Tauster's Tentacles

[tauster]

Got a can of cheap construction foam yesterday, but had to wait another day to use it. I wanted to do another foam monstrocity similar to the ones I made earlier. My Nihilath terrain set still needs a center, and I wanted to use those halloween teeth molds and give the giant blob a giant maw. Or two.

Construction foam makes for some of the greatest organic shapes you can imagine, and some that tuen out to be beyond imagination. At least the imagination of a more or less sane mind. I didn't invent that method, uncledog 's living flesh tutorial started me down that road. And what a road this is!

Here's what I wanted to include. I ended up not using some of the stuff, but I wanted to have it at hand, just in case I got an unexpected idea. A large (1 liter) plastic yoghurt cup, acorns, dried-out lemin peels, hotglue-castings of false teeth, some cotton spheres, wooden rings, a hotglue brain made with a silicone ice cube maker (one of the coolest things to have around!), an opened walnut.




I formed the body around the yoghurt cup (bottom cut out to make a hole going through the thing. The cup acts as support for the structure. Some wiggly tentacles, making sure to leave enough space between them so that miniatures could sneak close to the main body without actually having to touch or walk on the tentacles (which they inevitably will have to, if they want to get close to the more interesting features).

    


I carefully embedded the decoration materials in the foam. This part is tricky because initially the stuff is very soft and doesn't support materials very well that are pressed in. Heavy things like the hotglue teeth need some support or they'll fall out again. On the other side, if you wait too long, the foam gets stronger but it is harder to press something in without ripping in the organic-looking surface. Some practice required...








View from above:



This stuff takes a few hours to harden, so I'll continue tomorrow.

I also made a dozen or so tentacles of different sizes. They will get strong neodyms on their bases, and I'll hide magnets on the large monster body. The tentacles add a cool dynamic element to the encounter, and can be used on other encounters as well.

I'm tempted to add some hotglue 'veins' on the thing, similar to this one but probabla in a slightly different color scheme (I don't really like this one).




[update]
I should have known it. I couldn't wait, and the smaller tentacles took shorter to harden anyway. So I already took the smallest in, even though I probably won't paint any of them today. But I said that same thing about waiting for them to harden completely less than an hour ago, so don't be surprised if I post a 'quickly basepainted them' pic today.

Here's the first haul. The painted stuff on the right is from older scraps but basically the same material. I discovered them in one of the boxes with unfinished projects recently and finally got around to finish them.



The maw on top of the critter is quite distorted because the teeth have sagged inwards badly. It will be hard to reach with the brush, but can't be corrected unless I cut some foam away and re-sculpt the whole top section. Maybe I feel like doing so tomorrow. Painting this critter up will take a lot of time, and if the step before resulted only in a half assed monster, it would be a waste of time and color. Of course I might end up liking the critter tomorrow bettern than today...


I wonder what other color schemes would look good on that foam. Do you have any ideas?

[DnDPaladin]

you just love aberration do you ?!!

[tauster]

Indeed.

They're cool for several reasons:

Craft-wise, you don't have to work exactly. Sculpting a humanoid figure is difficult because you have to get proportions right, let alone giving the figure a great pose, work out a face, etc. With abberations you don't have to cling to a template. You can run free - more or less - and the result almost always looks cool.

Story-wise, abberations make great enemies. Their motives can be unfathomable and their actions don't ahve to make immediate sense to the players. The story can involve lots of guessing and second-guessing the villain's motives and how they intend to achive their goals. Plus, abberations can have all sorts of powers at their command. Overpowered, underpowered... whatever the DM likes, will make sense. Mostly.

Added bonus: If you don't want to include a moral dilemma in your game, abberations can be the way to go. You can slaughter your way through those sentient mountains of flesh and don't have to 'waste time' with discussions about what to do with those orc babies. My group has had some great game sessions involving moral dilemma situations, but some people don't want that kind of play. Whatever floats your boat, I'd say. Of course using aberrations doesn't mean that you couldn't have that kind of moral problem for the party - an abberation doesn't have to be evil per se. Heck, it might even ally with the party (as Mother will, in my campaign).

