Tauster's Miniatures

[tauster]

Thanks for the praise, margaret . It means a lot.

Here's another mini, started to try out something I wanted for a long time, then changing into an unexpected direction on a whim. I couldn't stop from grinning the whole time.

I  always had a a weak spot for the look & feel of mechanical tentacles:

Yes, I do love tentacles in general (I might well be the only crafter in the online communities who has his own specialised thread for tentacle projects), but mechanical tentacles are even better. Not sure when & where this started, but Dr. Octopus certainly didn't help making that preferrence go away.

The bad thing: These thingies might look cool, but I hadn't found a quick & easy way to craft them. Until recently I searched for 'beads' on ebay and stumbled over these adjustable threadlock braids made of cheap metal:

So now all I needed to get started on my journey of robo-tentacled world domination was

- a length of wire for stability,

- a bit of tin foil and

- some threadlock braids.

I made an inner core by twisting the tin foil around the wire and glueing the braids on, taking care to have their seam on one side only, which would become the less vidible underside.

Then the whole thing acquired an unexpected twist, when I was rummaging through my spare hotglue heads & body parts. I found a pair of wings (great, lets make a flying cyborg monster!)...

...and the head of a giant hamster.

Uncontrolled rambling I mean some background information on that hamster:

Months back, I made a silicone-and-cornstarch mold of a giant hamster mini (of unknown origin; not a real DND mini but roughly the size of a human-sized mini). It is one of the NPCs in our second longes campaign (starting in 2002). The party had rescued the crew of a spelljamming ship that was captained by a mad beholder bent on destroying the world. The crew had been 'acquired' by forcefully turning animals into humans, then brainwashing them with multiple uses of charm monster. Those who survived (made their system shock roll) and didn't went mad ended up as his crew. They still showed some of their former habits though, which made for very funny game sessions, but I digress.

One of them, Gulug the ship's cook, was a former frog. He was slain in one of the battles against the beholder captain, and got ressurrected by the party ...returning as a giant hamster. Oh boy do those random tables rock! In the final battle, through sheer dumb luck and an almost clever choice of actions, he fell on the beholder and started biting his eyestalks, just when the arrow of beholder slaying hit the former captain. The players didn't bring it over their heart telling him, so now he believes he had been killing the monster, boosting his ego into wildspace and beyond. He became adopted into the party and is now trying act as the hero he believes he is.

Long story short, the hamster is a treasured NPC who get played by guests who are not permanent members of the party, and I started searching for excuses making giant hamster variants via molds and hotglue copies. I already have a pair of undead hamster ghosts and several failed experiments I'd rather not talk about.

What I really like is his raised paw, it really breathes live into the little bugger. Mounting him on a mechanical flying robo-snake makes him look like his arm is raised in a superman-like fly pose:

Primed in black. I'll probably do the brass/copper & verdigris paint job, as this looks quite good, is easy to paint and is a good match to the junkyard terrain set, which will come into play soon-ish, in aforementioned campaign.

[sgtslag]

Great story! I remember a Ranger PC in a AD&D computer game: "Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the EYES!", the Ranger would cry every time he went into battle, with Boo, "a miniature GIANT space Hamster", in his Belt Pouch.  Never figured out if "Boo" was anything more than comic relief.  Boo was fantastic comic relief, though.  I loved it, and I remember him, very fondly.  He is still a running joke with my sons, in my 2e AD&D games.  We give the Boo Battle Cry, every once in a great while, which makes us all belly-laugh, long and loud...

Thanks, again, for your story.  Brings back great memories, and it made me chuckle, at that old PC game, again.     Long live, Boo, the miniature Giant Space Hamster!  Cheers!

[sgtslag]

Found Boo's history, after all these years:  Forgotten Realms Wiki.  Too funny.  Cheers!

