Spoiler Alert!
While in Miami I picked up this statue in Petco, think it was around $12. Looks great on swamp terrain with no mods, but I wanted to make it look like it was sinking. This was a quick and easy custom.
First I used a hack saw and sliced it diagonally to make it look like it was sinking in the mud.. I made some molds with instant mold and my new casting resin of the top of a original jungle bush hex to give the area around the jungle the actual official jungle floor look. Then I hacked it up and placed it around the statues base once I used silicon to glue it into place.
Spray painted the base and jungle texture Harris Paints Dark Green, a quick coat of clear matte acrylic , then another coat of Dark green ( in case it scratches). I used some greenstuff to fill in the gaps of the statue, and made a few vines growing on the statues head and up the base. They dont look good yet, I am going to paint them brown, then give them a light brown coat, or maybe paint them green and a green wash. I glued all over bits and pieces of broken plants from my other jungle customs. I tried not to cover up much of the statues front.
She is still missing some green and brown washes to make her look moss covered and mud splattered. And the greenstuff vines need some work too. I was going to give her some offerings but I wanted her to look abandoned. I'm dying to use some of my pretty pretty rhinestones!!
Was a quick hackjob, cant wait to finish her up and see her on a table.
Evil Statues
Spoiler Alert!
Short - short version, see page 22 for reason why..
Used left over plants from jungle sets
Carved out sections to make them look like abandoned statues
Looked too plain so decided to give them "offerings" from my bitz box - Next time instead of body parts will use gold and gems ( AKA gold glitter and rhinestones ) ... so pretty
Painted them using tutorial over at hirstarts.com , same way they paint walls, dark grey coat, drybrush lighter grey, then really light coat of almost white.
Learned cheap craft store paints like apple barrel do not dry like game paints like Vallejo and games workshop. Once dried the cheap craft store paints will wash off when you try a wash ( diluted paint used to create shadows). Game paints do not wash off once dried. I will try next time to seal with acrylic paint before washing, as all I did was blend the colors together destroying the drybrush effect I painted earlier.
Cool skulls off ebay, $10 for 40 of them, want more, only had to do a quick wash of Games workshop sephia.
March
I have a couple of projects going on at the same time, and never enough time to do them, which is good because it means I always have something to do once I get home after work.
Shipwreck
Spoiler Alert!
After seeing Liefkicker's custom Shipwreck I have been wanting to give this a shot.
The ship he used for his custom comes in 2 parts, Ship stern with mermaid and Ship stern with windows, both cost around $40-$50 retail, and that's before the insane shipping! It comes in several sizes, from small to XL. He used the XL version.
After searching ebay for months I finally found a decent sizes aquarium wrecked ship for a total of $60 shipped.
This was the ship I found used online.
It's sold in Petco at $50 each half.
It took several weeks to arrive and when it did, it seemed the post office and the seller wanted to help with the shipwreck part of it, because it arrived in extra pieces.
I already contacted the seller and in the middle of working something out.
I had fun gluing it back together with my fiance, then a few days later covered the inside with GOOP or some kind of clear glue to cover all the cracks inside because it was really badly damaged and cracked all over.
More pictures soon...
Ship wreck part two!
First I must repair the badly damaged aquarium oranament, as it arrived in huge chuncks. I was able to crazy glue most of it together but there was a lot of pieces that where missing or just grinded to dust. Lost of cracks.
My biggest problem with this project ( other that I dont know what Im doing I mean) Is I dont have any sculpting material other than greenstuff. And thats to expensive for terrain building.
Wish I had Apoxie sculpt, magic sculpt, fixit sculpt or anything like that. Never used any of them but I am sure they would be perfect for this since that's what every one else recommends.
I tried to fill in the gaps with air dry clay, but it felt like I was working with playdoh. could not get the details I wanted. Plus this didn't feel like it was helping give the broken ornament any structural integrity.
I found my fiances old rug outside and thought that it would be perfect to use kind of like fiberglass cloth + resin, more like Fiances old rug + Super Goop!
I quickly chopped it up and smeared the inside of the ship and placed patches of cloth then smeared some more goop!
I learned two things. First the rug was outside because a cat had urinated on it, and second, it was outside because my Fiance was dead set on washing it untill it didnt smell any more because she " loved" it... Oops. I screwed up on that one, now my ship wreck smells like cat pee....
Unlike Leifkickers really cool ship, this huge ship doesnt have that much *play* space on it, not to many flat surfaces to fight on or snipe at any one, I didnt want it just to be a Huge LOS I wanted people to be able to climb up it , or have to reach a goal on it like a treasure chest or glyph.
So out came my new toy! A Dremel, been wanting one of these for years and finally got one!
I flattened out a lot of the surfaces, cut off the mast ( Ill replace later, just farther out so a figure can fit behind it) cut off alot of the decorations, and * coral* on the walls, so figures could stand in there, and left the lifeboat because of the "cool" factor.
I finished grinding a bunch of parts off. hosed the dust off, and now I have a ship full of holes, so I will use more * smelly rug + goop* to patch those up and figure out how to carve / sculpt new floorboards later.
Micheals Bird House Tower - Dice Tower
Spoiler Alert!
While I was state-side for a few days I went to a few Micheal's Arts and Craft stores and found a bunch of cool items. This birdhouse was being sold for about $4 and I couldn't resist trying to turn it into tabletop terrain.
I wish I would have seen Porkin's Dice tower tutorial before I started, but it seems I was going the same direction.
First thing I did was try and pry the tower apart, brute strength only ended up breaking the bottom board, so I tried prying it apart using a metal spatula. this worked way better.
Once I had cut the tower in half I could work on installing the ramps for the dice tower.
Home depo has a ton of these samples for floor tiles and cabinet covers, I remember saving these when we where going to do some home renovations. These are easy to cut ( its like a thin plastic ) plus they already had some cool colors and textures.
I installed 3 ramps after cutting a hole on the top of the tower, each at a 45 degree angle.
I kept the main hole open so I could use a portal I had for a 28mm tower, the upside it looks like a normal tabletop tower, but the downside it can only take a few dice at a time, and due to the small exit, I had to make wings to guide them out the * door* so they would not get stuck on the sides. After reading online I saw some people used this thin foam to keep the noise down, so I tried cutting this piece to also keep dice from being caught on the wings.
Looks messy, was using the glue gun pretty freely but You cant see this anyhow.
I would draw the angles that the ramps would go on and then glued tiny pegs as guides to glue the ramps on.
This was a lot of trail and error, I had to add extra wings on top of the first ones to keep the dice from being caught on top of the first wings. I must have torn this tower apart at least 5-6 times trying to figure out what I was doing.
I cleaned up a few of the outside lines then sprayed it with stone texture three times to give it that stone look.
I still need to do a few more details, including gluing on the door and some bars on the windows.
I still have not finished yet and I still need to make the dice tray and a few other items for the tower, plus painting it.
Paint Display Ramp
Spoiler Alert!
I have a really cool suitcase I received as a gift from my mom when I went to Iraq that holds and displays all my paints from Games workshop. But every time I want to paint something I have to open it up on the floor and reach over to look for what ever I want to use. I thought I could just make a tiny display case / ramp that would fit in one of the shelves of my desk. Time to break out the measuring tape!!
First I didn't have enough plywood so I kept trying to figure out the dimensions needed to keep the ramp small enough to build with the supplies on hand. I spent a while playing around with variables and inch to decimal conversion charts figuring out measurements.
It was almost 1am when I started this, then my fiance showed up told me to get to bed, I said as soon as I figure this out. She took a look at my stack of papers, and said, "I see what your problem is"
What is it?? I asked
"Buy more wood, now get to bed!"
I think she was right... sooo next day at work, having no access to the store to buy wood ( and balsa wood is waaay to expensive down here, plus too fragile) I found a stack of plastic floor tiles...
A foot in each direction, a full stack of them, and easy to cut with a hacksaw. You can snap them in half and if dropped they chip, but for what I needed, it had 2 things I was looking for. It was available right now, plus free!!
So took a bunch of measurements ( Yes I admit I could have done this so much simpler, but there's something about first drawing what you want to build, making a ton of extra and unnecessary calculations, then ignoring them all as you actually build the item, making "guesstimates" or more-or-less measurements, that makes you feel so smart
I swear, in my head that made sense.
Cut the walls, the sides and the floor, glued them all together with loctite, since the plastic glue gun didn't seem strong enough for this. Made a mess in the first ramp to make it look like a moat.
Took it outside and spray painted it with stone texture. Did I mention I was doing this at work? I got interrupted a few times because some one fell, another felt dizzy and I cant remember what happened to my third patient that day. Damn work kept getting in the way of my hobby...
