sort of busy

 Or at least inspired! Hello all and welcome to my blog once more. I'm thinking this will be a short post but, who knows. 

 

I've been watching the Conjuring movies in order with some friends using the power of the internet. It's been a while since I sat at my computer watching movies instead of scrolling mindlessly through the same three websites. It's kind of nice (I've started also scrolling through NEW websites while watching) I think this is not a unique thing to me, but having a tasl (watching movie) makes it much easier to idly focus on crafting. I've sculpted three new guys in the time I've spent watching these movies. Two have been little squig-likes and one has just been a big head. To me, there's nothing better than sculpting faces, at least in the way that I sculpt them. I haven't practiced much with likeness and I'm sure it would drive me to insanity or at least boredom. 

 I've also opted to consider my giant sculpt complete and just go ahead and paint it. It's not complete yet but it's started. Unfortunately I'm pleased enough with it's current incomplete state that I'm not feeling overly pressed to get it more complete. Mainly I need to clean up the patina on the shin guard of deception, do metallics on the club, and do some body paint on the torso and head. The body paint part is a bit daunting, since I want the paint to look reminiscent of clouds. 

I've gotten a lot of satisfaction out of my giant, hence why I sculpted another big head. I'd like to make another giant because it's a good time, sue me! Or commission me! I'd love to do a 1 off for someone to paint.  Ok enough yammering, here's the one picture I took for this post.

 "Uh hey, you didn't talk about everything here!"

Oops! You're right. That top left sculpt is the Dope Champion, "Phlegm" I sculpted the main figure a bit ago based on a photo of my true champion and recently sculpted a sword to go with it. That's what that is so there you go! Thing to consider in the future if you use a reference that is a mirror photo, consider flipping it so you don't make someone left handed when they're probably not left handed! 

painted up some boys for a friend

 The best thing about making weird miniatures (I'm so weird I'm not like the other girls) is you get to meet other people who like to make weird miniatures. sometimes you even get along with those people well enough that they send you as of yet unreleased miniatures on the condition that you paint them! This is the case with today's post.

Jonathon Brodsky of smaller.paul.assumption and goblineer of The Goblin Group sent me these guys that he sculpted and got produced. 

along with some loverly stickos

 I got 'em based asap, of course. And my sinuses paid the price as the superglue activated my allergies. Ah well, we all must suffer a little before shedding this mortal coil!

first one done

In my epic paint scheme I've kind of decided some things about what colors mean what. No one has ever done this before, I understand it might sound kind of radical, please bear with me. In many cases, I like to think of green as being armor, like bronze with a patina. Whereas blue is usually sort of saved for magical things, whether it's wizards or some kinda magical construct. 
 

wiz bot

wizard star

Red is just whatever. I don't know what it's supposed to be yet. Anyway I painted this guy reddish orange. I repainted his knees later which you will see. 

This guy is really funny to me. 

And last but not least this bruiser. This guy had some pretty smooshed feet so I had to do a bit of bendy repair work. Jonathon is resculpting the feet before getting this one produced, which is kind of delaying the release a bit. Hopefully he'll be available soon because I had a lot of fun painting on them all and I hope you will too!

Now, onto some glamour shots. I tried to do a little background in my sketchbook using crayons, don't ask me why. it really didn't work, but that's more of a "me not committing fully" thing and not a "this is a process that won't ever work for anyone" thing. you should try it.

 

oh yeah, there's a little car that came with them too. I need to finish painting it, so I didn't take any final pics with it yet. Whatever, sorry!

 So that's that, goodbye!

A wee bit o' the terrain

 I make it no secret that I think games are swell. Even if I don't play them very often. While I was doing daily doodles (I have since lapsed considerably) I drew a page that was just a couple simple terrain pieces. I was just thinking "Man what terrain would I need to have for a simple game of Cauldron?"

