Colored miniature

Hello again everyone,

I ended my last post about miniatures with a remake of an older one.
A small badger in armor, swinging a hammer - a paladin.

Though I like the raw look of sculptures I think miniatures really benefit from a good paintjob. It increases the readability since they are so small and usually watched from some distance.

I was worried at first and not sure how I wanted him to look, so I took the previous photo and used photoshop to sketch some colors. The first attempt was very grey and dull, since the badger istelf doesnt add much color either. After that I came to like a bronze and gold mix or a red-shaded gold. The first idea to make all his clothes leather was changed to give him a white dress under the armor with yellow accents. This together with the warm-colored armor created a nice impression of a holy knight.

Here the steps

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The raw models, the left (old) one with universal white primer

An early color sketch, mostly iron and leather colors

the final sketch

And the colored mini. metallic silver, bronze and gold and acrylics

Miniatures for roleplaying games

Hello everyone,

over the last year I started to enjoy sculpting more and more. I tried my hands on miniatures for tabletop games, but had to learn that the type of clay you use makes a very big difference in what you can actually create.

I started a long time ago with super sculpey doll - which might be the softest clay available. And because I had nothing else I used it for minis as well as bigger sculptures. But I had no idea what I was doing and just slapped it all together and put some colors on it.

Later I got some sculpey-firm, which was still soft, but not like the doll clay. I made a "giant lizard" miniature with it, which turned out a lot better than the first attempts, but still faced some problems in what you can do on that scale.

Lately I actually got an example box of Beesputty, which is made to build miniatures out of it and it shows. This stuff is rather strong which you definately need to sculpt a solid figure and all those tiny details. The first one I made was a badger in armor, the next a giant spider. And after that I went back and gave the badger a second attempt.
The biggest difference to the previous minis was that I used a tiny wire skeleton as a base for these, which gave them a lot more stability. If you attach an arm to a figure without a wire it might break or not hold together to begin with.

Here a collection of the pieces I made so far:
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The first minis - no details at all

A firmer clay

A wire base + beesputty - big difference

A giant spider, painted with acrylics

Lots of details

Getting the right wire and a plan on how to attach it all was tricky

Twisted wires and a stinky epoxy clay... didnt work

 

Soldering paper clips together finally did the trick

Redoing the badger to see what I can do better 

Sculpting and crafting for roleplaying games

Every now and then, I get the strong urge to do something else than painting.
Over the last weeks my free time was spent on crafting little things for my roleplaying group.

Here a sculpt I made out of super sculpey (med), wire and tinfoil as an underbuild. I sculpted small figures before, but this is the biggest so far, ~15cm in heigth. The darker parts are a made out of an older patch of clay, which seems to burn a bit faster, likely because the clay is older. This was not intended but it gives the eyebrows an interesting touch.
The creature is a badger, which is a bit hard to tell, since it lacks the black and white marks on the face.

The pedestal for the figure was added later, since the ground of the figure itself was a bit too thin for my taste and also bent slightly upwards during the baking process. Therefore the base has a fitting negative shape to keep it from wobbling.

Here some other objects I made: A little box to store my gaming stuff. I used a premade paper box with 2 magnets in it as a base and then proceeded to paint it with acrylics for a nice wooden look. The metal parts are painted cardboard from some amazon boxes. I didnt want to glue something inside the box, so I made a divider out of 4 intersecting pieces that just fit very well, but can still be moved around.

 And finally, my first dice tower. I was interested in getting one since I saw the amazing wooden version from Wyrmwood. Sadly that one is way too pricey for me and I didnt really like most of the regular ones you can buy on etsy and alike, so why not make one myself? My first idea was to use wood, but I lack the tools and materials for that, so I used another material I really like to use: Cardboard! Really heavy cardboard ~2mm thick, you can find it on the back of large paper blocks. Some planning, a lot of glueing, cutting and painting later and the thing is done.

League of legends skin ideas

As a league of legends fan, I like to wrap my head around new skin ideas for some champions to see what I can come up with. So here are 2 that I took a bit further then only a sketch.

Owlbear - Volibear
Spreads his wings when charging and makes a loud hoot on his bite attack. A D&D based skin series might be a neat thought. Goblins, Beholder, Orcs ...

 

And another one: 

Bloodmoon Illaoi - The bloodmoon skins are always themed around a red and golden color palette, with an asian look and japansese demon masks. They are always very appealing and so I took the concept and used it on one of my favorite champions: Illaoi.

 

Armageddon - Board game illustrations

Hello everyone,

a selection of illustrations from one of my recent projects.
The board game "Armageddon", published by Queen Games.

Painting post apocalyptic buildings, maps and items is a rare topic, so this was a lot of fun and a challenge as well, as I usually work more in a comic and lineart heavy stile.

Check out the game, share and like if you want.

Headquarter - Completed construction

Kitchen tent

The garden

The bar

Communication tent

Basic watchtower

Construction yard

Firefighters

The chruch of the merciful Bob

The church of the vengeful Bob

Trading outpost

Living area

Relics

More relics

Maori Warrior

For the monthly "character design challenge" of the Facebook group with the same name.
A Maori warrior. #CDChallenge