Skaven (Wererats)

 

Some time in the 1990s I bought a pack of GW metal Warhammer Skaven. I didn't have any interest in Warhammer, but I did want something I could use as wererats for my AD&D game.

The skaven are a bit more heavily equipped than your standard AD&D wererat, but they looked ratty enough for my purposes. 

Giant Hag

 

This is an FDM print of a fairly old Duncan Louca design, one of a set of three hags he did. I've printed it at a height of 75mm, as I had a need for a giant hag in a game session I was running, though that need passed long before I ever got the mini painted.

It's painted entirely with glazes (Army Painter Speedpaint and Vallejo Xpress) and washes, apart from the metallic gold of her piercings and the strings dangling from her waist. It's a very quick way of getting a reasonable tabletop result, though the mini would benefit from some more deliberate shading and highlighting, especially about the face.

My Ender 3 FDM printer is getting pretty old and a bit outta whack now, and I'm getting quite a lot of stringing, blobbing and adhesion issues. It may be time to start saving up for an upgrade. 

Red Beast

 

I've no idea what this mini is supposed to represent. All I know about it is that I've had it for maybe 35 years, and have finally got around to slapping some paint on it.

Big Hag

 

I need a big mutated giantess for an upcoming AD&D session, so I went hunting through my collected STLs to see what I could find. This is one of Duncan Louca's older sculpts, one of a set of three hags — the Bloate Hag, whatever that may be.

I printed her on my Ender 3 at 250% scaling, so she's now 115mm tall. Hopefully big enough to frighten the second-level PCs a bit. 

Giant Bat Monster

 

This is a 3d printed giant bat critter that I picked up somewhere, quite a while ago, and printed on my Mars Pro.

It sat on my workbench unpainted for a long time, years in fact, until I finally decided to get it out of the way and slapped some speed-paint and inks on to it, and gave it a cardboard base to protect its delicate foot-claws. 

I'm not as impressed by the speed-paints as some seem to be. They're okay, as far as they go, but I don't know that they're any better than Ye Olde Inke-Washe. 

 Here's Sergeant Measureby with his trusty Spear of 5mm Increments to demonstrate how big this critter is. 

Big enough to be fairly fearsome, I would think. 

Goblins Pretending To Be A Wizard

 

This is a 3d print of a model I got from somewhere, sometime.

I'm not at all sure who originally designed it. Possibly Miguel Zavala, but I wouldn't swear to it. 

Rock Troll #4 (and last, probably)

 

Yet another 3d printed Rock Troll, this time painted red.

This will probably be the last one, unless I develop a pressing need for more, which is unlikely.

Front

Rear

 

Critter

 

I cannot remember who sculpted this, nor what it was called, nor whether it's supposed to be a specific monster or just a generically monstery critter. It stands (or squats) 40mm to the tip of its muzzle.

I printed it quite some time ago, and just got around to painting it.

FDG Ranger

 

This is one of the support-free FRPG minis produced by Fat Dragon Games, in this case a ranger.

I like them as gaming pieces because their poses tend to be quite restrained. I'm not fond of the sorts of fantasy minis that are presented in hugely animated leaping-slashing-bellowing poses; they're exhausting to look at.

These FDG minis have the additional benefit that they can be reliably and successfully printed on a FDM printer.

That's maybe not as important as it once was, now that decent resin printers are affordable, and the resins available are tougher, but I still appreciate it. Plus, the new generation of FDM printers appear to be capable of detail and smoothness comparable with entry-level resin printers, while being much cheaper to run.

My old Ender 3 is not, alas, that good. Still good enough for tabletop work though.

Flayed Demon Thing

 

I don't know what this thing is supposed to be, but it looks angry.

I think the design is from Schlossbauer*, in which case I would have got it from Thingiverse. It's been sitting in the painting queue for some considerable time, a couple of years at least.

* Nope, apparently it's a Gormaw from EC3D Designs,

Sergeant Measureby is, as usual, doing sterling scale-indicating work with his Spear of 5mm Increments.