 

a simple taste

 I like the aesthetic of overgrown ruins. Always have, likely always will. There is something very tranquil about nature existing overtop of structures that have fallen to the passage of time. We all know this is Peak Aesthetic so I'll not linger on the Why of it. These are my drawings, I hope you like them.

One day, I decided to make some simple bases for future terrain. A inspired start to be sure! I glued two pieces of cardboard together with PVA glue and arranged with alternating corrugation. The alternating corrugation lends strength to the cardboard that simple layering them will nilly would not. So, two layer of cardboard, glued, then I put a couple of books on top of it and left them alone to dry. About a day later, I removed the books and cut out some round shapes. Let us see the rounded shapes now. 

 

beautiful, with beveled edges too no less!

 

This was the start of something most beautiful. Finally, the beginning of my terraining arc part 2! I set to work a bit later busting up some sticks I had gathered for my Rumpus board (still unfinished) and smacked them down on the cardboard bases using Hot Glue. Let me show you...

perfect scale for my bug eye goblins

Oh yes, we were cooking now. I had intended to glue more sticks to these to add more craggy branches but I opted not to for a few reasons. The first is that they don't really need it. Theater of the mind and all that. You know these trees are craggly because you have a brain. Second, I haven't had a lot of luck doing it in a way that felt durable. On my Rumpus board, the limbs I glued have continuously broken over the months after I made it. Too be fair, I am keeping it propped up vertically in my closet behind my jeans. But regardless, I felt it just wasn't worth the effort of doing it again, especially on these smaller scale trees.

A bit later I decided to make the stone house. My thoughts were I wanted it to be a little small to be a normal persons house. Some kind of gnome or goblin or hobbit lived here. My friend Goob (of goobinsgitz fame) had made a diorama out of cardboard and paper clay and long ago put me onto the magic of that medium, so since I had some I decided I was going to make this house of out cardboard and paperclay. I cut a rough angled house shape out of cardboard, then traced it on a second piece of cardboard giving me a front and back of a house. I next cut two pieces of cardboard into squares matching the sides of the house. I glued it all down onto a cardboard base with HOT GLUE. I thought a bit about what kind of roof to give it. I will of course be going with moss somewhere down the line, but I just went ahead and glue some cardboard to act as a base for flocking material sometime in the future. I glued two piece of cardboard together and made a base for the chimney. Next, I made a small door out of coffee stir sticks and put it on the front of the house. After all of that, I started smooshing and smaching cheap paperclay to the house, then after covering it I sculpted a hodge podge of bricks into it.

 

 
 I kept that momentum rolling and took a round cardboard tube, glued a top to it, glued a bunch of stir sticks to the top of it, made a door, then smooshed more paperclay on the sides using a strikingly similar technique as before. I forgot to take pics of it at any stage before but here it is covered in brown paint next to the house. 

 

 

Moving on, I made a few of the walls from my doodle. I will likely make more. I shaped aluminum foil into the rough form I wanted then hOT gLUED them to the cardboard bases, smooshed on paperclay, etc etc. I also made a boulder with a face. Here, I'll even show them to you. 

 

you can tell I sculpted them because there's a sculpting tool in the shot

 

All of these pieces were then treated to some molding paste on the edges to cover up at least a bit of their cardboard heritage. I have much more work to do but for now this is the work I've done. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get a game of Cauldron going in the future, wouldn't that be fun? 

 

Oh and as a teaser here's another build I've been working on

 

Blog Time

 Hello been a bit. My mistake! You all missed my birthday again, but at least I didn't make a post on 9/11 titled "The Tower" about it. 

 ...

Anyway, I've done a few things. First, in honor of me Getting Older I have discounted all items on my store forever going forwards into the future. The prices are permanent and I hope people like that.  I've been neglecting finishing sculpts for the next release, as usual I'm not in much of a rush to get anything done. 