Primed with a dark grey, wish it was darker still but it works
Very few details so far, just corners and stone ledge ( Ran out of crazy glue to put these on and my second brand new crazy glue I bought yesterday came dried like a rock ) So the middle ledge needs to be reglued once I get home
Annnd I forgot I didnt bring any large brushes and I can't use any of my fine detail brushes for this so I improvised. First used the normal house painting brush to give 2 drycoats of lighter grey and almost white grey, then chopped this tip off to make an improvised brush for the moat.
Actually worked better than I thought it would.
Never done water effects so I plan on giving it another drycoat of white on the water, then pouring a thin coat of resin on it to see what happens... AND glue that shelf down once I get to buy more crazyglue
This is just a test run, I plan on decorating the front with some shields, and maybe the sides with a banner or two, but these are my very old paints I leave at work for down time, my newer paints are at home.
So far I have had fun with this, took a few hours to build with tons of interruptions and has cost me only one tube of loctite. Cant wait to get home and try finishing this up. I also did a very light coat of acrylic spray paint. Ill post more pictures when its done.
- Completed stuff -
Zetacron Clone
Spoiler Alert!
I was running out of casting plastic but wanted to give this guy one shot. It was for a gift to another member from this board who had been more than generous on one of our trades.
First step was to tear apart my original so that I could make a mold out of it.
For the record, that was pretty scary it itself.
I used the last of the smooth on mold star I had to make the smallest mold possible. Trying to be so cheap with it I think I didn't make the mold thick enough so it was a little harder to cast from. I was literally scraping the bottles to the last drop of silicone.
First step is to sink your figure in clay then pour half the mold, wait 4 hours then pull out the clay then add Vaseline to avoid the mold from sticking and make the other side ( wish I had mold release but it cost $27 just to ship down here because its consider bio-hazard)
The first cast had a few bubbles in it, so I tried a second time. It wasnt so bad but the arms looked pretty terrible.
I had a lot to repair due to the bubbles and the fact that I had very little casting plastic left. Took me a while to sculpt all the missing parts.
The casting plastic was really soft, I think it was 45D so I had to give it a frame out of paperclips to make the legs rigid.
First 3 base coats of white and regal blue.
The plastic was flexible so It kept cracking the paint, so I had to repaint it at least 5 coats to keep it looking solid. Why didn't I just paint it the first time and protect it with a light coat of clear acrylic? Paint once more and maaybe a second coat to make sure?
Why? Because that only occurred to me after the 7th coat of paint or so.....
My first attempt with this product was .... a little too much. Zeta looked like a crispy cream doughnut.
I really wanted a doughnut at this point too....
Zeta Durring a blizzard maybe? Ok so lets do this once more, another coat of paint, I'm getting really good at painting zeta...
A very light black wash
And I was kinda done. I'm happy with the result, although I would cast him with a much more solid plastic next time. Other then the dozen coats of paint , He wasn't that bad to make... sorta
Microcorp Agents
Spoiler Alert!
I started to make these guys a few years ago, WAAAAY Before I even knew instant mold existed. This was back when, If you wanted a figure of something you had to make it using another figure. In this case I decided to try making myself more microcorp agents using ROTV Airborn and Krav agents. This was a lot of work with a scalpel. I carved all the soldiers by removing the folds in their pants, and arms, removing the gear on their belts, carving their helmets to look like caps, changed their weapons with greenstuff to give them scopes, and turn their old rifles into sniper rifles and shot guns. I gave most of them headsets or huge single lens glasses. I also had a very very old greenstuff strip that felt like molding old gum, so I did the best I could and made armor plates from that and using gateraid bottles. I was sitting in an ambulance in the field for 2 weeks when I tried this out since I left my books behind.
It was a ton of work but a lot of fun to do, I mixed and matched heads and arms.
Once I had enough figures made, I spray painted them black, then did a few more details if they looked too plain. If I was to do this today It would take me a fraction of the time just to mold the figures using Instant mold and some casting plastic.
The trick to this paint job was making a similar bluish / silver paint job. I mixed mithril silver plus a light blue and some black paint together till I got the bluish metallic paint to drybrush on these guys. I only kept half the figures and gave the other half away.
From tabletop height these guys can pass as part of the squad, I got lucky on the paint job.
These are halfway done, but there was a ton of them, I had fun with some of the poses and weapons. Now I know I can order modern weapons from Malifax that make some impressive rifles and machine guns for under $6 shipped, but back then I made everything from scratch. I might actually go replace some of their weapons.
My microcorp Agent squads. I think I only kept 6 of the dozen I made.
Omnicron Repair
Spoiler Alert!
My Marauder / Omnicron figure had fallen at some point and broke off one of "wings". I couldn't find it so I made a new one using greenstuff and instant mold. I copied the other side and used that to replace the broken part. Repainting was a little tricky to combine the colors.
Jan
Gnid / Phemora repainting guide
Spoiler Alert!
Gnids
Intro
CV3 team made an awesome unit called the Gnids using Confrontation miniatures the Phemoras.
There's two versions of this unit, the tan ALPHAS and the green OMEGAS.
The Alphas look closer to the marro units they belong too but are more expensive.
The cheaper Omegas are easier to find but they look nothing like marro unless they are repainted.
I am going to write this tutorial for those who have never repained a figure before. I will break it down step by step and try to keep it as simple as possible.
The following is a tutorial on how to repaint Phemora Omegas ( Green ones) to look like marro units based loosely based on Marro Nagrubs paint scheme.
Materials
I used only one paint brush to paint these guys but if you can get two even better. One basic standard brush and a small detail brush to clean up small mistakes and fine details.
These are all the colors I used, games workshop and vallejo is what I use but for these you can use the much cheaper Applebarrel and pretty much any crafts paint. they key is you need to water it down. The cheaper craft paints come much thicker and will cover up your details making your sculpts look like molded clay instead of finely detailed miniatures.
Colors
Spoiler Alert!
I used the following colors;
Body - Elf Flesh ( Any creamy white or light tan will work, remember the color will change with the wash)
Armor plates - Dark Angels Green , Highlighted with Goblin Green ( Use a darker green and a lighter green for the armor, or just use one color green and make it lighter or darker by mixing black or white into it)
Blades - Boltgun metal , highlighted with mithril silver ( any metalic silver will do, you can do the same, make it darker mixing a little black into the silver)
Claws / Teeth - Bleached bone ( Or any light color , or even white )
Tongue / Eyes - Any neon color. Have fun with it, and choose the brightest wildest colors you can find.
Wash - Terracota paint mixed with black ink and a little brown ink. This is the big one, it wont be easy but you need to find something that looks like the burgandy or darkish brown/red used in the marro wash. I will explain how to use or make a wash further down.
For the body notice how this is a very light color, it will become darker with the wash, any creamy white will work well for these guys
Any dark green color will work for the plates, I used two very diferent tones, a dark green and a very light neon green for sharp contrast.
The wash makes all the diference. It might take a while but its worth playing around with till you get a shade your happy with.
You can find lots of silver colored paints in craft stores, if you cant find two diferent shades make your first coat a mix of the silver with black and the second highlight just pure silver.
When choosing colors the best way to do so is to grab a few marro or a nagrub and just compare the colors to what you find in the store.
Bases
Here is an example of a figure I recieved as part of an ebay lot. Its got a cool color scheme going for it and it looked pretty good untill you looked at the base and saw a sloppy finish.
I have seen a lot of good customs do really well on the main figure and on the body but when it comes down to the base or around the feet you find this messy finish which really takes away from the finished effect.
Just by covering the figures base with painters tape or tacky note you can protect it and not worry about being a little messy with your paint job.
I planned on rebasing the phemora I am painting so I didnt bother to cover up the ones I was working on for this tutorial.
Prep / Basecoat
If your figures are fresh out of the box they might be ready to paint over with out priming. They already have a coat of paint on them that will retain the new colors very well.
If the figures have been on display or have been handled you wil want to wash them with light soap, to remove oil and dirt from handling. Wait untill they are completly dry before painting.
They wont need a base coat to repaint, as that might cover up the details you are trying to paint.
Base Colors
Important note on using craft paints. YOU NEED TO WATER THEM DOWN !!
Dont try to cover up everything with one coat of paint as this will cover up all your important details. Water the paint down enough so it gives a light coat. It takes longer to paint but the results are much much beter. Notice on this example how you can still see the original colors on my first 2 coats. It wasnt untill the third coat that I had a complete coverage.
You can skip this step and just do solid coats , it will be faster but it will cost you some cool looking details.
I painted the body except the metal claws and the head, since I would be covering it in green later. Dont forget to paint the mouth and lips since these will be tan color.
