Flotsam and Jetsam

[Draklith]

Absolutely wicked

[tauster]

Purple washing on the first creature. The color is still wet in the picture, and my neon lamp distorts the colors. I'll do another pic in real daylight when it's finished.

---

dmzane's air elemental gave me the final push I needed to continue with the two dust devils /air elementals I made in june, so I basepainted them white. I'll probably add grey, light blue and/ir light purple shades later on with washings and drybrushings. Not sure how exactly I'll continue though...



I really regret that I cleaned up all the hotglue whisps - I could glue some sand and small rock particles on them and paint them up so that they really would stand out as debris that's orbiting the body of the little tornado. Guess I'll have to make a few more!

[tauster]

Some progress on the organic stuff I did back in june...

The day before yesterday I basepainted batch no. 3 and washed one of them just a few minutes ago. I think I did it the exact same way I used with the other pieces, at least I can't recall any difference. But still the piece surprised me: The basepaint had time to dry for two days, but when I applied the washing, it buckled and wrinkled, in some areas (where I brushed with too much presure) even almost flaking off.

basepainted:




Washed ...and wrinkled all by itself:




A closer look:




Now I even like the wrinkles, but I can't for the life of Mother figure out why that happened. But I like it when my hobby surprises me, so nothing wrong here.

I'll apply a layerd of transparent acrylic gloss varnish over everything, which will provide a certain protection, so I just hope that the color won't wear off during play or storage!

[tauster]

Thanks to beetlewing, we now have yet another way to craft crystals!

I whittled a few large crystals and used the gluestick-chips as small crystals as well. This way is so simple and fast, I had to stop myself after the sixth piece!



I like beetlewing's transparent painting, but I will have a very hard time painting the ground between the crystals. Beetlewing clustered them together in the center of the base, while I got apparently carried away and placed them almost everywhere on the base, leaving only little space between the splinters. *sigh*

[beetlewing]

Aug 16, 2014 7:57:25 GMT tauster said:

I like beetlewing's transparent painting, but I will have a very hard time painting the ground between the crystals. Beetlewing clustered them together in the center of the base, while I got apparently carried away and placed them almost everywhere on the base, leaving only little space between the splinters. *sigh*

They're flexible! I had to bend my crystals out of the way to get down in there, lol.

Although... you've got some big glue stick monsters in the photo... not sure they'll wanna cooperate

[tauster]

Yes, I could bend the smaller ones a bit out of the way, but I've placed them so tightly beside each other that I would have to bend them so much that they'll probably break off on their bottom anyways. Also, you'll get them smeared with black color and it's hard to clean them up. ...anyways, I'm done with basepainting the ground and most crystals are still clean, more or less.

Btw: You could glue them directly on a LED light and have them illuminated. Remember there are also flickering LED lights, and some are clycling through a color spectrum - that's a pretty cool effect for crystals!

[tauster]

Torog's Flying Children* are finished!
* working title until I - or you all - have found a better name...






I had to discover that they are too heavy for my modular flying stands (where the vertical fly stand is attached to the base, and the miniature to the stand, with a neodym magnet each)... They just topple over. So I'll have to make new stands that don't separate, and glue a larger neodym on top.

---

...and the tornados / air elementals / dust devils are finished, too!

[wilmanric]

Man, that is some amazing, inspirational stuff. Well done. I need to buy some crabs/scorps when I see them.

[beetlewing]

Aug 16, 2014 14:05:38 GMT tauster said:

Torog's Flying Children* are finished!
* working title until I - or you all - have found a better name...

Sounds like a contest is in order! Name the Beast!

[Cyan Wisp]

Eew. They are like a face-hugger (from Alien) crossed with a Belker.

Having the word "children" in the name adds extra creepiness. "Torog's Children" is already kind of creepy/appropriate.

How about "Calamitous Spawn", known derogatorily as "Clams" where they are a common nuisance, due to their tendency towards clamping onto your extremities.

[tauster]

Naming contest? Great idea, love it!

Just to clarify:

1) The name "Torog's children" applies to several species, all of which are somehow linked to Torog, the King that crawls (--> 4th edition Underdark sourcebook). I have made several beasties with that 'flesh' look, and all of them are Children of Torog.

2) Names should be chosen with the natives of the underdark in mind, i.e. it should be names that underdark natives have given these creatures. So a name like "Night Hunter" would be pointless, because it's always night in the underdark - night has no meaning for someone who has never seen the day (and thus might not even know something like 'day' exists, only heard in stories that might or might not be true).

I'll post some information about these critters tomorrow (it's too late right know and I still have to clean up a party that just ended), which might give you some ideas for the name.

[tauster]

OK, as promised some information about the flying, (yet) nameless critters. Apart from a naming contest, please fire away your ideas about the monster's powers I described below.