[tauster]

Never played those games completely through, not even the original Baldur's Gate. Yet I dimly remember Boo. And 'go for the eyes, boo!' is uttered on our gaming tables every now and then as my friends played those games much more than me. For sure it also came up when our giant space hamster tore into the beholders eyestalks.

I managed to paint the gold yesterday night (a mixture of gold and aluminum, stippled on to get some variation). Today I gave it a dark green wash and after that, a light drybrush of a rich gold to bring some of the metal back from under the verdigris.

Now comes the hard part: the hamsters fur...

[tauster]

Nov 7, 2019 20:10:28 GMT tauster said:

Now comes the hard part: the hamsters fur...

...turned out I was wrong.

After a false start (me using a layer color for the grey-ish basecoat instead of a base color), I went over the whole (rest) of the hamster with Rakath Flesh, let it dry and did a light once-over with Tausept Ochre, which turned out to be perfect for hamster fur.

I didn't find my light pink, so I mixed something together that was close enough, and that's it more or less.

Easy peasy, and I like my color scheme actually better than the original, which looks too clean. Yes, the failed hotglue cast has badly mutilated the shape of the beast, but that will be part of his backstory and was intended - I could have easily cast a bette version before assembling.

I'm considering repainting the original, but since I'll make a better mold of it, I won't add any color...yet.

What will I do with this whimsical critter? Use it in our campaign of course! The party will visit Clockwork soon-ish, a mechanical moon and the oldest clock in all creation, home of all kinds of mechanical beings, vast streaks of corroded wilderness junkyards and ancient semi-sentient clockwork prisons with inmates who don't remember what they were incarcerated for, being reborn after each death since time immemorial.

Somewhere there, Gulug the Hamster will meet his end ...again. Why? Because I need a reason to have him reincarnated as Gulug the Mechanical Flying Hamstersnake!

Let's just hope for this poor guy that I don't find too many other hamster variations I want to see on our table...

[tauster]

The Lava Monster will become another Shambling Mound, I fear: After I had applied the crackle paint, and it was all hardened up and had formed a nice crackl-ey texture, it began flaking away. So I tried to fix that with a mixture of PVA glue with white acrylic paint.

Why the paint?

Because I wanted a white heat glow in the cracks, which would be difficult to apply when working with the usual fire scheme (white-yellow-orange-red-dark red-black- metallic black). You just can't paint the white in the cracks when all the other colors are done, so it has to be done first. On a usual 'cracked' texture this wouldn't be a real problem, but there were just too many and too tiny cracks on this beastie to do them all individually with a fine brush.

I hadn't thought of the side effect: The PVA+white mix filled the gaps... and closed them almost completely. Duh!

So I had the white monster sitting for longer than intended on the sidelines, but I couldn't come up with a way to save the Lava version, this I repurposed it. Can't have too many Shambling mounds! Let the party be surrounded from three sides. [evil hand rubbing ensues]

I made the usual vines (plus a 'tongue') and added a small magnet on the back, which connects to a man-sized flower made with wire, a star anise and hotglue. A detachable flower will be a nice change from the usual mushrooms and tree stumps.

I did the usual brown undercoat, and as with the last two Mounds, I am sooo tempted to make a Golgathan instead. I'd just have to leave it with the browns and give it a nice glossy varnish...

Seriously, any good reasons I shouldn't?

[tauster]

I managed to finish Reaper's Skeletal Giant within November, hurray! I was already worrying that finishing will take as long as I needed from priming to color-blocking. This poor guy had to suffer through months of idle procrastination. But after all it's a skeleton, it should be used to long periods of doing nothing but waiting and bone bleaching. Maybe thats the reason why these guys are so ill-tempered?

Anyways, here's the rest of the pics.

Applying the wash. When doing this step, remember that the final result won't be as dark. First, the wet wash is darker than after it has dried, second, when the wash is dry, you can always add another layer of drybrush to brighten the highlights up again. I mention this because it took me several minis and terrain pieces to really get this lession .

Another careful drybrush with a bone color, and I'm declaring this guy finished.