Squigs

 

I printed some squigs that I got from a guy on Cults3d called EmanG. These are the first two I've finished painting.

I don't really know anything much about Warhammer, so I have only the faintest idea what squigs are supposed to be.

The fighter is a 32mm figure from Fat Dragon Games; it was a freebie they gave out with their newsletter one month.

FDG Lizard Man — Mook-paint test

"Ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille"

A fine figure of a man-lizard

This is a test-paint for some Lizard-men mooks, using one of Fat Dragon Games' Lizardfolk minis, in this case LF02_v1.1.stl. The painting is very fast, using the "slap-chop" method of overpainting a zenithal primer with translucent glazes. The idea is to produce a table-worthy result with the absolute minimum of effort, so that I can produce a whole horde of them without getting too bored. I wasn't really timing myself, but I'd guess that this paint-job took me about ten or twelve minutes.

In theory, Fat Dragon Games' minis can be printed without having to bother with slicer supports, and in general I've found that to be true. In this case though  it could have done with a support under its snout, as my now-elderly Ender 3 printer's inadequate bridging has left it a bit flattened towards the end. Unfortunately I don't have the custom supports add-on installed in Cura any more, and adding general tree supports increases the print time from about an hour and a half to a bit over two hours. That's not too bad for printing a single figure, but it adds up when you're printing a bunch at a time.

I generally like Tom Tullis' (FDG) sculpting style, as the minis' poses tend to be fairly compact and restrained compared with some of the overwrought and rococo poses affected by some other sculptors. In my mind it's like the difference between Classical Greek sculpture and the later Hellenistic style. To me, the restraint in the poses makes them much more useful as gaming pieces, as they tend to take up less room on the tabletop as well as being less fragile.

In the case of this particular figure, if I were sculpting it I would probably have curled its tail more around its legs rather than sticking it straight out the back. It would have given the mini a more snakey appearance than its current crocodilian air, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your personal taste, but it would have reduced the mini's footprint on the games table. Not that the issue is particularly egregious in this case, and I certainly won't be bothered trying to change it.

Taxon

 

One of the characters in my AD&D campaign is a female ranger called Taxon, whose weapon of choice is a hammer.

Finding a miniature of a female fighter type wielding a warhammer isn't all that easy. I certainly don't have one amongst my giant stash of unpainted figures, so I made one. Or rather, I converted one.

Reaper Bones 89011
Seelah, Iconic Paladin

This (left) is the miniature I started from. It's one that I got in one of Reaper's early Bones Kickstarters.

I cut off her sword and made the hammer from a bit of brazing rod and some plastic sprue.

It's a club-hammer rather than a warhammer, but that's mainly because the thought of carving a teensy-tiny warhammer made me cringe. It's a hammer, and that'll be enough I hope.

It only occurred to me after I'd done all the work that if I'd looked amongst my cleric figures instead of the fighter types, I could probably have found something that didn't require any messing about at all. Oh well.

Couple of days later...

I've given her a paint job, though I'm not entirely happy with it. My eyesight is really degrading these days, and I don't imagine it will ever get any better.

In the course of painting the figure I realised that she has almost no nose. That indicates to me that it's one of Reaper's early plastic figures; they had issues with quite a few of their miniatures where the plastic didn't properly fill the mould, or maybe the moulds hadn't been made properly.

Spiky Critters

 

Owing to my terrible lack of organization, I don't remember who sculpted this, nor where I got it, nor what it was called, but I have a vague thought that maybe it was by Schlossbauer, and most likely from Thingiverse.

I printed it in a range of scales, mainly to allow myself a bit of flexibility in how I present it on the roleplaying table. The one on the far left I painted some considerable time ago; the others I just got around to today, which is why they differ in colour.

I'll use it as some trollish sort of monster. Maybe it'll be mum and dad, and the rebellious teen, and a couple of kids. Or maybe it'll be one of those critters that unexpectedly changes size on you just when it's least convenient.

