Tauster's Miniatures

[deafnala]

Mar 11, 2017 21:35:39 GMT tauster said:

Mar 11, 2017 14:55:18 GMT sgtslag said:

"ROUS's?... I don't believe they really exist."

"Rahhhrrr!!!"

had to look that one up, realized that I remember almost nothing of the movie and added it to the classics to watch asapissimo list.

ROUS = Rodents of Unusual Size; it's from The Princess Bride.

[tauster]

yep, urbandictionary told me the same so it must be true.
I saw TPB years back but can't remember any details. Since I've seen it mentioned regularly over the years, I figured it must be a classic. Hence the addition to the dreaded 'classics to watch asapissimo' list. However most entries of that list have been there for ages without receiving a check...

[deafnala]

Mar 11, 2017 23:48:47 GMT tauster said:

yep, urbandictionary told me the same so it must be true.
I saw TPB years back but can't remember any details. Since I've seen it mentioned regularly over the years, I figured it must be a classic. Hence the addition to the dreaded 'classics to watch asapissimo' list. However most entries of that list have been there for ages without receiving a check...

I am not sure I heard the R.O.U.S. mentioned in the film...I'm sure it was, but I don;'t remember hearing it. I've just read the book; SO it's fresh in my mind.

[skunkape]

Well, Princess Bride, the movie. did come out in 1987, so being 30 years old this year, it's understandable that some might not remember it! For some reason, my brain stored a lot of the information from that movie, guess cuz I thought it was a really fun movie! Not that I'm showing my age or anything!

Inconceivable!

[margaret]

I don't think you are showing your age - it's my grandson's favorite movie and he is all of 9 years old. He was Dread Pirate Roberts for Halloween last year and was thrilled whenever the candy givers recognized who he was - not just any old pirate!

[skunkape]

Mar 13, 2017 15:55:03 GMT margaret said:

I don't think you are showing your age - it's my grandson's favorite movie and he is all of 9 years old. He was Dread Pirate Roberts for Halloween last year and was thrilled whenever the candy givers recognized who he was - not just any old pirate!

True, if I had said something like, I remember that movie when it first came out...

[tauster]

Another idea popped up, thanks to michka and his game report: Crawling heads!



I got a bunch of orc skulls recently, and made a mold where I modified them a bit by rolling them around in the silicone, making them bigger, broader and/or longer. The hotglue copies were so-so because a bit of detail was lost...



...but I tried milliput and the results are much better. (no pic taken yet)

So now I only need to fire up my trusty tentacle maker and roll me some small tentacles. Oh, and where's the two boxes full of Tyranid bitz? *maniac giggle*

I guess with the 'flesh' color scheme, these creepy-crawlies are a great fit for my army of Torog's children! *evil DM grin*

And that's exactly the kind of critter I can see crawling out of a certain giant turtle... *evil DM grin... yet again*

[tauster]

Another few molds arrived, among others the double-sided leaves. Instead of starting with hotglue, I did the first experiment with milliput. I want to use them as wings, so I gave them a little twist and let them cure on brushes so that the twist stays (which it woulnd't on a flat surface). At the moment they're curing, and I can't wait for tomorrow morning to see how sturdy the milliput is!






Very faerie-like! And I can easily see those as fins on fish miniatures.

If the milliput isn't sturdy enough to game with, I can always use hotglue which gets you flexible results that simply can't break. So far even if I bent them, no color has been flaking of. Plus, hotglue is cheaper than milliput and cures almost instantly. I'll probably do some hotglue versions tonight, and make a few painting experiments.

I used the remaining milliput that wouldn't have been enough for another wing to do some butterflies with another mould.

[update]

Hotglue wings can be made very thin, almost flimsy:



If you want torn wings, simply press the two mold halves very hard together, which drives the glue out in that area. The glue gets squeezed out on the sides where it can be wiped away double-carefully. Double because you don't want to burn your fingers but you also don't want to wait too long or else the glue has already hardened so much that wiping/tearing it away will tear into the wing itself. Sounds complicated but isn't; it's just a practice thing.

[tauster]

deafnala recently sent me some of his wonderful creations, so I could study them better than just from his pictures and better learn to sculpt my own. I haven't tried it yet and I hesitate to touch them with paint, or anything at all. It's like having an original from a famous artist - you admire it, but you don't change it.

So I asked him for permission to make molds of them, which he granted (thanks again!). Long story short, here they are: Two large mushrooms and two pumpkin heads, made of hotglue!




Detail shot. I made one without a cap so I can combine the stem with my own cap variations. I already have a few things in mind...