After I have a good tan base I started on the armor. I left this model on its base, making it harder to paint for me. I prefer to remove them from the base and glue them on a paper clip so I can move them around. Before I painted the armor paints I painted the eyes with a bright orange. These guys need to look wild, so feel free to use any really bright colors you can find. The chin was the hardest part to paint at this angle because the claws are on the way. Take time to look at your models before you start painting so you know where the armor starts and ends. I also did part of the ridge line on the back this part is optional but I thought it gave it a really cool look.
After the armor plates I painted the Tongue and touched up any mistakes I made with the green paint.
After that I did my first high lights, I drybrushed a small amount of white paint on the teeth and claws.
Drybrushing is when you dip your brush in the paint then clean most of it off on a rag or napkin untill theres very little paint left. When you pass it over the mini only the raised areas will be highlighted. Dont use your main brush for this as it will destroy the tip, use a cheap older brush for drybrushing.
Lots of great tutorials on how to drybrush online.
This is the make or break part of the model the ;
Wash
Mixing the wash is the key part. I saw alot of good colors at the crafts store, all you need do is mix a small amount in water and keep adding water or paint untill you get the right viscosity. You should be able to paint your hand and only your fingure prints should be highlighted.
I think I saw an Applebarrel Terracota that looked like a great match.
Make sure you make enough of the wash to give the models several coats.
This is something you build on, one coat at a time. It took me 3 coats to reach the level of shading I wanted. It changes the colors of everything. I coated the whole model except the metal blades.
Take your time and build it one layer at a time. Doing a very heavy coat will just cover up all the details instead of highlighting them. Take advantage at this time to use the wash to cover up all the borders and corners that didnt look as sharp as you wanted.
Highlights / Details
After you have finished your layers of wash. Clean up all the mistakes you have made ( I made a ton
Touch up again your teeth and claws. If needed the eyes and tongue.
Now comes the fun part. Highlighting the armor. Have some fun with this make some crazy patterns. When I painted the armored crest on the head of the phemoras/Gnids I went from back to front, this gave me a really nice definition of the ridges on the crest. I will include a few examples of some of the patterns I drew on my first batch of gnids. If you drybrush too much, just pass your finger on it and wipe it off and start again.
I used a neon green for this step because I really wanted the highlights to stand out. Next time I might try red or yellow stripes to make them look like venemous vipers.
Touch up any mistakes and give the teeth and claws another drybrush if you think they need them.
I left the blades for last, first I painted them with boltgun metal then tiny highlight on the edge of the blade with silver. If you only have one metalic color, make your first base coat a mix of a tiny amount of black mixed with your metalic. The edge with just the pure metalic color. Notice the blades have a thick side and a thin ( blade side)
Finishing / Clear Coating
This is my finished Gnid, all I am missing is to rebase him and give him a clear coat to protect him. Carefull with spraying a clear coat as too much can make him look foggy or icey. Use a very thin coat or a paint on clear coat. I use Vallejo Mate clear coat, as I dont like the glossy look.
Rebasing
To snap off the base with our breaking the pegs, I made the cuts point towards the peg, a little at a time, untill I could bend it back and forth untill the base snapped exposing the peg.
Done!!
Here are a few finished examples
Doomed
Gnid squads
Any comments or questions feel free to post. I know this was long and borring but I wanted to break it down step by step for those who have never painted before.
2011
December
Zetacron Wreckage
Spoiler Alert!
Next on my list of Jungle Terrain is ;
Zetacron Wreckage
A year ago I saw one of the Gundam Series, cant remember which one but it was the one where they are stationed off a spaceship and had I think it was like 5 diferent Gundams that at the very end of each episode in the ending credits showed all 5 mechs destroyed / abandoned. One of them was sunk in a swamp all shot up with his limbs destroyed.
I just had to give it a shot, and I wanted to send a gift to a fellow scaper who had been more than generous in a trade with me ( Plus he sent me a free set of Microcorp agents!!! how cool is that? )
First I took a Zeta model I had just cast and chopped up his legs at the hips to place him in a sitting / resting postion, tore off his legs , drilled him full of holes and tore off a few chunks. Lots of good tutorials on Youtube on how to make bullet holes. Theres actualy a few different styles it seems. I wanted to get an idea how it would look like so I had painted him first before I started the damage and weathering.
I went outside and sorted through a few rocks till I found one that had lots of rough edges so it would look natural, and not just like a random pebble. If did this again I might use a part of the ROTV ruins chopped up and riddled with bullet holes. I made the base the same way I made my jungle terrain. I traced the location Zetacron would be sitting down, and the rock. Hot glued random bits of chopped up plastic leaves around the marks leaving the space blank. Coated with Harris Paint Dark Green, then a when dry glued the rock and Zeta down.
I know I went overboard with the weathering but there was so many styles and techniques I found on Youtube I wanted to try them all.
I would be happy to get into detail if any one is interested. I did use, 3 browns, 2 blues, 2 greens , Brown - back and green inks and 2 silvers. It was really the best part of making the custom. Going crazy with the rust and mold and battledamage made it really worth doing. I cant wait to destroy something else like this.
I chopped up some ethernet cable and stuck it into the missing limbs and the shoulder where I had a huge hole. I have just noticed that I forgot to paint these guys to look burnt. If I could I would drybrush them black and grey, or at the very least paint them black with tiny bits of color from underneath.
I used the same bushes as I use for my jungle terrain. At first I thought about just saturating the piece, covering it up fully like a forgotten , overgrown wreck, but then all the details would not be visible so I decided to keep it very light foliage.
Took me a few hours to make but was the first time I tried something like this and again.... I GOT FREE MICROCORP AGENTS !! Woohooo!! My last missing Agent squad
Those cables need painting..... Anyhow, I tried to go overboard in the pools of water/rust and the lime/moss/mildew growing on the joints. I think I gave him about 6-7 washes of diferent colors.
All in all, was very fun to make, and I plan on trying another but using the much smaller soulborgs from the master set.
Im glad OverEngineered liked it, especialy since he was very cool in our trade.
Did I mention that he gave me......
November
Sir Denrick's shield
Spoiler Alert!
Sir Denrick is a Champion ! A Hero!!
Thought he should have his own Shield, not just a standard issue flat blue with decal. Used a lion shield so he still had the same heraldy or logo as the other guys, just much cooler.
( In reality I wanted his shield to make another Knight of weston, so had to replace his some how)
This one was a gift, but I liked it so migth make one for my self now
Spray painted black, GW Regal blue, Painted lion Fortress Grey then highlighed white, leaving the black border to make it stand out.
Dwarven Captain, or Sargent or Rune Lord or something....
Spoiler Alert!
I recently recieved 2 Mage Knight Rune Lords ( I think). They cost about $2-$3 but are some very cool looking dwarfs.
I thought I might make a captain or SGT out of one. Honestly I just wanted an excuse to paint something else when I was doing an order of 18 spiders that where driving me crazy with all the tiny legs all over the place.
So I took a break and repainted this guy to look like he belonged to the official Dwarf units.
I tried to match the colors to the original squad sort off.
All in all he looks like he might actualy belong
Gnids
Spoiler Alert!
I think the Gnids from CV3 Wave 14 are the coolest ever. I have yet to play with them but I was able to find 4 boxes of green ones * Alphas* for about $7 each plus shipping.
I had intended to repaint them to look more marro so I wasnt worried about getting the wrong ones. I must admit though they look pretty cool in green.
I started to repaint them to the simple Marro Nagrub paint job but these guys have WAY to much detail not to give a drybrush or two.
Im still fighting with what to do with them. I gave them all a coat of GW ELF Flesh, and a quick wash of GW Terracota mixed with brown ink. Now Im playing with Catamaran Green and another green for the armor. Not sure if to use Red tongues, green tongues or just mix them up and have several colors since I cant make up my mind.
These are 2 of my test guys , just playing around with colors they are incomplete as I have still not repainted their weapons or the metal parts.
CV3 Gnids are confrontation Phemeras I think, Omegas are tan Alphas are green.
Not sure on the tongue color, might just do them both
Also not sure if just to do the Ridge in green or the full baseplate ( or back plates I mean)
These guys look very mean and are VERY easy to paint as they have some great details. This is just a quick wash and drybrush. To bad I need to do over +20 of them
Update! Dec 26
Finally finished repainting my Phemera Alfha units into Marro looking Gnids!!
Took a while since wasn't sure what I wanted to do plus it was ALOT of figures.
Will post better pictures later Happy Holidays everyone!!
Close up on the Right side
Close up on the Left Side
3 Boxes worth, 2 squads per box, 4 per squad. 18 Gnids took me a while to do!
Before and After
These guys would look awesome on a swamp themed map, zerging the enemy!
Even if you end up losing it would still be a good game.