 

For now it goes to the display cabinet, joining the bonesy level there.

Which reminds me that I wanted to expand on my bonesy terrain set (started here), which I will need almost definitely in the next game session. So I guess I have to make several more scatter pieces. Two important members of our core party of four PCs have a severe phobia of undead, and they're are about to find a dead spelljammer captain among an army of thousands of undead. Sounds like a fun session!

[tauster]

'nother undead monster... My players will hate me.

It started out with the casting of a giant skull that I had around for a while, and didn't want to spend on a single project, so I made a mold of it. Plus some spines and other assorted bone molds.

Initially I wanted to make a 'skull on crab's legs', but then the giant scorpion became a better inspiration, so I changed my mind.

I can always make a second one on crab's legs later. That's the beauty of mold-making: You absolutely do not have to fear wasting your crafting material, as you can always cast new stuff.

The skull is more than twice the height of an average human. It's collection of battle damage is impressive, but even more terrifying...

 

...is the tiny* scull riding the tail. Say hello to the Lich and it's mount!

* it is actually human-sized, but the stupefyingly huge bones of the creature might contort the sense of scale

The lich skull is magnetized as you might have guessed, so it is optional. For most parties, a giant undead crawling scull is more than enough to hack at, and I can always add a bone stinger instead of a skull. Also, I will probably make the scull a ghost instead of a lich, or this encounter would result most certainly in a quick TPK.

...dammit, making giant undead monsters is more fun that I thought. I have absolutely no idea where to stick all those necromancer's toys in my campaigns. I need to come up with plots to shoehorn these on in plausible ways! [dons thinking skullcap]

[edit]

Before priming, I had to clean off the oil residue from the silicone mold (which has a few drops of baby oil added to the mix of silicone, corn starch and acrylic color), then basepainted it with pure white.

While painting, I wondered how this creature would look if painted as either 'rusted iron' or 'ancient bronce with verdigris'. It wouldn't be undead anymore (but the lich would be), and useful in my Clockwork/Junkyard setting. Hmmm.....

[tauster]

I did several layers of drybrushing, two black washes and another bone-colored drybrush. 

I might add a glow to the eyes later, but for now...

I declare the GLM (Giant Lich Mount) finished!

[jennifer]

Very nice tauster! That ball of skeletons.. wow that looks so creepy awesome!

[tauster]

Nov 26, 2019 23:44:11 GMT jennifer said:

Very nice tauster! That ball of skeletons.. wow that looks so creepy awesome!

Thanks jennifer !

The heap of skeletons are made by Dark Art Studios:

[tauster]

I spontaneously decided that I need some fly bases with a junkyard theme. It will probably go with the junkyard terrain set, but they would blend in steampunk/lost tech terrain just as well I guess.

I hacked them up in like 20 minutes, it was a simple matter of burning through my pile of junkyard stuff plus a handful of old scres and random hardware from the shop and gluing it all to some poker chips.

I couldn't find the strong wire (have searched the house and workshop thrice already, where is that stupid box with clothes hangers?!¿! ) so I sawed some wooden Ø4mm dowels to random lengths and glued them. I can always give them some hotglue texture but leaving them smooth is probably better as they shouldn't stand out and grab the focus from the base and the miniature.

Now I need another time slot or two for painting...

[tauster]

The first batch is finished, and batch #2 almost. This is addictive stuff!

Here's a quick run-through of batch #2, for what it's worth.

All elements hotglued on and slathered with undiluted PVA for extra strength. For ground texture I used thin styrofoam cut-offs that were textured with a rolling pin (Greenstuffworld's 'factory ground' pin).

Primed in black:

Apart from one piece, batch #1 will have no signs of corrosion:

Batch #2 will have rust and verdigris, and dirt, i.e. brown/black wash:

No particular reason for this, just to keep things interesting. Maybe I might find applications for 'new' and 'old' bases later in gameplay.