[tauster]

After surviving their almost-fatal encounter with some spooky mushrooms and a grumpy treant, Fors and Cale started exploring the heart of the forest. They encountered a strange, ungainly beast,...



...which, to their surprise, did not flee but turn around and approached them, making a chittering sound by shaking it's tail. Or was it a tentacle? No matter what, the tip of that appendage had an unhealthy sheen to it. Poison, no doubt.



Still unpainted... I'll give it a flesh-and-blood colored body and paint the appendages as bone. No eyes or maws, just what the construction foam provided. I'll leave it to the player's imagination to decide on this critter's anatomy.

I made a dozen very small foam blobs, mainly to see if this leads to cool shapes. The result: It does, and wow is this a great way to get monster bodies, weird fruits, strange funghi, and whatever a DM's twisted mind can come up with!

You can make hundreds of blobs in mere minutes, it costs next to nothing (4€ for a can, which yields probably several hundreds of small shapes), it's light-weight (which has pros and cons) and the foam is fairly resistant (not as durable as milliput or greenstuff, but it won't break easily due to it's flexibility). So buy yourself a can of construction foam and fire away!

[skunkape]

I like the idea of the large creature made with the foam! I'll have to play around and try to get something similar. Would work great for a Gamma World creature also!

[tauster]

I realized that some of the foam tentacle look like I would imagine moving oozes would look like: Elongated teardrops that taper to a thin end. the perfect reason to try coming up with new color schemes, which is one of my weak points - I often have to force myself to go off the beaten path and try new combinations when it comes to painting.

Most slime, ooze and pudding illustrations tend towards green and brown, with a few yellows, greys and blacks. That's my starting point.




I used two different flesh tones as base colors.




I selected a few washes and a yellow ink. Left to right: Badab Black, Azurmen Blue, Ogryn Flesh, Yellow ink and Biel-Tan Green


Let's see how it looks when they're dry...

---

In other news: The tentacle spider thingie is done. Another little critter joining Torog's Children. One pic with flash, one without.

 




Seems like I can't ever have enough of them. Seriously, with all those different monsters sharing a theme (we're using 2E ADND rules, but it's like a prestige class, if you will), I should come up with quickly recognizable signature feats that all or most of them share. Any ideas?

[tauster]

The yellow ink looks how I imagine an Ochre Jelly. The others... meh. Not really.


[larger version]


Note that I haven't applied any gloss acrylic varnish yet, that will probably look quite good.

It's interesting to note that if your base color is very thin, the washes will wash part of it away, especially if you apply too much pressure with the brush. You can use that effect intentionally or try to avoid it if you don't want it. Also, in some places the wash 'crinkles' the base color - you can see the effect on the 'head' of the green one.

I still haven't found a color combo that really 'wow!'s me, so I'm thankful for any ideas and tips.

[tauster]

Apr 4, 2017 17:58:35 GMT tauster said:

The maw on top of the critter is quite distorted because the teeth have sagged inwards badly. It will be hard to reach with the brush, but can't be corrected unless I cut some foam away and re-sculpt the whole top section. Maybe I feel like doing so tomorrow. Painting this critter up will take a lot of time, and if the step before resulted only in a half assed monster, it would be a waste of time and color. Of course I might end up liking the critter tomorrow bettern than today...

I left the top maw as is and basepainted the whole thing, which took about 30-45 minutes (didn't really look at the watch).





I just realized that due to it's size, this will not only be a cool centerpiece for the terrain set but also makes for a great dynamic battle ground with lots of surprises for the players: Climbing and Balance checks, tentacles that suddenly erupt from the fleshy folds, pushing enemies into maws and towards hungry tentacles, all the while avoiding those dangers themselves, sprays of acidic body fluids when the critter is hurt due to collateral damage from the PCs fighting enemies, etc...

Do you have any other ideas? The more gross and surprising, the better!

[tauster]

I accidentally crafted the evening away... I just wanted to quickly finish the paintjob of those hotglue flowers, and then I found two pieces of pasta in a random bitz box on the table. I remembered that I used these to pasta types before to make funny critters (here and here),...


