Tauster's Miniatures

[erho]

Ive made a chair out of free standing expansion foam at work before, that stuff lasts forever if it isnt in the sun for months

[tauster]

This foam stuff is quite cool. It keeps on doing unextected things and surprising me, which is exactly what I love about crafting.

Take the crate stack for example:

The foam hardenes faster on the outside, i.e. where it is in contact with the air, than on the inside. And it keeps on expanding a little bit while hardening, not as much is right after it comes out of the can, bit enough to build up pressure from the center of the model outwards.

Which results in large molds getting a round-ish bent, like a blown-up balloon:

This is the dungeon floor mold from the second experimental batch, which I intentionally heaped on a small hill of foam to create a 'flying isle' effect. The outer shell of the hill hardened so much that the foam in the center started pushing against the mold, rising up and cracking the floor. That is perfect for planting some kind of tree on top, with roots coming out of the crack. I couldn't hace done this intentionally if I wanted!

The same thing happened with the crate stack. With this method, I won't be able to make regular stacks because they look like they are about to explode at any moment. Moreover, they foam isn't as strong as hotglue, let alone resin. So if you have a cast that is very hard to release from the mold because it has undercuts (i.e. it is broader deeper inside mold and can't be drawn out easily), the foam may rip. Happened twice to the crate stack:

But that's great, because now I have a pair of giant crate stack mimics. Oh how my players will hate me.

I use stones from the playground for teeth...

...and hotglue them into place. The glue also doubles for gums.

In the end it will look somehow like this:

The small mimics all got glued together and painted up. I might add a dark wash, but as per now, they are good enough to game with.

Now I need to make more hotglue crate stacks, which is a pain in the ...hand. And continue working on the giant mimics.

[tauster]

Blockpainted the inflating stack and the 'full monster mode' stack with the maw:

I tried to stay as true as possible to the colors of the original. Which was hard because I didn't use the colors right out of the paint tubes; some crates were painted with mixed shades of brown, grey and beige. I think I got it close enough - any differences will be integrated in the encounter, allowing perceptive PCs to realize that the colors of the crate seem to shift and flow. Or is it just the bad lighting of the dark warehouse that tricks your eyes...?

Next steps:

- purple wash over the flesh parts, sealed with glossy varnish

- white/beige for the teeth, then a dark brown wash

- painting the metal parts (silver, then orange drybrush for rust)

- drybrushing the crates

- hotgluing the maw back together

This will become a three-stage monster, and I really hope it will be worth the work.

[tauster]

Getting there...

Nov 17, 2018 22:22:42 GMT tauster said:

Next steps:

- purple wash over the flesh parts, sealed with glossy varnish

- white/beige for the teeth, then a dark brown wash

- painting the metal parts (silver, then orange drybrush for rust)

- drybrushing the crates

- hotgluing the maw back together

This will become a three-stage monster, and I really hope it will be worth the work.

The teeth need more details, which the wash will bring out. After the gloss warnish has dried, I can glue'em together.

I have another 'inflated' stack ready, but I don't think all the additional work of making the other two stages, complete with painting and all, will be justified by the added value in an encounter. After the players have gone through all three stages, simply having another crate stack inflate won't add anything to the game.

So a second three-stage monster makes sense only when they would act together, i.e. in the same round. And somehow I doubt that a pair of giant crate stack mimic twins would make the warehouse of doom ecounter significantly better. And yes, that phrase should strike utter terror in every player's heart.

So the second crate stack will probably sit around for a while and gather dust. Should I ever send out another craft package (any news from our pay it forward scheme, btw?), this migth be inside, among other stuff.

[factoriatabletop]

i just...wow!
very well done, and first time i heard about " mimic" but i can understand what it means...
the teeth with stones are superb!

[erho]

Crate stack mimics, terrifying!

[tauster]

Glad you two like it.

I just had the idea that, in general, almost every large terrain piece could be turned into a giant mimic. In theory, even a small house!* Making a silicone mold and then a copy of the original terrain piece isn't hard, and even if you don't want to make mimics, you can always make copies of the terrain piece itself, in those cases where crafting the piece is significantly more work than making a mold and then a hotglue copy. I'm sure you could use other materials than hotglue with those molds, like plaster of paris or similar stuff like dental plaster. Even paper maché works.

* I think there was an adventure featuring a house-sized mimic, years ago. I just can't remember the title or any other specifics...

Here's today's update. I washed the maw halves with a dark brown yesterday evening and let it dry over night. The result is a dirty mouth, very non-glossy (as expected but not desired).

To get the wet sheen back, I give them a generous coat of acrylic gloss varnish:

When this is dry, I should be ready to glue the halves together and call it done. Washing the whole stack(s) is an option I haven't ruled out completely yes, but I think they look good enough to game with as they are now.

[tauster]

...finished!

I used a fine ink pen to add some scribbles in the crate labels.

All three stages together.

The labes on top of the monster stage have evil smilies semi-hidden among the scribbling. Perceptive players standing on top of the stack while it transforms can make a perception check to notice that the labels change, while making an acrobatics check to avoid falling down.

[skunkape]

Those mimics are just creepy! Good job!

[tauster]

I just needed something for storing the Jack Skellington balls, so I grabbed a random cardboard box ...and found it full of those E-shaped packing beans. For years now I have been looking for a way to turn them into something cool, and today it finally made 'click' when I held two of them together.

Snip out a V-shaped piece in each side to make pairs of legs:

Grab some bits and pieces, and fire up your gluegun. I had cheap plastic figures at hand, plus a few needles that I clipped off. The clippings were used in the second mini to pin several segments together (though the hotglue underneath should probably suffice for stability).