Now all that is to left is gluing on some magnets to the tops. ...and painting them. For whatever reason I thought adding the magnets after painting is smart...

[tauster]

Inspired by a foto I found online somewhere, I started in May 2017 making a bunch of critters that look like Booklings, see here, here and here. These little buggers are a race in Walter Moer's The City of Dreaming Books. I highly recommend this book, and all other Zamonia books from his pen.

Back then, I called them 'Oculants', but that might not be the last word on the name. I plan to add them to a little niche in my Underdark setting, showing them off as yet another race probably created by the Aboleth (the villains of the campaign) and then abandoned to fend for themselves. Surprisingly, they seem to have survived on their own in one of the deadliest known environments, the deepest reaches of the Underdark - without being an evil race. On the contrary, after their initial distrust is overcome, they are quite friendly and happy to help the adventurers. They won't have any powerful magic or mighty artifacts, but they can provide knowledge about the Glimmersea, which might prove more useful to the party than yet another magical McGuffin.

Here's the pic that kicked the whole thing off for me:

Now with the new lychee molds I decided to make a second subrace...

Head on:

From behind:

As with the initial batch, making them was quick, easy and fun. Now comes the hard part - painting the buggers.

You might have seen the first batch in the background of shots from my craft desk, showing off a paint job which never fails to embarrass me again.

I will definitely overpaint them, and barring any better ideas, try to imitate the colorations of the kickstarter minis. Any suggestions as to which color scheme would look good are more than welcome!

[tauster]

I was able to get a few small crafting time slots during the holidays, without neglecting the family, resulting in more progress than I had dared to hope, and almost finishing up the four booklings/oculants.

Color blocked, and one drybrushed:

Drybrushed with Elf Flesh, to get some details back. I was thinking about adding a wash, but decided against.

Finished, apart from some microscopic details like the armbands.

There was some teeny tiny detail work that was about the smallest I ever did. Painting the sceptre and the flames was more fun than I expected.

 

That wraps up the first four complete Booklings/Oculants. Now I have the initial batch waiting to be painted, which I am seriously debating - I like the new shapes so much more.

Also, I have for more lychee castings, all of them had large holes from imperfect hotglue castings. I filled the holes up from inside, allowing the glue to almost drip from inside through the holes, and in the last second cooling it under cold water. The effect looks like a gaping wound that has healed over. With the proper paint scheme, this would create an interesting dichotomy between the harmlessness of these guys with their comic relief, and the battle scars hinting at that greater powers. Maybe these funny guys aren't the pushovers they seem to be?

[margaret]

Love, love, love the lychee nut booklings!

[tauster]

Dec 25, 2019 21:45:31 GMT margaret said:

Love, love, love the lychee nut booklings!

Wow. That's a lot of love. Not sure the four can handle that. Maybe if I spread that burden among more shoulders.

Let's see how much their clan can grow to handle that love.

[tauster]

Dec 26, 2019 0:32:09 GMT tauster said:

Dec 25, 2019 21:45:31 GMT margaret said:

Love, love, love the lychee nut booklings!

Wow. That's a lot of love. Not sure the four can handle that. Maybe if I spread that burden among more shoulders.

Let's see how much their clan can grow to handle that love.

...aaand growing their clan did!

The 2nd batch. The green one is my boy's creature, as he wanted one for himself.

More painting. The first batch had some teeny tiny details missing (wristbands), as my boy pointed out to me, so I had to correct that.

And Batch Zero, the original oculants/booklings, got a dark brown basecoat. Behind them is batch 3, waiting for the hotglue to cool.

Batch 3 sees the light of day. My crafting light, actually.

I remembered that I had some Warhammer Ogre bits somewhere, so I made a few tanks. These will probably be the first of the creatures that the party encounters.

And finally, melting the mouth openings in. That's always the hardest part, because it decides on the facial expression of the creature. Sadly, most of them just have O's - giving them a somewhat surprised look. Which is great for the more civilian-like creatures but a bit stupid for the fighters...