Blacksmith's House (28mm, WiP)

 

I have no memory of where this model came from; I suspect it was a Humble Bundle I went for a few years ago. I printed it a year or two ago on my Ender 3, and it's just been sitting around waiting for me to do something with it.

Now I've primed it and glued it to a bit of MDF, and started the groundwork with sawdust and dirt. Where I'll go from here I'm really not sure. It's a bit uninteresting just as it is.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure why I printed this in the first place. I have no real use for it for tabletop gaming. Still, it's something to do from time to time.

Retro Pig-Faced Orcs

 

About a year ago I sculpted these two retro-styled pig-faced orcs, based on the aesthetics of the ancient Minifigs orcs of the 1970s. And now, at long last, I've got around to painting them.

I've painted them in a very simple "toy soldier" style, and then slathered them in Army Painter Quickshade (oil-based, dark tone).

I originally intended to do a range of different weapons for them as well; the original Minifigs range basically used the same body and just changed the weapons, so that would have been pretty straightforward. Things like archers would need a whole new figure sculpted, though I could reuse a lot of elements quite easily. If I recall correctly, the officer figures just added cloaks and helmet crests, so again, no big deal there.

However, that burst of enthusiasm has passed, and I never got around to doing any of that. Maybe some day.

Note: these are much too large to fit in with the genuine white metal figures of yore; they'd need to be rescaled to about 60% or thereabouts. These ones are designed to scale with massive modern 32mm "heroic" figure sculpts.

Toilet Paper Merchant

 

This guy was sculpted by somebody, I don't know who, a couple of years ago in 2020 when toilet paper hoarding was very much in the news, and I printed it (not very well) on my Ender 3.

At long last I've got around to giving it a very basic paint job.

It's a more-or-less 28mm mini.

Evil Tree

 

This model came from a Humble Bundle I got some time ago. It's called Evil Tree, and that's about as much as I know about it.

I printed it on my Ender 3, the first print using Tom Tullis' printer profile for Cura 4.11.

Lurking in the background there is, as usual, Sergeant Measureby, for scale.

Basilisk

 

The basis of this model is an old sculpt of Miguel Zavala's, that I have taken into Blender and sculpted a bit to add detail. He's actually updated his basilisk model since this one was originally designed, so it wasn't really a necessary job, but it gave me a bit more experience at organic sculpting in Blender, so that's all to the good.

The skin scale texture is a bit more even than I would have liked, and the limbs could have done with some more muscle and skin-fold definition, but never mind. It will do.

The thing's face reminds me of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, though nastier.

Another 3d Printed Ruin

 

This ruin, again from Printable Scenery, was printed in two parts, and took about three days of printing all up. You can see a big gap between the front and back sections; I haven't yet decided whether or not I'll fill it or leave the model in two pieces.

There are quite a few stringing boogers remaining, and normally I'd scrape them all off, but in this case I intend to use them as the basis for some creeping ivy on the walls and pillars.

Unlike the mausoleum I completed recently, this model is going to have a whole heapin' helpin' of grass and moss added after the painting of the stonework is complete. That's going to be a while away though, because I want to mainly use static grass, and I'm waiting for a static applicator to arrive from Canada — and that's probably a month or six weeks away, under current conditions.

A couple of days later...

I've applied some limited colour to the ruins with various washes and glazes, and until the vegetation goes on, that's about all the colour there will be.

As well as some grasses and bushes around the base, I want to add some mosses and things growing on the stones of the ruins themselves. I find this tends to seat the structure within the scene, rather than making it look like it's just been plonked down on to a scenic base.

Several days later...

I've made a beginning on applying some vegetation to the ruin.

At the moment, the glue is still quite wet, and I'll let it dry out completely before I go any further as the colours will change a bit, and I want to be able to see just what is going on.

I'll probably have to knock back some of the more lurid colours by spraying a filter over them, but we shall see.

Most of the ground cover is foam flock. The mossy patches are static grass, and the bushes are lichen of some sort.