Not much to see, so I washed one of the mushrooms. Looks promising!




I wanted to make some more, but the trigger of my gluegun broke, foobaring it completely. If I hadn't asked Alan for permission, I would have been convinced that this is karma, but I guess that's just because I bought a gluegun for less than 4€. Serves me right...

[deafnala]

I had my doubts about the bead eyes, but they really did turn out SPLENDIDLY.
Have fun with the thingies.

[tauster]

Finished the mushroom couple!
Details in the Mushroom Thread.

[tauster]

Since I'm bad at sculpting faces, I'm constantly looking for cheats easy ways to get nice heads for my miniatures. I got a huge collection of Gormiti figures quite a while ago and haven't done much with them so far, even those guys are absolutely awesome sculpted. They are themed around the elements, i.e. fire, wood (great for treants and other sentient (and bad-tempered!) plants), water, air (bird- and insect-like), earth and rock.

I took some cool ones and made molds of their heads. That should give me a nice library of heads I can use for all kinds of monsters without too much repetition. It might be a few days until my replacement gluegun arrives, but here's a uick preview:

[astrobouncer]

What are you using for molds? Silicone or milliput?

[tauster]

Apr 24, 2017 20:25:12 GMT astrobouncer said:

What are you using for molds? Silicone or milliput?

Silicone, corn starch and a bit of cheap color for the moisture that makes the silicone cure faster. See here for more info, especially the first entry.

[astrobouncer]

Thank you. I have been dabbling in sculpting figures/ models lately with just plain old modeling clay. Then I went to air dry clay, now I am considering something better. I do want to get into mold making too. Like you, I have trouble sculpting the heads. That's a lot of info in those links, thanks again. Cant wait to see your next stuff.

[tauster]

I really wanted to use those wings for days now, but couldn't find another idea. Until I ate that mango... did you ever realize how cool those pits look? They have such a great, strange hairy texture, and the pit's got a kind of ribs that look very organic. Which is no wonder, its a grown thing after all.

I gathered two small pearls for the eyes, the wings and a scrap piece of metal for magnetising (this will be either a flying fish or if I use it underwater, either way it will go on a fly stand)




Ten minutes later...



I'm not very happy with how the wings/fins are posed, but I like the eyes on hotglue eyestalks.

I washed it with a dark green color, which was a bad decision - the pic soaked up what felt like half a bottle of wash, while the wash simply rolled off the hotglue. So I'll have to do that step again. Lesson learned: Basepainting shouldn't be done with washes.

[tauster]

I recently found a nice joke article on ebay: a skeleton sitting on a toilet.



I couldn't resist and got a trio of them. They seem like they would be easy to be removed from the seat, so I could have them sit them on a real throne. Scale-wise they would be giants, which makes them less of a push-over for anything more powerful than a lowlevel party.

[tauster]

I got hold of two new awesome shapes of pasta today:




The giant butterflies were a total nobrainer. Just hotglue on small tentacle feelers and a small scrap metal piece to put them on magnetic fly stands, and you're done with the 'sculpting'. They are so large that they could be flying mounts. Ideas for feywild or feydark encounters, but I could see them easily in large underdark caves too (and will have them there!)



Now painting, that's a whole different thing... Any ideas for weird and/or creepy color schemes?


And then there was that giant plastic jar with pasta in a shape that made me almost yell OH F*CK YES! in the shop. So many possibilities with that one. Creepy plants like the ones below, maws for creatures or other orifices (breathing, secondary feeding holes, slime-secreting openings like what aboleth must have, monster bums, etc...)




So, any idead what else these could be turned into?

[tauster]

I have this pic sitting on my desktop for months now, to make sure it doesn't get crowded off my top ten to do list.



I absolutely adore these little buggers. They're funny bordering on hilarious, they have an innovative anatomy (haven't seen similar creatures in gaming anywhere!) and they look like they're not too hard to make, provided you have a bit box with the right arms (I couldn't sculpt arms to save my life).

So today I broke down and started making the eyestalks. I started with tentacles and pressed a small bead in one end, then rolled it another few times over the tentacle maker and gave it a bend until liked the result.



Looks like mine will be a bit thicker than the originals. Not sure what I'll use for bodies. Any ideas?

...oh, and I realized that with these beads for eyes, you'd have perfect beholder eyestalks! Why hasn't that dawned on me earlier? It's so obvious, in hindsight! I guess one of my next projects will be a tropical tree. A palm. With a face.

[margaret]

The bodies are rather walnut-shaped. Or like the large eucalyptus seedpods for crafters who live where those are available. I think Australians call them gumnuts