I would have gone over the top and glue some cool bits on (Tyranids most likely, though Warhammer's Tzeentch and Nurgle stuff might do well too) but I couldn't find my bitz box. The cheap stuff will do for these critters:

Male and female? Mother and child? Fors and Cale will probably never find out...

The belly of the beasts. Not very spectacular. I might add some stuff later on, for example those tiny foam balls used as bean bag filling, glued on the belly (or back?) in clusters to simulate eggs.

Not it's on to painting. My traditional 'flesh and blood' combo would be a nobrainer, but a the texture of the packing beans would look cool as bones, so maybe I'll make some undead variants as well. And I'll get a good look at how crabs look like. I suspect there's a whole lot of inspiration to be found there.

[tauster]

I found something better than bean bag fillings. Instead of perfect spheres, I found scraps of another type of foam with irregular geometric cells. I glued them on the back of the large worm (now it's definitely a 'she'), and after I wasn't able to avoid hotglue wisps, I made a few intentional glue streaks that look like they hold the egg cluster together.

Maybe I should have added them after painting, so another creature might be in order. Which is OK because the first ones are always for making mistake and learn from them.

[erho]

Nice!!

Some of the newer packing peanuts are starch based so if you accidentally eat a few, its Ok.

They taste better with a dip though...

[tauster]

Painted with the usual Flesh & Bone color combo, then drybrushed with a brown.

The eggs on the back got basepainted in black. I'll give them either a 'rock' paint job or go more metallic, or heck, why not gem-like? I could make a few scatter terrain pieces with a few of these gem-eggs between the rocks. Then place the scatter pieces in one or more encounters long before the critters show up.

[deafnala]

OUTSTANDING, BRILLIANT, AND IMAGINATIVE...that about says it all. I have been looking at those packing peanuts for years. They had to be usable somehow, but I never did come up with an idea. The Beasty is a BEAUTY, SPLENDIDLY crafted & painted. VERY WELL DONE!

[tauster]

After five years, I decided it is time to revisit another classic: The Giant Purple Worm. Everything related to the first worm  I made (which doubles as a dice tower!) can be found below (quoted from my woefully out of date index).

The. Giant. Purple. Worm. (a.k.a. 'The monster everyone makes finally')
Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Game-related postings: here and here
Game reports with 'Da Worm': Here,  here (kind of...),

I wanted to do a more segmented body, like the old illustration from ancient ODND times:

I made a couple of paper balls wrapped in tape for another project that got scrapped, so these were put to good use forming the worm's body.

After taping three balls together (sounds, wrong, I know) I decided that the tape between the balls hides the 'waists' too much, so this one was laid aside for later use. Instead I hotglued three balls together.

...then I realized that I didn't really want a body segment that is that long. The original GPW was made of a sting end and a maw end. I would go the same way, only this time the part with the maw didn't need to be that large. So this three-part body was put aside as well and I glued two more balls together, adding a stinger sculpted from tin foil.

The sting will be made of the same tyranid bit as the first GPW's sting. Not sure my players will ever notice tha detail, but I couldn't find my tyranid box with the parts that would fit better, so this one will have to do.

 

...to be continued later.

[tauster]

The complete but unpainted rear half of the beast, hotglued to a temporary washer base to get a sense of how to pose it.

A first impression of the details after the black primer has dried:

I want to paint both halves together, so I stopped after the primer and started the front half. I want the maw to erupt from the ground, so I need to make only a small part of the beast. A hotglue copy of a tyranid brood hill (not sure this is the correct name) will be the maw. This will look infinitely better than the wood skewer teeth of the initial worm, which I can't look at anymore to be honest.

The brood hill is a square, but with enough scales placed around the thing, you won't be able to see the square-ishness anymore.

Getting the posture right on this half was a bit tricky. I had to add another segment, and then yet another even smaller one, to make this thing look like it erupts from the ground. I am still not completely convinced I got it right; I guess the base with the hole in the rocky ground will decide if this is a fail or a win.

[tauster]

Yet another it-came-out-of-nowhere project that pushes itself on top of my pile, pushing all other WIP's to the side. I could be angered about myself and my indiscipline, or I could happily chug along and smile at the train of serendipities that stops over so often at my craft station.

Heads:

deafnala gifted me crafters package a while ago, and among the goodies inside was a bag with the faces he is famous for. I was allowed to make silicone molds and copy them, so now I can use them even in experiments that could go wrong without fear of running out of them.

Tails:

The tails, as well as the feet/claws, are hotglue castings made with a mold from an old plastic crocodile toy.

The bodies:

The bony body is from a bitz box, I think it belongs to warhammer's tyranids but I'm not quite sure. It is great for a ridged turtle shell, but I will definitely use it as carapace for insectoid monsters in the future, and perhaps as ribcage too.

Not much to see at the moment, especially since unpainted hotglue is a pain in the behind to take shots of, but I wanted to share this pic anyways, mainly for two reasons:

1) I totally love how they turned out. I could have used monster heads, but with alans faces, they turn from a group of monsters into a roleplaying encounter. I can still make them hostile and have a fight that turns out more difficult than the charactersn (and players) thought, or they will be allies that turn out either totally worthless or supply the party with some valuable ressource.

2) I have no really good idey how to paint these critters. They look totally harm- and defenseless, but as underdark denizens, this can't be true. They will have some effective means of defense, and I am more than willing to add whatever you folks come up with.

[deafnala]

I am delighted you found a use for the faces. OUTSTANDING WORK!

[tauster]

Here's how it looks with a pre-paint drybrush.

All of the critters have imperfections that will be painted up as injuries, old and healed and a rare few fresh. I want these guys looking like they have seen a fair share of battles in the Underdark, and survived all of them. This should give the characters a hint that they aren't as defenseless as they might look.

This bone turtle has lost two feet:

[Sam]

When you are up you as* in alligators, it is hard to remember that you are here to drain the swamp.