...and quickly wanted to glue these two together. OK, adding a few tentacles from the tentacle box can't take that long, and finishing the build with a piece of acrap metal on the bottom doesn't either. ...ah well, let's just add some hotglue texture and a double-glue-dribble for the eyes!

So 15 minutes later I had a finished critter:

 

Then I quickly basepainted it black, colored the flowers while the black was drying, drybrushed some dark and light blues on, then a bit of white and some pearlescent sheen. I tried to use OSL (object sourced lighting) to make it look like the glow in the tip lights the rest of the body, but I'm not sure I got it right. Have to practice that a bit more, but overall I really like that critter.

What really sells it for me is the squinting look. It looks like if hypnotized itself!

 

[tauster]

Not very much progress on the huge foam monster; I only got the metal bits glued on...



...and camouflaged with paint.

---

In other news, I finally got the maggots done. I simply went over all of them with the purple wash, to see if it maybe complements well with the other basepaints. The verdict: It's OK with all of them, but the best (read: most gross) result is still with the original flesh basepaint.

Fors and Cale seem to be surprised by them, looks like they can slither almost as fast as the two!



Here's a look over their shoulders:




    

[tauster]

Ever since I discovered uncledog's living flesh tutorial, I wanted to make me one of those uglies hanging in one unexpected corner of the house, surprising my unsuspecting guests. Yes I know, I'm a terrible host.



So I took some metal hangers and formed a skeleton to spray the foam on to.



I soon discovered my mistake: The foam doesn't stick enough to the wire and tends to fall off. I had to stop pretty soon and had to leave the mass to harden...



...and couldn't resist making a few more foam doodles, i.e. giant slimes monsters. No surprise here, I'm addicted after all to this kind of monsters. After it was cured, I took it off the hook and lay it flat on the floor where I gave it a few tentacles, left it to dry and then made the other side. I want the beast to snugly fit in a 90° corner, so I had to saw off some of the foam on the backside of the fungus. I added a few spheres for 'eyes', but I decided against integrating that battery-driven LED light chain as it would be too much of a hassle to hide the wire inside the foam while having the LEDs stick out.

[tauster]

I didn't really plan to make another pair of monsters today, but sometimes the monsters chose at which time they'll be created. I was just the one who lend them a pair of hands while they practically made themselves...







Everything fell into place. As soon as I saw the two dried-out peach pits in one of my bitz boxes^*, I knew that they'll become bodies of fish-like creatures. The tentacles were a no-brainer^** and the wings were made in less than a minute thanks to the silicone mould. A piece of scrap metal on the bottom and two hotglue dribbles for the eyes, done.

^{*  Don't let yourself be deceived. Bitz boxes are just an euphemism for 'part of my crafting materials that are minimally better organized than the rest of the trash heap'. Seriously, I really need a storage solution that a) takes away as little space as possible, b) is near my craft desk and c) is transparent so I can see all the stuff. Out of sight, out of mind - that's especially true for larger and diverse amounts of materials!
** When in doubt which kind of appendage a monster should get, go for tentacles. You simply can't do wrong with them.}

Lessons learned/repeated:
#1 Always have a full box of pre-made tentacles in sizes and all kinds of poses at hand. If you need them and have to make them from scratch, it throws you back and you may lose your creative drive.

#2 Never throw away interesting-looking hotglue dribbles. Remove the thin whisps and keep them in a glass or box at hand because of [see #1].

#3 Those wing moulds are teh bestest!

[Sam]

I like the maggots and flying creatures. I have to get me some peaches and save the pits, I really like the look of those too. I have been leery of trying the spray foam, because it seems to stick to everything.

[tauster]

It really does stick to everything, including skin. You can either wear thin plastic gloves or live with having it on your hands for one or two days (though there's probably something lice acetone to get it off your skin). Either way, the results are totally worth it.

Said the slime monster addict.

[tauster]

Apr 18, 2017 2:31:09 GMT Sam said:

I like the maggots and flying creatures. I have to get me some peaches and save the pits, I really like the look of those too. I have been leery of trying the spray foam, because it seems to stick to everything.

If you make something out of your pits, please share. I'd love to see other's variations!

