Tauster's Miniatures

[matakishi]

Very nice.

[tauster]

I always loved Dreamblade's Pick-Pick for its totally weird design. It has the kind of weirdness that brings that beloved 'WTF?!¿!?' on my player's faces, which gets increasingly more difficult with the years.



I found those cheap ceramic filter balls for fish tanks (10pcs for little more than 1€, shipping included) which look like they were in the sculptor's desk when he created the pick-pick from the artist's rendering (here's some background from the man himself)





...now what I'm to do with those balls? Simply gluing blades on the balls and copying the original seems kinda boring.... Any ideas?

[tauster]

Another ebay find: fishing baits!

One of my campaigns will go under the waves shortly, so I'm gathering ideas for aquatic encounters. Fishes, squids, crabs, starfishes, shells... I still need lots of ideas for aquatic terrain, so if anybody can point me towards cool stuff, please fire away!

Here's the first fishing bait I go: Prawn/shrimp. 10 shrimp for 2USD, shipping included. Each is 4cm long and consists of very soft rubber, feels a bit softer than gummy bears. Weirdly, the auction now says 'does not ship to germany' but it did a few weeks ago when I ordered.

 

I now have 30 shrimps, enough for a few single minis plus two or three swarms. The hook can be easily pulled out, so I can insert some strong wire which will be glued onto a aquatic-themed base. Multiple wires glued to a larger base will make a swarm.

Any ideas how to make aquatic bases, and terrain?
Plus, what can I do with those vicious hooks? Apart from fishing, which I don't like, really.

[tauster]

I just looked again on ebay for more fishing baits and discovered something that won't be used under water but much more often:

50 pale, luminescent maggots (2.5 cm) for under 2€




Much hand rubbing and evil cackling ensued. These will add to the yuck!-factor of many encounters!

[sotf]

Oct 24, 2017 17:42:15 GMT tauster said:

Another ebay find: fishing baits!

One of my campaigns will go under the waves shortly, so I'm gathering ideas for aquatic encounters. Fishes, squids, crabs, starfishes, shells... I still need lots of ideas for aquatic terrain, so if anybody can point me towards cool stuff, please fire away!

Here's the first fishing bait I go: Prawn/shrimp. 10 shrimp for 2USD, shipping included. Each is 4cm long and consists of very soft rubber, feels a bit softer than gummy bears. Weirdly, the auction now says 'does not ship to germany' but it did a few weeks ago when I ordered.

 

I now have 30 shrimps, enough for a few single minis plus two or three swarms. The hook can be easily pulled out, so I can insert some strong wire which will be glued onto a aquatic-themed base. Multiple wires glued to a larger base will make a swarm.

Any ideas how to make aquatic bases, and terrain?
Plus, what can I do with those vicious hooks? Apart from fishing, which I don't like, really.

For aquatic terrain, the easiest is to look for the more bubbly lava rock from the garden section.

It looks a lot like coral and works well for it if you paint it right.

A lot of the cheaper aquarium plants also work rather well.

[sgtslag]

Paint them like lava: use them as Flaming Spheres, on steroids; glue multiple balls together, to make a Lava Golem, or a Lava Elemental; try breaking/carving them up, to explore more options for constructions; cut them in half, and put them on top of a river of lava, to represent huge bubbles in the molten rock river.

Try the above suggestions, only without the lava paint job:  make rock creatures, instead of lava creatures.  Watch the movie, Galaxy Quest, for inspiration on the Rock Golem/Rock Elemental creature concept.

Never seen these before, but I may need to pick some up to put my own suggestions into practice... I am planning to run a convention game using G3: Halls of the Fire Giants, and I may need some of these for my 3D modeling of the Halls. Thanks for sharing/asking/inspiring!    Cheers!

[tauster]

Neen a swarm of giant ants to keep your party busy?

Less than 3 USD gets you a dozen!



Just clip off that spike on their back and you're good to go.

[ageofgaming]

Those ceramic filter balls for fish tanks are a cool find ..might have to get me some

[tauster]

DMScotty 's facehuggers are too cool not to make some, and my wife had some of these hair thingies that she never used and gracefully donated to the cause, so my son and me had a great time making the first of the swarm. Not finished yet, but we've come a long way in a short time, and had a blast.

I clipped the 'teeth' short and removed one completely; now there are now 3 teeth on top and 4 below, plus they're symmetrically arranged.




The black basepaint has to dry before we can go on, probably tomorrow:



My guess is that the other 'uggers will get the usual flesh-and-blood treatment, for once because it's easy and gets great results and, more important, because it makes them one of Torog's Children, the monster family that will feature in our 18 year old Night Below underdark campaign.

[tauster]

Man, I do love fishing baits!



1.89€ gives you 50 giant maggots made of a soft, rubbery material. Shipping is already included, so that makes less than 4 cent per 'miniature'. That's hard to beat by cafting 'em myselves. They look pretty disgusting as is; I wonder how they look if I wash them with Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade or apply Army Painter's Dip.