I tried to make them look more like Marro Units and used the Nagrubs as an example or model... sorta, I was planning on doing simple colors but couldnt help to use alot of drybrushing to make the armor plates stand out, lots of great details on these figures.
They look insane and evil, I would not turn my back on these guys even if we where on the same side! Did you know in the original Confrontations game, these guys blow up when killed, like the tickers in Gears of War!
And the good thing about Impact Miniature's bases is they fit in the original Confrontation packaging for easy storage.
ZOMBIES!!
Spoiler Alert!
Grisson had asked me to make him a replacement Zombie for his MIA zombie from his set. I took about 2 months to finally getting it done but it was fun to do and he was very patient.
I first used instant mold to make a sandwitch from the original, and covered that "mold" With Clay.
Instant mold is used to make Greenstuff copies, not to pour liquid plastic inside it, so it was very messy but quick to do. this guy doesnt have a lot of details so it wasnt a problem with this technique. I had tried it on the Marro Hound and it worked so I did the same here but I inserted paperclips into his legs when casting so he could stand up , other wise he would be like a gummy bear and very flexible to the point where it would ruin the paint.
Colors used was rotting flesh ( go figure) Blood red and Blood gore, Codex Grey for cloth and a ink wash of black at the end. Very easy to do. Bright orange for his eyes and bone white for his bone club.
* Cross fingers *
Spoiler Alert!
I hope I know what I'm doing, before I actualy put any thought about it I tore my poor Zeta apart with minimal cutting needed.
Hopefully this will be my next project
Finally found the Exact plants from the Ticalla Jungle!!
Spoiler Alert!
I finally was able to find a Games workshop Jungle set for 16lbs plus shipping, came out to about $24 US total.
It was missing a few plants, but since I had been searching for this for over 3 months, trying not to have to pay +$40 for it, I was very happy with this purchase.
All 3 plants included are perfect matches to the original Ticalla Jungle. The 4th plant is very easy to find and is also a perfect match.
Notice that the Croton plant is the FLAT GREEN and not the one that you can find everywhere with yellow in it!
Also the impossible to find Brush!!! YAAY
Ill post pictures later but the Brush that Edilsonm posted is a very close match
October
Tree Folk / Treants
Spoiler Alert!
I recently recieved from Troll and Toad a huge order of Mageknights I ordered on ebay ( With only a handfull of errors, they are supposed to mail me the missing figs soon )
These are a few units I have always found to be very cool, I didn't make any of them just transfered them over to Shieldcrushers card format.
Cards
Spoiler Alert!
Yggdrasil and Oakwood Warriors by Scytale
And here they are rebased and a few touch ups;
D&D Treant ( Yggdrasil )
There are several cards made for this guy, a few throw figures, another crushes through smaller figures, and yet another turns trees into attacking monsters and theres one that destroys trees and ruins
Oakwood Warriors
Added several shades of brown, and 2-3 washes of brown ink . black ink and flesh wash, Plus these guys have a TON of detail but they are just painted really simply and a lot of the tiny details like the vines growing all over their bodies where ignored. I had to repaint these guys pretty much from scratch but it was very easy and fun to do.
Group Shot
And here's one for scale
And its very easy to imagine these guys tossing other figures across the board!!
Elentar the Cloud Champion / Mage Knight Skyguard Griffon
Spoiler Alert!
The Mage Knight Skyguard Griffon is a great looking figure and its HUGE!! Troll And Toad and some times on ebay you can find it for under $5 and its well worth it!
I really liked the Elentar custom and the other Landarian units that come with it.
First thing I had to do was chop up the base and the large stone that the griffon stands on to fit the double base, then chopped it some more to give it the rock texture.
I tried to get a similar texture and colors on the rocks, I used several shades of grey on a base of dark brown, and finished on a very light shade of grey.
The Knight's Lance and the flag pole behind the rider tend to bend, so I removed the Knight and glued a magnet to him and the saddle. Second I chopped of the flag and just used a pin to make it removable.
Heres a comparison picture of the original base and the modified base.
This is really one of the best looking Mage Knight figures I have seen, and its really not expensive at all.
September
New jungle terrain ( Statues! ) !!
Will post details later
Spoiler Alert!
Here are just the main piece, with out the bushes ( look better with them)
Lost Idol
Statue
Jungle Pool
Lost fountain
Creepy Alter
Big Statue ( this one has 2 single bushes and a double )
And 2 more squads of Aubriens
August
Armoc Vipers
Spoiler Alert!
After testing out the Instant mold / Smooth On Semi Rigid Plastic 35D combo on the hound I was pleased at how simple it was. I wanted to test it out on the Armocs since I am missing 2 squads.
First I cast the mold around the chest and head, another molds for each arm then one for the tail. Making sure each piece overlapped the other part it would attach to so I could have plenty to trim to make sure it fit flush.
Here are the vipers once I had trimmed and glued them together;
Very little greenstuff was needed to fix maybe three tiny holes and that was it, Primed it with Harris Spray paint flat black.
Before I melt the molds to reuse them for other stuff, I must make a few extra copies for customs, these guys scream Venoc Armocs!
First I tried basecoating them with Goblin Green and it was a close match but still not dark enough. I tried again mixing the Goblin green with a small amount of a darker green and was close.
The colors the Armocs used was
Base coat - Goblin Green mixed with tiny bit of Darker Green
Spine and Upper Arms ( Neon green) - Snot Green
Eyes - Blood Red
Teeth - White
Armored Torso - Green + Chainmail + Black ( to get the silvery/green look)
And a Black In Wash ( Which I really over did and went overboard with...oops)
I didn't want to go through the trouble of making the other 2 models to create my missing 2 squads so I just changed the arm positions of these 6 guys to make them a little different. The Middle one is the Original and the other Six are copies/proxys.
ALOT of material is wasted when making proxies this way. This is the left over material used from 6 Armocs. The good thing is that in materials I would say It cost me about $.25 cents worth of the casting material to make them and about 6 hours total. It was fun to do as I had never made these guys before.
Actualy one of the easier squads to make.
After seeing them like this I know after I'm done making my Armocs, I HAVE to try making Venoc Armocs because they looked cool in black! Wonder if any one else has already made them... time to use the " Search"
Marro Hound Replacement
Spoiler Alert!
A member of our boards had contacted me to see if I could replace his missing hound. Normaly I dont try make copies for figures that are easy to find and cheap online but decided to give it a try as I haven't made a copy of a marro yet. I asked him for a picture of the missing hound and decided to try make it the fast easy way.
And no, tossing it in water and hoping it clones does not work, thank you for the encouraging PM's I recieved on that.....
Once I had the correct sculpt from my collection, I made a few molds of his body, head, and legs. I didnt want to rip my hound of its base so I had to do the molds in sections and figured I would just glue them together afterwards.
Here I had made the mold using Instant mold and made sure the "seam" would be on the underside so it wouldnt show as much.
Instead of using greenstuff to press in the mold I burried the mold in clay and poured some of my Semi Regid plastic into the mold. It actualy came out decent with very minimal bubble imperfections.
I made the legs for both sides in smaller molds and then carved out the leg stumps on the torso.
Fitting them just right wasnt hard, I just trimmed a little at a time till it landed flush. Then I used a tiny piece of paperclip as a * bone* or pin , and drilled it in and crazy glued the parts together.
Compared it to the original it wasnt coming out to bad. I filled in the small gaps with greenstuff.
Spray Painted a base coat with Harris Flat black, and painted with Bleached bone.
Color matching is not one of my strong points so I asked for help on the Customs forums.
Left side Bleached Bone ( Fail) / Right side Elf Flesh ( Yaaay!!)
I recieved a lot of good advice but Scaper94 suggested I use GW Elf flesh for the base coat.
I then did a quick wash with Terracota paint thinned in water with a tiny drop of brown ink.
Now all I need do is find a base for this guy and give him at least 2 coats of Vallejo Matte Finish. This guy is not as strong as a green stuff model, as the Semi Rigid plastic can be torn apart with moderate effort. All in all, it was not hard to do and was pretty quick project and something different to test out.
And now its ready to be shipped to it's new home !
I am going to miss you Billy! We had a fun few hours together
July
Greenstuff and Instant Mold
I decided to try out these two products, I bought in total around 8 feet of Greenstuff ( $17 per 36 inches) and instant mold ($14 )
Most of the units I still want are going for about $15-$26 each on ebay and online so decided to go ahead and start making them.
So far I have been able to make 12 spiders, 13 dwarves, 1 Sacred Band, 2 Gladiatrons and 4 Aubrien Archers. Ill post pictures of them soon. This method is not too hard but takes a very long time to do.
These are my current projects ( too many at once!! )
Dwarves
Spoiler Alert!