[tauster]

The peach flyers are finished:



Based in white, very lightly drybrushed the wings with Ice Blue (not pictured) and the wings with Regal Blue. Then a wash over the whole creature with Coellia Greenshade (which is more blue than green). When all was dried I dusted over the mini with a Pearlescent. In hindsight, I shouldn't have covered the mini completely; just the wings or tentacles would have been probably better. ...so what, they still look cool.




the small eye pupils were done with Scaly Green:

[tauster]

I have this Snatcher^* sitting on my to-do list for quite a few years now. I love the way it's tentacles twirl and how they're serve as the creature's fly base. Oh, and those evil eyes aren't bad too!


^{* MONSTERPOCALYPSE SERIES 2 I CHOMP NY: Snatcher # 31 Lords of Cthul}

I found myself with some unexpected free time today, so I spontaneously grabbed some milliput and my trusty tentacle maker and tentacled away.




I started with the curved bunch of twirsted-with-themselves tentacles. The brain/head section will probably be made with a hotglue mold of a brain, plus some milliput additions.

[tauster]

I made good progress of what can only be called a nightmare out of the Underdark's deepest caverns.

First I needed an underside to go below the brain. I've got a box full of random construction foam doodles, and it served me well. I chose the one piece that, when forming all those doodles, I was sure will be the last thing I ever use in a craft because of the weird angles of the tentacles. Lesson learned, again...




The brain will go on the foam thing like this:

   


The trickiest thing in this build was that I have three very distinctive kinds of texture to blend together: The milliput tentacles, the foam and the hotglue brain. The material to do the blending can only be hotglue because it will hold all of it together and will be the outermost layer (apart from the color). So I started with the foam part, covered the upper side where the brain will go on later and drew lots of hotglue 'veins' from the center towards the tentacles, circeling around them and ending the hotglue at the tentacle tops. The important thing is to go over each vein/string of hotglue several times so that it doesn't smooth out too much. Hard to see on the pictures, but it will be visible when the thing is painted.




Following the logic of the foam's geometry, all veins meet at the bottom of the central part. To make them blend together better, I formed a hotglue swirl and circled around several times. ...which accidentally formed something that looked like a large orifice. At the lower end of the creatures's behind... Talk about anatomical perfection. It looks perverse and ugly, but fits perfectly in. Yuck!

   


When the arse back orifice had cooled, I made that ...lets call it 'flesh tunnel'... a bit longer and shaped it so it will slightly float behind the creature at an angle instead of simply hanging down. This will hopefully create the impression of the creature moving forward so fast that this ...body part trails behind it.

I needed to dig a hole in the front to stick the tentacle bow in.

The tentacle bow that will serve as the the critter's fly stand needs strong magnets to keep it from toppling, so for the first time I used neodym cubes (three in a row to make sure they have enough strength). I hadn't thought of leaving a small hollow for them when I made the bow (it was difficult enough to keep the fresh milliput tentacles from sliding off again or breaking!), so I no space to hide them in and had to glue some more tentacles on the sides.




The next steps were a bit hectic, so not many pics. The brain got glued on and blended it in, and I positioned the milliput tentacle bow in the hole - which is one of the most important things to get right because it defines the posture of the whole creature: Is it slowly and lazily floating or racing towards the heroes? It all depends on how you chose the angle, and you have only so much time until the hotglue hardens.




A look from behind and upward. I was tempted to make the orifice tunnel a bit longer but decided to leave it as is. It's already sufficiently ugly the way it is...




Not sure where the heroes will encounter this one, but this critter better gets some very good AC and and saving throws because the players will throw every destructive power it's way, just because it is so damn ugly.

[tauster]

The upper part is painted completely (I might add a gloss varnish later) and the tentacle bow got basepainted with Cameo Green. When it is dry it gets washed with dark green.

Not really happy with the eyes. In hindsight it would have been far better to place them below the equator of the main body and use indentations for the eyes, like in the original mini.



Also, I'm not sure whether I should paint the whole eye 'bulbs' black or only a part of them as shown in the pic above...

[Sam]

Totally terrifying tentacled creature. I like it. I will probably never make one, but I like it.