Lady Forscale had the dubious pleasure to be the first discoverer of a previously (and thankfully) unknown kind of giant underdark maggots.

Added bonus: They glow in the dark. Huzzah, how cool is that?!¿!11? Can't wait until my mini UV LED torchlight arrives!

[deafnala]

There is something TRULY DISTURBING about a mass of huge worms. They look WONDERFUL!

[tauster]

...mo' facehuggers!



As I glued on and textured the scrap metal chips, I found a way how to glue the metal on more effectively on an already hotglued surface: Normally I would apply a small blob of glue, then press the piece of metal on that blob and hope that I don't burn my thumb too much because the metal is heat-conductive. Then I'd put a thin layer of hotglue over the metal and blend it in the texture of the surroundings.

Now I discovered that the conductiveness of the metal can be used to my advantage: I simply lay the metal on the hotglue, then press it down with the hot nozzle of the gluegun. As I press down, the metal gets hot and melts itself into the hotglue underneath. Texturing is then done as described above.

Not a huge discovery, just a small improvement. But pleasing nontheless.


Now I have a total of 10 facehuggers waiting to be painted. I think half of them will get the flesh-color scheme, some might get painted like rocks (earth gliders would be cool underdark monsters!), and I want to see how an ice version looks. Would make a cool addition to the winter menagerie I that is waiting patiently to be thrown at my players.

[tauster]

Yesterday was a little like xmas: I got a letter from the other side of the world with 43 teeny tiny faces inside. Thank deafnala!



This stuff is so cool, I can't bring myself to using the originals in my own builds. I'll make a mold from them all so I can cast them in hotglue or greenstuff or whatever medium fits the bill.

[deafnala]

HOORAY! They got there. I am happy you like them. Have fun with them...there are more where they came from.

[tauster]

Some pasta types for my next mini, after watching the first 30 min of Disney's Treasure Planet. Can you guess what I have in mind?

[deafnala]

Having never seen Disney's Treasure Planet, I haven't a clue...I LOVE surprises though.

[tauster]

You'll find it in here, and you don't even have to watch very long.

[tauster]

Finished schulpting the mystery critter, and made a little Morph as well. The wire is glued into the mini, the lower end has a neodym glued in so I can put it wherever I need.

 





The favourite character of one of my players is a shapeshifter who once had his hand cut off by a magic sword, and when he later re-attached it, it had gotten a mind of it's own. Now he has a little Morph-like minion. Yes, it's blatantly stolen from Treasure Planet, but who cares. We had lots of fun with the hand.




Anybody cares to make a guess what the pasta critter is going to be? If not, I can post them WIP pics.

[tauster]

The original Morph is completely painted (just needs a final layer of acrylic gloss varnish) and varily eyes its new kin, while Lady Forscale has no clue what this new batch of critters means for her. As usual.




Those mini-Morphs are so ridiculously simple to make that I managed to stop myself only after making eight more. Simply squirt hotglue into cold water and make some '3D-doodles', take the mess out before it gets too cold and shape it with your fingers however you like. The right-most one got a pair of eyes added afterwards (two hotglue 'tears'), giving it a rather comic-like appearance.

I might put them all on one base, either with a 10cm long wire for each morph, glued permanently to the base, or Add a small piece of scrap metal below each morph so I can use magnetized generic fly bases. We'll see.

What to do with them? No clue, really. I can't give the shapeshifter eight more detachable companions/minions, obviously. I could use them enemies; how about a swarm of small shapeshifting critters attacking the party while wildly morphing into giant needles, scissors, clubs, gags to prevent the spellcasters from spellcasting? Sounds like fun.

On the other hand... The party's mage is a gnomish illusionist who could cast mirror image on the morph... I like to see my players faces when they announce the mirror image and I break out a 'multiple morphs- mini' out of the blue.

[tauster]

I could steal an hour of the evening and finish a few recent projects, namely the batch of facehuggers and two more ice-related experiements, and that giant plant thingie.



I wouldn't call the Strangler finished, but at least I got nearer to the finish line.

Close-ups of the ice critters. I like how the slanted eyes turned out. Gives them a feel of strangeness and weirdness. Now I need some thin fly bases made of wire, and paint them to blend into the ice terrain.




For some reason the pearlescent glitter doesn't show in most of the pics. It really makes the difference.



The statue is cast in hotglue, made from a silicone mold I made from copper figures (probably from a chess game, originally). That means I could cast a hundred of them if I wanted without breaking the bank, and painting them up like ice or rock is really quickly done. Not sure where I'll go with this. Scatter terrain pieces for an ice/winter scenario? Ice statues/golems/elementals? Winter fey, or statues animated by an ice sorcerer? What would you do?


The rock version of the facehugger got some glowing red eyes because I wanted to practice object sourced lighting (OSL) effects a bit more. At arms lenght it looks... well at least you would recognise what the painter wanted to do. But go any nearer and you'll see how sloppy the paintjob was done. I promise to do better next time.