I really wanted more dwaves but could not afford them at ebay prices. I was able to buy a few D&D Hill dwarves a while back and made my first 4 dwarves using the D&D body and removing the head, shield and sometimes the weapon arm.
I replaced these with Axes, heads, and shields made from greenstuff and the instant mold ( Which is really really easy to do)
That was my first squad the other 2 squads I made the whole body with greenstuff after I found out the D&D mini cost $2.50 -$3 each. I made a dozen torsos, heads, arms and shields then I started to mix and match to make them all look a little bit diferent.
I tried to color match the original dwarves and it was pretty easy, the only color I had to mix was for the skin tone.
The three in the front row are the orignals, I had to pop off their shields to make molds of them and to be able to reach their heads and arms.
I also had a D&D Dwarf SGT that I modified her helm and shield to look like part of the squad.
I learned that not only pinning every single piece together was a good idea but I should have pinned them all to their bases too because they would pop out after a while, so I ended up ripping them all off their bases and pinning them this time.
The first 4 are the originals the rest are bits and pieces copied or sculpted to make them all look different.
Ashigaru
Spoiler Alert!
Since I'm missing 3 squads of spears and 1 rifle, plus the spears I have are all bent out of shape, I wanted to see if could make better stronger spears. Made the tips out of greenstuff / instant mold and the shaft out of a paperclip covered in plastic to give it the right girth.
Middle Spear is the original
Finished painting, Wood - Scorched Brown, Brass -Black ink + gold +brazen Brass, Spear tip - Chainmail ( These all are games workshop colors) Then two coats of Vallejo Mate varnish
Finished result!!
Replaced all these broken spears
Spiders
Spoiler Alert!
Spiders have been my biggest project yet. I had no idea what I was doing ( and still dont!)
First I tried making spiders by modifying D&D Death Jump spiders. I could not make them look anything like the Ticalla ones. So I ordered the Greenstuff and Instant mold and started testing it out.
I must have tried at least a dozen attempts to copy the Spiders Torso AND legs, and failed. I tried making Half molds, side molds, molds of just one leg at a time still attached to the body. I failed every single time. Only good thing was I ended up with at least 14 usable torsos
I had torn off 2 of my original spiders from their bases to be able to reach both sides of it ( and Almost cried when I ruined the base sticker ). I Molded just one leg at a time and didnt like how flimsy it looked. I had already torn apart a Deathjump spider to reglue his legs in diferent poses, so I decided to just add the armor plates on the deathjump spider legs, and mold those.
I made ALOT, and I mean ALOT of legs. I spent a week making legs out of every bit of left over greenstuff from other projects I was making. At one point I had at least 80+ legs in a small box.
It was fun because I could pose them any way I wanted, I liked the aggressive two front legs pose the best.
I had to shape them, alot of trimming and in some cases, fill in the gaps. I had fun using crazy glue on each and every leg on the first 12 spiders I made. ( Thats 8 legs each.....) I had no finger prints for at least 2 weeks while the glue faded off.
I spray painted the spiders black with Harris Flat Black spray paint, then tried a few different browns untill I got the one I wanted * Games workshop Scorched Earth*.
The head needs to be a wierd shade of gray mixed with purple and something else I cant remember, not that it matters because your going to pretty much cover it all up again in Black ink, and you can only see the spiders * cheeks* just a tiny bit any how.
I used Dark Flesh ( I think ) to make the stripes on their backs. So this was the order, Spray paint black, cover in brown, fill in all the tiny holes again, paint face grey/something, Wash with black ink, make stripes on back then 2 coats of Vallejo mate varnish and your done!!
Over all Im happy with the results, I had to pin them all to their bases as my spiders do not have pegs in their abdomens sticking to the base. Wish I would have thought of that sooner!!
Aubrien Archers
Spoiler Alert!
Aubrien Archers are to expensive to buy right now, from $30 on ebay. I want 4 of each squad of all commons so I can't afford these. I was able to get 2 out of 3 in a trade. I am missing the blonde one and Grisson was cool enough to lend me his to make a proxy out of.
First Version;
First I make a mold out of Instant mold ( $14 and reusable) and about 2 inches of Greenstuff. I have to press the greenstuff into the mold and pray that the two pieces align just right so I dont have a figure shifted straight down the middle.
Then I have to trim off ALOT of flash, and start fixing all the imperfections, there are always a lot of minor details that need to be carved or resculpted. Each figure takes me about 3 hours to make, sometimes having to make the arms, heads and legs in a diferent mold and glue them all together ( with pins and crazy glue) Then fill out all the gaps. This process takes me a very long time to do.
I used Harris flat white to base coat them but next time I will use black as they needed a lot of ink and coats to get the right dark shades to them.
This is the part I dont enjoy so much, its guessing and trying to match the colors. Blondie had 3 shades of colors I could not find in my Games Workshop / Vallejo colors. I had to mix colors to match the brown in the gloves/boots/quiver, the yellow tunic and was able to get a good match on the skin color ( Asian color plus graveyard earth). I got lazy and didnt match the blonde hair but I will go back and fix it, it needs to be a lighter shade.
I finished 4 proxies of blondie but need to make 3 more copies of the other two guys so I can have 2 squads to trade. The rest of my Aubrien team will be these figures ( Freeholder sorceress, Freeholder Warrior and Brandis) I will repaint them to have the same shades as the Aubriens , and I already replaced their weapons with copies of the Aubrien Bow.
Mage knight Aubrien Archers
Freeholder Warrior comes with a slimmer bow, I replaced it with copies of the Aubrien bow and repainted a few details on his chest to make him match the original Aubriens. Very little was changed on these two.
Freeholder Sorceress comes holding two daggers, I replaced her rear hand with the hand of a bretonian Archer and the front hand with a copy of the Aubrien Bow and gloved hand. I Repainted a few details and cleaned them up a little bit as the original paint job was terrible.
I had mixed thoughts about using such a recognizble figure as Brandis but I wanted to see what I could do. I carved off the wrinkles on his sleeves and pant legs to make "skin" and used greenstuff to make some flaps for his over hanging Jerkin ( Jacket). Replaced his bow, and created a glove effect on his rear hand for one of them. Repainted his skin and leather items and he was done. All six figures took less then 2 hours to modify and repaint.
I used the Orange and Yellow colors to help make them match the original team. I didnt bother with the brown looking Aubrien as it would not have stood out as much. Now I have 4 squads of Aubriens and played my very first game with all 12 of them on the board being attacked by Blade orcs.....
And lost.. twice... Months looking for these guys and finally repainting them to have them lose their first few matches...
Aubrien Proxy Version II
Now that I have recieved my mold making kit I decided to try making better proxies of my aubriens. Wasn't as easy as I thought. Bubbles are evil....
First I had to make a mold of my borrowed Aubrien, It was messy to do sticking it into the clay, then cleaning it off. Takes 4 hours per side of the mold.
Then trimming the mold and praying bubbles didnt ruint it. A small bottle of the Silicone Mold cost $27 plus $10 shipping and it makes about 8 -10 molds if your very very thrifty with it.
Once the proxy has been made I found a lot of parts missing due to bubbles, missing elbows, bow tips, cape corners, nose, face, had to recast the same figure several times adding a little more of the semi rigid plastic each time ( 30 minutes each time) I have never done this before so I'm positive I must be making mistakes because it can NOT be this hard. Ended up filling holes and gaps with greenstuff again and took about the same amount of time as when did it the hard way with green stuff and instant mold.
I am not happy with the firmness of the figure, it feels like a gummy bear, next time I will try buying a much more rigid plastic, as this one just feels , well... like a gummy bear, not sure if it will hold the paint well or even stand up straight. Will test out painting them to see if it holds up or not.
Update
They where not easy to make but I am happy with the final results.
This has been the longest proyect I have been working on since I started these guys months ago.
Gladiatrons
Spoiler Alert!
These are the guys I really wanted to make, but each squad is 4 figures plus they have a special logo on their shoulder I would have to paint and it looked tricky.
First I tried using Greenstuff and Instant mold, my first figure I tried, I have learned how to do it better since, but this first try came out in pieces and I had to stick him together and fill in the holes.
Color matching this guy might be easy, if the Boltgun Metal matches his color;
Version 2
My very first try making a mold was making 2 of these guys at once ( to try save silicone in the mold) And instead I used more because of all the dead space between the figures.
This project is on standby untill I get better casting material as the one I have right now makes Gummy Bear Gladiatrons, I will post more pictures later
Sacred Band
Misc -Drow -Zombies - Wolves
Spoiler Alert!
Wolves of Badru
I while ago I purchased a lot of Mage Knight Guardians of the Glade. I repainted one, although I didn't try to color match the Official ones the size of the MK wolf looks a tiny bit skinnier but just as mean.