Flying (obviously).
Not sure about their maneuvrability: Are they striking lightning-fast from their ambush inside the rock? Or are they hiding for days in the tunnel walls, sticking whatever sensory organ they have out of the rock, waiting for victims to pass by and then silently drifting out of the rock behind them?


Melt into Stone
They can move through stone as fish swim through water, probably at will and indefinitely long (like fish).
Not sure I should let them drag victims into the stone as well. This would make them extremely dangerous, as most beings would either immediately die on a system shock saving throw (yes, we're still playing ADND 2nd edition *g*) or suffocate after a few rounds. Even if it drags its victim only partially into the stone, the poor guy would be immediately immobilised: There's no running away if your foot has just melted into solid rock...


Telekinetik power
This is the basis for their flying ability, but it is also used as an attack power: They can let their victims hover above the ground so that they can't run away (try running away if your feet do not touch the grund anymore - looks like in the old cartoons but feels a lot less funny when you're running on the spot and watch this monstrosity drifting ever nearer...

Hmmm, I'm think this 'immobilise your victim'-hunting strategy goes well together with the 'slow flyer' option: You don't need to fly fast if your victim can't move, right? And it would also go well with a victim that's dragged partially into the stone, but as I wrote I don't really want to go that way. Hard choises everywhere!

Telekinesis could also be used defensively by turning away missile attacks, or even partially deflecting melee attacks.


Poison stinger
Still not sure about this one: It's not really needed - especially if the critter can immobilise its victim, either by leaving it hanging in the air or by draggin it partially into stone. My gut feeling is that a poison stinger would feel better on a fast flyer: think scorpions or poison snakes; both can make lightning-fast moves when stinging or biting.

This is a trade-off between the horror of being
- eaten alive and conscious while hanging helplessly in the air or dragged with one body part into solid rock
or
- being hit by this thing's sting, feeling how the body succumbs to the poison and then eaten alive.

...but the more important question when determining flying style and poison use is: How does this all affect combat?
My party will be around levels 10-12, so they're quite powerful already. I think more important than the victim's level is the number of victims: No matter how powerful a mage you are, if you're a turned towards the tunnel wall with your hands both (or even only one) dragged into solid stone, you're probably out of luck even if you're level 15. On the other side, a dozen lowly orks might be able to overcome this hunter: One or two might die, but the rest will descend on the monster and hack it into pieces or needle it with arrows and spears.


Intelligence
These monsters are hunters, but I don't want to make more than the two, so their hunting strategy won't involve pack tactics or even henchmen. I'm not sure how intelligent they are: animal-like or with a bit more cunning? I definitely don't want to give them an above-average intelligence, so 10 is the maximum (which would allow for all the hunting tricks that humans are able to come up with, btw). Giving them an intelligence like humans would mean that I'll have to think about language, culture, etc... Which would open a whole new can of worms. Not that this is bad, but it's a decision that has to be made with the consequences in mind...


Lots of questions - what do you think?

---

In other news, here's the third air elemental. It is the largest one of the three (13 cm high), so I had to glue on a larger neodym (10 mm diameter).

Due to the large size, I wanted a lerger base. I didn't want to use my usual twist-off caps because they are too high. So I took the flat bottom of a tin can and glued it to a thin cardstock, gave it a very thin hotglue texture (which already now diminishes the magnetic effect, even if it's less then 1 mm high...). Next steps: black basing, grey drybrush, matte sealing.




I glued in two paperclip halves and covered them with hotglue, plus drew a strong hotglue whisp. I'll attach some rubble there and on the tornado's body, giving the impression of rubble that's being whipped around. Not sure it'll look good,but I won't ever know if I don't try.




Lots of whisps under the umbrella / head:




I'm toying with the idea of painting it black/dark grey with fire-shades (think 'volcano-ash, fire and brimstone). It would look probably great, but it won't be as generic as a regular dust devil, so I'm going to use it less often. The typical trade-off between coolness and use in play. *sigh*

[tauster]

First washing:




Compared with the pencil crystals:

---

Corn poppy pods:




Cutaways:

[Cyan Wisp]

Crystals...Preeeetttty.

[tauster]

Another word about the crystals I forgot to add in the post above:
As you can see, there's more color at the tops than at the lower parts. After applying the wash, I left them to dry upside-down. Mainly because I didn't want the color to gather around the ground (it was a pain in the behind to basepaint the black without touching too much of the crystals, and I didn't want to repeat that). The side effect of the crystal's tips 'glowing' more than their bases was nice but unintended.