[tauster]

I made quite some progress today: All minis got basepainted and colorblocked. Also, I got some new odd metallic colors recently that I was dying to try out, so this was the perfect opportunity.

My reasoning for painting the eyes like the weapons and armor parts: The magic these creatures wield is in their eyes, similar but not identical to beholders. When they activate their magic, they can charge items they carry like weapons, armor or rods/wands/staves.

Inka Gold Smaragd ('emerald')

Liquid Precious Metal 'Ice Blue'

Liquid Precious Metal 'Turquoise'

Maya Gold Blue

The links and pics below are only genareal examples

(I don't have that complete set of 6, just a few of those colors)

Viva Decor Liquid Precious Metal (6x 25ml for 23€, shipping included)

Viva Decor Maya Gold Acrylic color, Blue (45ml)

Viva Decor Inka Gold 45ml, Smaragd

After playing around with these three types, I can say that the 'Liquid Precious Metal' colors, especially the darker shades, are extremely cool. The ice blue doesn't cover as well as the darker shades, so it might need a 2nd coat. The 'Maya/Inka Gold' colors seem to have a bit less metal pigments but are still great. Inka Gold colors are more of a paste and less liquid than Maya Gold shades, and the Liquid Precious Metals are the most runny of all. I'm very happy I got them, especially for the bargain price (between 3€ and 4€ per pot), so I'll keep an eye on these and stock up the ones I don't have so far.

...now I need to find more excuses uses for metallic colors!

Next steps will be giving them a general drybrush and painting more teeny tiny details. I will probably add some edge highlighting to the metallic items, as they look a bit too uniform. Gold and silver edges will probably look good.

[tauster]

Finished!

Wow, that was a wild ride. Twentyone little cutesies, each one unique. That is more than I ever made of one creature, so this has truly become a race of its own.

Making them was so much fun that I hesitate to not call it addictive, but at the moment I simply can't justify making more of them. Heck, now I need to come up with a series of encounters and a worthy story arc. This might spin off into a mini-campaign of its own. I do have several ideas where to set them up:

1) In the Underdark, as an old cast-off experiment of the aboleth. The oculants are abandoned and forgotten by the aboleth (or are they?) and eek out a living on the shores of the Glimmersea in the Deepdark. Thanks to their varied magical eyepowers and a few magical items, they are relatively safe, and a potential ally of the party.

2) Faerie: In the last session of another campaign, our Gnome Illusionist got his familiar killed. In the same fight, a NPC-turned-temporary-PC lost his life too...again. Gulug was a frog that was turned into a human by a beholder in need of a crew for his spelljamming ship. The party has long since killed the beholder and now owns the ship, but during the adventure, Gulug was killed when siding with the characters. They reincarnated him and he came back as a Giant Space Hamster, a shape he vastly prefers to the former two. Now he lost his life again, and the party will have to get his soul back, which currently resides in the demesne of a fey lord called Flibbertigibbet (a trickster fey lord).

3) Spelljammer: The Oculants are perfect as a weird race on one of the thousands of worlds in the Known Spheres. Since they are in no monster manual, none of the players will have encountered anything like them before, making it a true 'wow that's something new!' moment.

As for now, #3 is the option I like least because I get the least mileage out of it. #2 will at least make for a memorable 'get our dead back' quest, but it will likewise be a one-shot adventure; the players will probably not return to that place in a fashion that will require the miniatures on the table. #1 is the option that I like most, as the Oculants might join the group in the battle against the aboleth and the monsters they send against the group, once they found out that someone out there has a reasonable chance of foiling their plan of world domination.

Ideas welcome, as always! Also, if you feel I could improve on the color scheme, postures or anything else with these critters, please fire away. I always welcome your opinions!

Anyways, enough rambling. Enjoy a few group shots.

I might break them up into smaller groups later and bore you with more details about them.