Female Drow
Added Shields to some D&D Drow Female Fighters and painted their chainmail silver to match the other drow. The shield was easy to do, just pressed an original into instant mold then made a copy with greenstuff , trimmed it off, spray paint black, then silver and the purple spider.
Zombies
A while back I had painted a few of these from the Mage Knight zombies but they looked to bright and shiny, it was because I had used Games Workshop 'ard coat ( Gloss varnish) I have recently recieved Vallejo Mat Varnish and am very happy with the results as it looks similiar to the Heroscape figures in brightness with out the glossy coat.
May
Anatomy of a Jungle
Adventures Welcome!!! Explore the hot, humid, miserable, mosquito infested, leech filled, malaria spreading wonders of Ticalla Jungle!
Can’t wait to jump in now right?
Originally costing $20 this Terrain expansion set was not only picked up by Heroscapers but other table top gamers for the cool scenery that it included. At $20 it was a great price considering the other limited options out there.
Buying a Ticalla Jungle set now is expensive; you can still find them often but in the $70-$90 range. Several Scapers on this board have made their own jungle sets and provided useful guides on what materials they used and how they pieced them together. Great guides and you should defiantly check them out if you have not before.
Using a lot of tips and advice from these guides I decided to do my own take on this fun expansion set and these are the results;
If you’re interested in how I made these and what I used, read my guide below and let me know what you think, positive criticism is always welcome and encouraged!
Materials Used
Spoiler Alert!
First lets break down the parts of the Original Jungle set;
6 Single Hex Bushes
3 Single Hex Palm Trees (about 3 inches high)
3 Spiders and Unit Card
I took apart ( very very carefully and with a lot of wincing ) one of original bushes and this is what the parts look like;
Out of the 4 plants we have been able to find 2 exact matches, the third one we have the right plant just not the right coloring and the fourth is still yet to be identified.
Note: When you are buying these plastic plants, I am not sure but I believe when it says SMALL – MEDIUM – LARGE, it just means the amount of plants in the bag and not the actual size of the individual plant. I purchased large bags and had no problem.
Plant 1
An exact match has been found in “Fluval Chi grass” 12190 made by Hagen. I bought mine from an eBay store for about $8 plus S&H. A total of 32 plants can be obtained from this one pack. This plant is found in the Aquatic Plants section for fish tanks.
Plant 2
Another exact match was found by members of this board, this one comes from a pack labeled “Natural Bush” but the name is “Small Amazonian Phyllo” BU-11 made from Zoo MedPlant. I also found these on eBay for around $4 per small bag. This bag brings a lot of plants; I made 4 full jungle sets and only used one small bag. This plant is found in the Aquatic Plants section for fish tanks.
Plant 3
Only a 50% match here, the correct plant has been found but in the wrong color. It comes with splashes of yellow. I had to lightly dust my plants with “Harris Dark Green’ to get most of the yellow out without changing the color too much. This one is called “Jungle Plant -Croton” made by Hagen for the EXO TERRA series. This one is found in the Reptile section.
Plant 4
Sadly this plant has yet to be found. I found another plant in my local petshop called “ Sea Garden Aquarium Décor – Linden Mat- “ It cost me $12 but brings 50 plants and as it was a little taller then needed I would chop off the bottom section and use that as a filler for empty spaces on the tiles or where I messed up I’d just pop one of those in there and it turned out pretty decent. This plant is found in the Aquatic Plants section for fish tanks.
Palm tree Trunks
GrungeBob had recommended using this jungle vine imitation found in the reptile section called “ BIO-VINE 6ft / 1.8m” from T-Rex. One package was enough to make over 15 palms. It feels like leather with a wire inside. This item is found in the reptile section.
Palm Tree fronds /Foliage / Top
Also recommended by Grungebob was this product, “Jungle Plant – Abutilon – Silk” by Hagen for the EXO TERRA series. I used a Medium bag and just had enough for 4 jungle sets with a few leaves left over. A lot of them will come all bent out of shape and will take work to make them useful.
Summery
To put together these jungle sets I used:
9 single hex tiles per Jungle set Glue Gun - Cost $4 in Walgreens make sure to buy extra glue sticks -The glue gun is very useful and easy to use. 90% of everything was put together with the glue gun. Much faster to use then glue but you have to keep pulling off the little spider silk strings that it leaves behind. Easy to do once it cools off. Scalpel or Exacto knife -Fun to use but I have already spilt too much blood on some of my other projects, and now have a healthy fear of my scalpels. Blood for the blood god!! Large Scissors – For trimming and chopping up the plants Wire cutters – To cut the vine into the palm trunks
1-2 Small magnets per palm tree – I used 1/16 RARE EARTH magnets I found on EBay, a pack of 100 cost me $14 and I have used them in most of my projects since I first tried them. Spray paint – I used 2 cans of Harris “Dark Green “ Paint and small brush – Not really needed but I used a small brush and Games workshop “Dark Angels” green to touch up all the spots the glue showed as this cools down a white color. Any dark green color will work and Apple barrel has a great match and will only cost about $4 for the paint and brush. Tie Wraps – I used one per Palm tree trunk to secure them to the tiles. Power Drill or hand drill – I think I used a 6/15 sized drill bit to make the holes in the tiles for the palms. This doesn’t have to be exact just make the hole slightly smaller so you have to force the palm trunk inside and it fits tight.
My Girlfriend's blender – she will kill me when she finds out but it was perfect for blending up some cheap plastic plants for the ground texture of the jungle. Cleaned it out as best I can but it still smells funny. WARNING if you blend for too long the plastic melts and the jar fills up with smoke and sets off the Smoke Alarm at work, then good luck trying to explain that to the Captain on duty) NOT THAT IT HAPPENED TO ME ! Broom and dustpan, because I made a HUGE MESS at work …..
Think that’s about it !
Putting together the jungle
Spoiler Alert!
To make the bushes:
First I blended up some cheap aquatic plants I picked up for around $4 and cut off their roots. I tried using glue to keep them on the tiles but the glue gun was much faster. ( I wasn’t kidding about setting off the smoke alarm. Be careful !!!)
Next I dipped the tiles into the grounded up foliage and let them cool down then trimmed off the excess around the sides and trimmed off the top to keep it low to the ground.
I found it useful to trim off the little pegs that were holding the plants to their original packaging and glue these on to the tiles. Just make sure the new plants fit into them first and arrange them like this; One in the middle and two off the other side leaving the other side free for PLANT #1 ( Chi Grass) as it does not need a peg but does need some room.
Once they have cooled down and the glue is cold, take them outside and give them one or two coats with your DARK GREEN spray paint. This is what you should end up with;
Now comes the fun part.
First glue PLANT #1 on all your tiles. This is the tall grass looking plant and it does not go on a peg.
Plant # 2, Small Amazonian Phyllo, goes in the middle. This one is the deal breaker it. It makes your new jungle pieces look like the originals all by its self. Don’t worry about using too much glue as you can touch up later with your dark green paint and brush.
Plant # 3 I first dusted lightly with the dark green paint to get rid of the yellow color. Not to much just a light spraying and let dry. These plants I glued on either of the side pegs.
Plant # 4, the replacement plant. I wish had the original plant but this was a great substitute. I trimmed off the bottom layer to keep the plant the same height as the original, then used that bottom piece to fill out any dead empty spaces on my tiles or to cover up any mess I made with the glue. Since I cut off the bottom of the plant with the hole for the peg I just glued the plant along its base on the peg. Trick is to keep it looking like a tiny bush and not a little tree. So cut off the trunk as close as you can to the branches.
After all this was done I just touched up with the green paint and brush everywhere I could see the white glue. I was very happy with the results.
Palm trees
As recommended by Grungebob I chopped up the vines into 3 inch sections but I didn’t try to be exact as a small variation on height gives the jungle a non symmetrical more natural appearance.
I drilled a hole into my single hex tiles using a 6/15? Drill bit.
I twisted my palm trunks ( Vines pieces ) into the wholes until just a small section stuck out of the bottom. I tied a tie wrap on these to help keep them in place and then covered the tie Wrap in glue and made sure the tile was level when I stood it up. I suggest placing it on another tile as it cools to make sure that its not level ( FLUSH) with the floor and not have that tiny groove inside to let it stack on another tile.
Palm Fronds
Making the palm tops was the only tricky part. I chopped up a bunch of the “Abultilon” plants to look like this:
I glued the long pieces in a star looking shape using 5-6 of the longer fronds then I covered the top of the frond in a smaller circle using the tiny left over pieces.
If I wanted to give the branches a shape I would lay a small line of glue across the “Branch” and hold it into the shape I wanted as it cooled down. That would create a “Rib” and hold it in the shape I wanted.