[beetlewing]

Aug 17, 2014 19:23:11 GMT tauster said:

Another word about the crystals I forgot to add in the post above:
As you can see, there's more color at the tops than at the lower parts. After applying the wash, I left them to dry upside-down. Mainly because I didn't want the color to gather around the ground (it was a pain in the behind to basepaint the black without touching too much of the crystals, and I didn't want to repeat that). The side effect of the crystal's tips 'glowing' more than their bases was nice but unintended.

Might make it easier to paint the crystals before gluing them in... might have to try that, skipping the portion that will be glued.

As a side note, I have no idea why, but page 13 of this thread makes my phone browser (Dolphin browser on iphone4) freeze for about 2 minutes and sometimes crash. Never had a problem anywhere else on the site. Don't think it's an image file size or quantity thing because I've viewed huge pdfs in the browser with no problem. Annoying lol.

[tauster]

Aug 17, 2014 20:05:49 GMT beetlewing said:

Aug 17, 2014 19:23:11 GMT tauster said:

Another word about the crystals I forgot to add in the post above:
As you can see, there's more color at the tops than at the lower parts. After applying the wash, I left them to dry upside-down. Mainly because I didn't want the color to gather around the ground (it was a pain in the behind to basepaint the black without touching too much of the crystals, and I didn't want to repeat that). The side effect of the crystal's tips 'glowing' more than their bases was nice but unintended.

Might make it easier to paint the crystals before gluing them in... might have to try that, skipping the portion that will be glued.

Damn. That is one of these advices that you read and even before you're done with it, you want facepalm yourself. I've done so many stoff in the past where I had the same problem. Why haven't I ever thought of that before?¿!? Thanks!

[voduchyld]

love your pink crystals!

[beetlewing]

Some thoughts on your cat food can monsters...

Name idea: Minium (singular), Miniums (plural). As in aluminum can lol

How I would play them:

They'd be low intelligence grazers, like cattle. Mildly curious, but from a safe distance.... until you enter the room where their egg clutch lays (the babies can't move through stone until hatched) - then, like a mama bear protecting it's cubs, all hell breaks loose.

Since you only have 2, the female would reside in the egg chamber, protecting the eggs. The male would collect gold from natural veins and make deposits in the egg chamber for the young to eat once they hatch. (Gold is soft) This gives the party a reason to enter the chamber.

Adventurers would occasionally catch glimpses of the male as they traversed corridors, as it peacefully swam out of one wall, pausing for a second to observe the strangers, before disappearing into another wall. This would build a little tension, ("What the hell was that?!") and could happen a couple of times. If they approach or try to interact with the beast, it would simply dart away into the nearest wall, like a startled fish.

Combat:

Rather than poison, I would have them spray a mist, like a skunk. The mist would be like casting an appropriate level fear spell.

A nasty combat tactic would be grabbing an adventurer and racing into the nearest wall at full speed. The player would not pass into the wall, but would instead suffer (horizontal) falling damage, scaled up if needed to account for the beast's speed. It would be like hitting a brick wall while riding a scared horse, minus the horse.

Just some thoughts

[tauster]

beetlewing, I like your scenario. Making these critters more or less peaceful is a wonderful twist - so far everything the players have encountered down there was weird, ugly and dangerous. Now they'll be encountering a monster that's weird, ugly and peaceful. They won't trust that bait, of course. One of the PCs can walk through rock, so it'll probably follow the creature. If not, then it will accidentally drop some of the gold nuggets clutched in it's arms. That should get it the party's interest. After walking through solid rock for a while, they'll exit in the brood cavern of the pair and all hell breaks loose.

*rubs hands, evil DM cackle*

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I need new fly stands for the two critters, as they are too heavy for the wire-based stands I made earlier. I wanted something transparent, so I took two old curtain rods and sawed them into 8 cm long pieces:






Then a few twist-off caps, the cap of a color bottle and two yoghurt lids...




...filled with alternating layers of whiteglue and sand:



Initially I wanted to fill them up completely and glue the plastic rods to the upper side (which I would decorate with some rocks and stuff), but then I decided to make holes in the sand and put the plasti sticks in there. The advantage is that I'll have a clean underside on the encounter mat / game table. The downside is that I can't use the magnetic surface of the two lids to put other stuff on, plus the texture on the side of the two yoghurt lids isn't visible...

The glue will take probably several days to harden, so I had to put some straws in or the glue would flow back into the hole.

I have another nice idea for fly stands, but first I'll have to hunt down the materials, so I can't tell anything yet.

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Some modest progress on the gnocci terrain:





I really like the look of them, just with the basepaint. I almost want to play an encounter on the plane of shadow, just to have an excuse to use them as is!

and as usual, I don't really know which color scheme to use on the 'eggs'. The rocks will get their usual treatment, but the eggs... I don't want to beat the flesh color scheme to death, even if it would be a good fit here. Any ideas?