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Post by yothebob on May 4, 2014 4:55:21 GMT
hey im very new to the forum but recently i decided to start a D&D campaign with my girlfriend to celebrate our year anniversary. (yes i'm so romantic) ive played before but only had figures from the game Heroscape so i needed figures quick. sorry if using army men is frowned apon in the community but in lack of time and money this was my result. link please give me suggestions or ideas for other cheap D&D miniatures or terrain.
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Post by adamantinedragon on May 4, 2014 5:17:27 GMT
I need to redesign my gaming blog so that it can provide quick access to my "cheap and easy miniatures" posts. Here are some quick recaps: 1. Visit thrift shops, dollar stores and toy stores. You can find a wealth of miniatures there, both ready to play, and fodder for cutting and pasting different creature parts together (a process I call "frankensteining minis"). 2. Buy some cheap oven-baked clay (Fimo or Sculpey are the two most common brands) and make your own. It's not hard, and learning the skills and materials needed to create small specific-purpose items has come in handy for me many, many times, both for gaming and for non-gaming purposes. 3. Check eBay or other online resources (like Etsy.com) for people selling off their entire collections in large lots. A few years ago I purchased several hundred old Mage Knight miniatures for less than $100. A lot less. I ended up getting an entire miniature collection that will probably last me a lifetime if that's all I used for about $65. 4. Look up old 25mm miniature sources like Caesar Miniatures. The true 25mm size has fallen out of favor as "mini size creep" has taken the "standard" humanoid size from 25mm to as much as 32mm today. If you can deal with buying miniatures where elves and orcs are more or less size equivalent to modern gnomes and goblins, you can score hundreds of miniatures of ancient armies, undead, goblins, elves and orcs for pennies per miniature. 5. If you really want to get the absolute cheapest miniatures that stand up on your game table, you can buy hundreds of paper printout minis and use anything from pennies to poker chips to glue them to. Lots of people swear by the paper minis, but I don't like them myself. In the end a lot of what you can do for cheap minis really boils down to how much you can tolerate your game group making comments about their size, quality or origins...
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Post by adamantinedragon on May 4, 2014 5:28:22 GMT
Perhaps more to the point of your title, if not so much your actual question in the message, creating new creatures or humanoids from existing miniatures is a process that is generally described in the miniatures sculpting realm as "modding" miniatures, (short for "modifying" obviously).
If you are interested in actually modifying miniatures that can be a lot of fun, and you could actually mod army men to work as whatever humanoids you wanted, depending on how much work you are willing to invest.
Most folks who modify miniatures in this way use some or all of the following tools: 1. Exacto knife (Keep these sharp by replacing worn out blandes) 2. Sprue cutters (Sort of like precision wire cutters) 3. Pin vises (tiny hand-held drills. Basically an exacto knife with a tiny drill instead of a blade) 4. Epoxy putty (soooo many different types and brands of these. Most folks end up using "Green stuff" at some point. Do a google search on "epoxy putty miniature sculpting" for sources of whatever you need). 5. Small files (you can get a set of tiny files used for this purpose at most game stores for about a buck per file. 6. Different sorts of glue, including "super glues" and epoxies primarily but many different glues are useful for different materials and techniques.
Anyway, once you have the tools and materials you need, you can get to work. The most common sort of modification to a mini is to replace one weapon with another. Even modern army men can pass as reasonably believable medieval figures if you replace their AK-47 with a crossbow, or their bayonetted M-16 with a spear. You can also snip off or file down emblems or equipment that is clearly modern, or you can use tiny dabs of epoxy putty to reshape items into more setting appropriate items.
Some people move on from simply modifying miniatures to actually learning to sculpt their own from scratch, others stick with modifying existing minis their entire career. My advice is to get some cheap epoxy putty, an exacto knife and some files and just have some fun.
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neil
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 134
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Post by neil on May 4, 2014 6:08:41 GMT
You can get low cost figs at some toy stores. For very quick and almost zero cost draw a picture on a small piece of cardboard glue it to a base. My opinion is play with what you have. We are making up stories. If you have heroscape figs use them to tell amazing stories. If your having fun your doing it right. Cool job on the army man conversations.
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Post by bloodchoke on May 5, 2014 15:46:29 GMT
Nice work man, those turned out a lot better than I would have expected! And you just can't beat 40 for $1.
If you decide to try your sculpting some extra detail on some, I recommend starting with Miliput. You can get it a lot cheaper than green stuff and other alternatives, especially if you get it from hobby lobby or michael's with the 40% off coupon.
Anyway, these look quite good and will certainly do the job! Thanks for sharing!
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Post by clanoneillguy on May 7, 2014 2:43:09 GMT
I just finished using the exact same type of crappy army men to make Saughin. I needed something nasty to jump out of the water to attack my PC's while they are travelling on the ship I built (stealing ideas from fellow Dm's Crafters). Saughin seemed logical but I didn't have any minis. I had some of those army guys so I hot glued a sort of halo around the edge, gave them a mowhawk that went from forehead to butt and painted them a few shades of green. Some poses got tooth pick crossbows, some toothpick tridents. Same guys, totally different look with a minor adjustment. I really need to figure out how to post pictures.
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Post by runningwolf on May 7, 2014 15:30:24 GMT
hey im very new to the forum but recently i decided to start a D&D campaign with my girlfriend to celebrate our year anniversary. (yes i'm so romantic) ive played before but only had figures from the game Heroscape so i needed figures quick. sorry if using army men is frowned apon in the community but in lack of time and money this was my result. link please give me suggestions or ideas for other cheap D&D miniatures or terrain. Good job! A game store in Erie sells some of the HeroClix guys for 50 cents ad I have been using them. I just lucked out finding them. Last time I was over there I picked up 22 more. NEVER downplay an idea to do something cheap and on the fly for gaming. For every idea you shoot down I bet there are a 100 people wondering the same thing and just need a kick in the pants to use your idea.
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Post by Sam on Jan 18, 2015 15:22:02 GMT
Hi. I know its a while after your post, but I have recently 'discovered' converting Mage Knight and HeroClix minis for D & D. CoolStuffInc. has a good deal on random minis. 100 minis for $14.99. I will try to insert the link, but it is under their HeroClix section under Special Deals. At www.coolstuffinc.com/page/1808?am=Cached. I have not ordered this set myself, but plan on getting some soon. I am hoping to get about 30 minis that I can use directly or with a little paint touch up or mods. Most have no weapons. I have re-based about 50 recently. I am sure there will be many useable as unarmed NPCs, and more useable for parts or corpses. I think Carrion is a good zombie, and Morbius has potential as a variety of undead, i.e. wight, wraith, ghast, or ghoul, for example. P.S. I think your converted Army Men look great.
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Post by runningwolf on Jan 18, 2015 16:34:56 GMT
hey im very new to the forum but recently i decided to start a D&D campaign with my girlfriend to celebrate our year anniversary. (yes i'm so romantic) ive played before but only had figures from the game Heroscape so i needed figures quick. sorry if using army men is frowned apon in the community but in lack of time and money this was my result. link please give me suggestions or ideas for other cheap D&D miniatures or terrain. Bollocks on what other people think, do what works best for your group as a stop gap measure. Not everyone can afford to go drop $100+ at the drop of a hat. There's a game store in Erie that has HeroClix for 50 cents (used common ones), I've been going there and picking up a few at a time when I have been in the neighborhood. They are close enough in scale (but not exact) to be used. When the weather gets nicer get the g/f, jump in the car and check sites like craigslist for local garage sales. You never know when you might come across some minis or something else you can use for gaming. Plus it's something that the g/f might like doing.
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