Now I used a magnet in the middle of each frond to hold onto the trunks. Remember to check the direction of the magnet before you glue it to make sure you don’t glue it on backwards.
The vines have a small wire inside them, if you cut it just so the wire sticks out you only need one magnet per palm, if you have plenty of magnets then go ahead and glue the second one on the palm. This makes it easier to put away your jungle set without smashing your sensitive palm tops!
All in all I was pretty happy with the result
Here are some pictures of the workspace I used , while I made these at work
Hope you enjoyed my guide! Let me know what you think.
Mar
Hydra with removable Heads ( magnetized)
Spoiler Alert!
I'm not sure where I saw this first, either Killometer's customs or Filthy The Clown's but Kudos to them both for the great idea!
First I needed to gather up my tools.
Crazy Glue
Rare Earth Magnets ( Size 1/16)
Drill bit ( Size 5/32) I wrapped it in duct tape to make a handle and used it as a hand drill as I was scared to use a power drill on such a tiny neck.
Scapel or razor blade ( Be carefull !! )
The Victim, AKA The Fen Hydra
And the blow torch , just to sit on your work table to look cool, even though my Girlfriend wont let me use it indoors.....
I was lucky to get a great deal on some hydras on ebay and soon as they arrived they where doomed! I mean ready for this custom project! I cut off 3 heads per hydra since after 3 wound markers he's out of the game on the 4th hit, no reason to make 4 removable heads.
When you make the cut, you want it to be as seamless as possible, thats why I used a sharp scapel to make the cut as clean and small as possible. I also cut along the grooves of the hydras neck and down the crest ( Right behind a ridge to hide my cut) When you place the pieces together you should have a very minimal seam showing.
Next I drilled with my scapel a tiny hole in the middle of each stump, trying to align the hole with the hole in the other side of the stump it would connect to, using this hole or guide I would now drill it with my improvised hand drill. I kept testing the depth the hole with the magents to try and get it just right, so that it would not stick out ( thus creating a space between the parts when connected) or it would be too deep and the magnets would not stick together. Once I was happy it seemed flush I crazy glued a magnet, made sure the other side had the right polarity pointing outward and tested it out. More then once I had to dig out the magnet and try again because it wasnt flush or the crazy glue would create a thin film and make a space between the parts too, this I just scraped off.
The rare earth magnets are fun to use and not that expensive, I got 100 for $14 on ebay and thats including the shipping. Making these parts flush is the key.
Now all I have left is to paint the stumps of each hydra a diferent color so I wont mix up the heads, even though they are almost a perfect match for each other even on the wrong hydra.
Hydra with this stump painted bloody red;
Hope you guys liked this mod, any questions please feel free to ask
Feb Mage knight Giant to Classic Giant
Spoiler Alert!
Very cool Mage Knight giant, can be found on ebay for about $4 now. My brother wanted this giant for his Ullar army but not with dwarfs riding him or carring guns.
This was the end result;
How I modified the MK Giant to a Classic D&D Giant
Spoiler Alert!
I have been carring around this figure since I ordered him off ebay in Iraq. Always wanted to do something with this very cool ( and dirt cheap) figure. He is HUGE on the battle field.
This giant I decided to change for my brothers classic army ( no guns ) so the first thing I did was tear off everything that looked out of place.
Out came the guns, the dwarves, the huge furnace off his back and a few odds and ends. I had to use a screwdriver to pry most of it off.
So as not to waste too much greenstuff ( I just got this tiny strip for the first time didnt want to waste it) I stuffed some spare plastic into the big holes in his shoulders and covered them with greenstuff. I tried not to make it too smooth as I wanted it to look like beaten metal.
I am really bad trying to sculpt, but this was supposed to be fun so I just gave this guy some big spikes on his shoulders because I couldnt think of any thing else at the time. ( Now I wish I would have glued on some chains or something to him....)
Painted the Greenstuff black
This was the main reason I wanted to make this guy. His back now has a HUGE space in it where the furnace was. I wanted to try making a fur cloak for him to cover this up. I found a bunch of really cool videos on youtube. Search for * How to greenstuff fur* and you will find a couple. I first made a thin cloak out of green stuff and let it dry, then gave it a second thicker cloak of greenstuff and started working on it with a dental pick I bought in Wallgreens for $6. I made the mistake of not doing this in layers as I worked my way up it became harder and harder to give this huge cloak shape. Next time I will work in sections to avoid this.
It was really easy to do and very fun to make.
After this was done I looked up on Youtube again ( As I have very little skill on my own ) on how to paint fur.
These are the end results. I glued the furnace on a base and painted the back to make it into a decorative piece for one of my future games.
Hope you guys enjoyed.
Shades of Bleakwood proxies
Spoiler Alert!
Update :
Thanks to advice I drybrushed my Shades with a quick coat of white to make them match the originals better instead of the Minty Green Version I had, this is what they look like now;
I tried to match the green but ended up with a much darker shade of green then the original figure. It's not what I had hoped for but close enough that when they are all on the table they look like they belong to the same "unit'. Or second removed cousins ....
How I painted the Shades of Bleakwood proxies
Spoiler Alert!
Shades is a squad that I don't use often and from what I have seen it is still pretty easy to buy online. But When I saw this Mage Knight Shade;
I couldn't resist to try to repaint. Theres a much cooler MK Shade but this was the one I found a bunch of them for under $0.30 each.
First thing I did was rip off the mageknight bases... which on hide sight I should have just left them on since they are very easy to pop off. I ended up having to reglue them onto to coins temporarly so I could spray them and paint them.
Scraped off the extra flash and spray painted them white.
I got stuck at this point because I could not figure out the right colors. I posted here asking for help with the color of the washes. I tried a bunch of diferent green/yellow/black combinations and nothing worked
Turns out my mistake was assuming a white base coat. Thats why could not match the wash. The base coat on the Shades of Bleakwood are actualy a mint color.
I tried some white paint mixed with a little bit of green and kept adding white till I got a nice minty color.
After I was happy that I was close to the Original figures base color, a friend pointed out I should not be lazy and change the steel mask on the MK figure into the halloween mask face that the shades have.
I rolled up tiny balls of greenstuff ( first time I use it ) and using a small knife I shaped the eyes , nose , mouth and then pushed in the cheeks to give it that skull -like shape.
Once I had all the faces made I finished painting the mint color /base color on all the figures.
WASH !!! Ok I know the original figures have a green wash AND a black wash, but the best I could do was a very dark green wash. I mixed Green Ink, with a touch of black ink and mixed that with some magic wash ( 2 parts water 1 part magic floor wax). It helps the wash sink into the crevices. I know there are a ton of thinners out there but there are very few LFG around here in PR so I had to make it my self
After the figures finished drying , I gave them another quick wash lying down to make sure I got the grooves that went up their cloaks to give them a nice contrast. I used some recycled Heroscape bases from some extra figures. I cut out the master set figure, and used some cool base stickers I got on ebay. 50 stickers for $10 and they look great. They are a tiny bit smaller then the original base sticker but blend in so well you cant really tell unless your looking for it
Next I cut out a hole in the sticker where I wanted the figure to crazyglue onto the base. Just a small amount needs to be exposed so that it glues on well.
This was the end result
And these are all the items I used to make these very easy and simple to make proxies;
Thats the wrong green in the picture I used Dark Angels green to mix with the white for the mint color.
Hope you guys enjoyed reading my long winded explanation and if you have any questions please ask as they where fun to do !
Iraq 2008-2009
Spoiler Alert!
2008-2009 Iraq
This has been my painting station for the last year here durring deployment. Its not much but its comfortable to creep into bed after getting back in and paint under a table lamp since we cant sleep after we get back ( too much adrenaline) I cant turn on the lights in the room since my 2 other room mates have random work schedules too.
I love this Mage knight titan, it sells for about $4 on ebay now, and there is a great card for it on this site called Furious Fred I think. Ill find a link to the card later, I want to touch it up and replace the base.
I finally got Drizzt's Cat Guenavyer ( or how ever shes spelled )
Jan-7-2009
Its been a very busy few months so not been able to paint or play very much, but here is the few things I have been able to work on durring my down time.
D&D Figures I got in Ebay
I didnt do much with these, just a minor touch up, and glued them on a heroscape base. Will make cards for these guys later, just liked how they looked and thought they would work well with the Ticalla Jungle
Giant Croc and Bullete
My room-mate is a big Star wars fan, so I got a few ewoks and made him a squad, not repainted them yet, but will have too
Agent S. She was a very easy to do repaint, then shortly after I recieved a real one from Truth!! I mailed her home to keep her safe and have used my repaint.
Another Elf from Mage knight that I just ripped off its base and glued on a heroscape base
BLUE ORCS!!!
These are not even close to being finished.
I like to change around the original mageknight figures as much as I can, the guy on the right is called a Masked Shaman I think, and after a major hack job, I made my orc on the left
And halfway done painting them
Since I dont have any wave 1 orcs, I was making my own Archers and Blade orcs
Games workshop has a color called Ice blue, its really close match to the HS orcs.
I also took my second swog rider, replaced his arm with Grimaks, and changed his sword and gave him a some shoulder armor from another figure. Its not painted yet but I like how its starting to come out.
Oct- 7 - 2008
Mage knight has some great looking orcs that fit in well with Heroscape, problem is they are classic green. Sooo even though I liked the green better, decided to turn my green orcs into blue orcs so here is my shaman half way painted.
More Pictures of blue orcs on page 5
Oct - 5 - 2008
Dragonslayer2 asked me if I could help him out with a Tourny hes having, and if I could make him a custom for a prize. I went home a few days for R&R so I snatched this guy up and made him a rider. Hope he likes it, just need to get a card made for this guy and will mail him tomorrow when I get back from my mission.
Sept - 3 - 2008
Going to move most of the pictures to page 5 since this first page is getting crowded.
Aug - 25 - 2008
Another Mage knight figure, only did a few touch ups on it, nice cheap figure, will make about 4 of them and just swap out weapons and change hair colors to make them look diferent.
Elf Lord ( Common Hero ) Will give some sort of bonus to nearby elves
Aug - 22 - 2008
Played with a few mage knight figures I recieved in the mail last week.
Orc Witchdoctor ( I know theres a card for her out here some where, I have it saved just need to find out who made it so can give credit)
Didnt do much, just ripped off her base, and did a few touch ups. Very nice figure, and its very cheap
Another nice figure I plan on making commons squads of 3 for my jungle sets are this one.
Some sort of jungle worm. It comes almost solid dark green so I added some details to make its features stand out. Added some poisen to the fangs too. Easy to repaint
Bunjee had done this repaint and when I wrote to her she explained how to do it, just a little bit of brown ink ( Flesh wash) on the spine and that is pretty much it. Makes it look alot more like the art on the box.
Aug - 6 - 2008
Remade Raelin, details on Page 5
Jul - 14 - 2008
Custom Drizzt, made out of Sonlien
Details on Page 5
Jul - 8 - 2008
With limited resources out here, since all my bitz are back home, I started two proyects I been meaning to try for a while now one was Drizzt the other a War elephant.
One is my war elephant. This is just a prototype. I tossed this one together quickly to get an idea on how to make the ones I wanted to decorate.
Feb - 5 - 2008
After being out for a while, finally got home and couldnt wait to try some new repaints. Rage sent me a box of mageknigths so I got to work
I took 2 MK Zombies, a lurker, a Marsh Zombie I think, and a dwarven guy, trimmed off any hair repainted in Games workshop rotting flesh, and shadow grey for the clothes. A Little scab red and red blood and thats pretty much it
2 new squads of easy to make zombies
Jan - 4 - 2008
Found this today in a box and couldn't help but cut off a few bits and pieces to use for heroscape.
M4 Sherman
Also I took a cheap $.50 mageknight robot called boomstone and chopped him up and made these two guys.
JVC 3000
And Salvage AH-26
Hes supposed to be a busted up scrap heap made from lots of smaller parts. Thus the oil leak and cables sticking out, the bad welding and tons of scorch marks. When I make a card for him, he will have a chance to break down every turn and each time he's hit.
2008 Projects
Spoiler Alert!
Jan - 1 - 2008
Happy new years guys !! ( an gals ) !!
Since I dont have a single roman yet, I painted this guy to see if I could get any one interested in trading. Hes incomplete and I wont glue any one into the saddle yet till I know if any one is interested.
I know I didnt even get close but this is what I tried to use as an example
Going to go glue on a set of scale armor on my Grimak to see how it looks.
Dec 21 07
Wife made me this a while back for Christmas
So I decided to make a few ornaments to give out as gifts to people in this site
2007
Spoiler Alert!
Dec 20 07.................................................................... .................
*Moved most of the pictures to page 5* Sept 08
Yaay! 3 customs in 3 days, Man I love being home sick from work for a few days. Well other then being sick that is.
Finally finished the rhino, still need to gloss coat the * metals*
Picture isn't that good, since there wasn't very much light outside
Dec 17 07.................................................................... ..................
Had a spare mittens, so decided to make the EOV's their own warlord by adding tyranid parts to it.
wife insisted I should use some of those press on nails and make it some back plates, she helped me carve them out. Took a while but its quality time with the wife so cant complain. Finished effect
Dec 15 07.................................................................... ..................
My first mini project was to build one more squad of Knights of Weston since I cant find any in the stores. I used 2 figures from the old battlemaster game.
I used the man-at-arms from the waist down, and as for the knight, I carved off his right arm, his legs, and the plume of his helmet. I grabbed any arm I found, and used weapons I carved out of a weapons rack in the
heroquest game
These are bunch of bits an pieces from everywhere.
I needed a proxy for Sir Gilbert so I used the gate keeper that came with my Mageknight tower.
Sir Bassan ( about $.99 on ebay)
I use the Sir Gilbert card, I just replaced his picture with this figures and changed the name
This mage knight figure, Khan Harrowblade I got for $2 and it looked awesome, but was missing a ear, so I made him a new one out of epoxy and my wife repainted it.
All I did for this guy was rip him off his mage knight base and stick him on a heroscape base. He's a very cool looking orc and I have seen him go from $2 to $27, its really random
Heres the original picture of him
Finally made a card for him, its in my custom cards thread
Justjohn posted on his thread this Yu-gi-oh mammoth skeleton, it looked fun to build so I found one on ebay for $.99
I repainted it to match the other marro units.
And so you can compare his size
And last but not least after reading Justjohn's guide on the codex on repainting Sir H and Floydiski's repaint thread, I had to give it a try.
Was easy to do. Thanks to lilmoochie for the decals
Future Projects
2 War Elephants, Single rider and double rider
Armored Rhino
Soon as they figure out who has to catch him and ride him.
WOW - great repaints and customs, they rock, I love the new knights, so cool to be able to field different looking knights - I really like them..
The marro on the skeleton- elephant just rocks, even with the bad lighting I want one - you gotta make up a custom for that. I would like to see him by Stompy to compare size. He could have the stomp special ability, a tusk attack special, and a regular ranged attack - thanks for posting!!!!
Heroscape - The Game I Have Waited My Whole Life For!
GenCon - a must for any true Scaper!
Thanks guys, Ill take better pictures of them today and repost them.
The colors on the elephant where easy to do. I used games workshop colors.
First a base coat of rotting flesh ( a kind of bone yellow looking color)
Then a wash of brown ink ( I use magic wash, thats 1/4 of future floor wax with 3/4 of water) Helps the colors sink into the model better.
I dont even have a name for this guy yet, or a card. Just saw Justjohn's repaint and went OOH I want one !!. Ill post one standing next to another figure soon as I take a picture
I had a blast doing the Sir H repaint, in fact if any one is interested in me repainting one for them give me a PM
Ill do it for almost free! ( well I would have to pay shipping and I would need you to send me the model since I dont have any spares) but other then that, thats pretty much it
As for my knights, wish I could find where the heck I left my old warhammer decals so I can decorate their shields.
This was a pleasant surprise, I opened this thread thinking it was a misnamed thread about repaint lavagolems (stone golems) and was excited when I saw some major kitbashing going on. Love the orc, he looks brutal.
Dude, I love the mammoth-mounted marro gunner! Do you know if they still sell those Yu-Gi-Oh! figures? I feel like I saw them at some point in time at Wal-Mart or Toys-R-Us, but that stuff changes all the time. I might make my own and come up with a custom card if you don't :P
That rhino is ridiculously huge, but I suppose you could call it "genetically enhanced" or something I've got my own copy of Battlemasters, and we haven't played it since I was a little kid. If my dad isn't emotionally attached I'll have to repaint, possibly hack up the pieces and see what kind of customs I can come up with. First I need spare Heroscape bases, though... I really must get a second Master Set one day but I can't quite afford it at this time.
For the marro, I looked up Yu-gi-oh mammoth on ebay and found it for $.99
On the battlemasters, you grab the man at arms, grind him on a sidewalk ( I didnt have any cutting tools) till you reach his belt, carve the little bit of shield you have left, and break off the small bar holding his legs together.
As for the knights, carve off this legs, and waist, shave off his plume, and remove his right arm. You will need to find an arm off another willing soldier , glue it all together. I used a small strip of epoxy to make a belt for them so you cant see the mismatched waist.
Easy as hell to paint, black undercoat + one coat of silver + one black wash.