 

I've released Lies That Wizards Will Tell You Volume 2 to my itch.io page. It's another short and sweet'n, six pages of what I hope is entertaining. Bit illegible though, I might switch the font on Volume 3. I have a document with ideas ready for the next one, it's just a matter of doing it. Also apologies for the lack of the usual "Here's how I made this Thing" post that usually accompanyies a multipage project. I just kind of made it on my own without cataloguing the process. I just didn't catalogue the process.

 

 

 

I recently finished playing the original Legend of Zelda. While it is an achievement, I felt empty by the end of it. Even using save states didn't save me from the frustrations of Old School Video Games. Not all that came from it is negative. I've started a document called "Dope Quest." It isn't much to look at now and might never be much to look at, but it's existence has begun and I hope to continue working on it. It will likely be a Gameboy manual sized zine going over the classic game DopeQuest and offering details about the features within it.

 

in case you forgot about these guys

 

 An no dear reader, DopeQuest is not a real game. But it is inspired by some! 

 

I've got another post likely to come out eventually enough. I made some terrain, I need to make some more. Please look forward to it! Now dump that glass of water out and go stand in the sun before it's gone for the winter! 

Update before inevitable Seasonal Burnout

Maybe it's already starting, but let's do a little post before it really sinks in. Hello y'all happy almost done with August. I had a pumpkin spice latte today so you have to understand that it now feels like fall. When it feels like fall I stop wanting to hobby, which is dreadful. I must now admit, I started this blog post without a goal in mind other than to say blog posts are likely to slow down. I actually haven't been un-busy hobbying it's just been different kinds of busy. I bet you want me to talk about it... Most of my creative time has been spent doodling. Over on the Wanted! Reward CC10k discord we have been attempting to doodle daily every day, fill a page with doodles keep it simple, keep it loose, keep it secret keep it safe! stupid! It's both a massive source of inspiration and anxiety. I'm doing my damnedest to do it every day though I've lagged a few times (cue my broken knees.) There's something magical about freeform doodling. Maybe you know this. Maybe you don't. Maybe you're one of these people who doesn't think you can doodle or can't even draw a stick figure. If that's the case, that sucks, maybe you should doodle more often. Anyway, there's a world that exists on paper that you can explore as far as you'd like for very cheap and I think it's awesome. I'm gonna share some of the doodles now, and I'll talk about the last one I share in a bit more depth with some fun anecdotes.

Tanner wanted people to draw Slumlord Covers

we were drawing fps game screens and I been thinky bout chess

barbar

been on a GWAR kick

GWAR made me think about barbarians

doodles of 5mm minis

our legendary club membership badge on a sketchbookie Chao put together

 

You get the gist. Oh, two more images and then the anecdotes. 

 

 "A wretched troll has taken residence at the tippy top of my stone tower! He throws stones at anyone who comes over! It's ruining my life!"

 

"You've risked great personal sacrifice to arrive at my door. Prithee, choose a coveted price to make your own."

 

Posting these doodles led to some funny responses from other members.

 

 Everyone who arrived at the tower keeper's door proceeded to be crushed by giant rocks. idunno. I was thinking of taking this idea further as an adventure zine supplement thing. We shall see!

 

Well tha- oh. wait. I should share something else.

 

 

did I already share these idk

These are the next sculpts I plan to get produced. I need to add a sword to my champion (bottom right) and maybe sculpt one more thing. Hopefully before the year is out! They will be sold as individual figures and it will be preorder style. Hopefully I don't have to sit on stock.

 

Speaking of that, my BIRTHDAY is next month. I will put everything in my store on sale for that week! By a decent amount, either 25% or 30%. Look forward to giving me money! thank you!

 

Ok and at that I'm done talking 

Dope Quest

 Now is the time of 5mm guys

 

Not really, but I figured I'd give it a shot. It's kind of endearing to sculpt some stuff this small. I don't know if he's got socials, but one of the members of the esteemed WRCC10k discord members was sculpting some 6mm skeletons and then my friend Lex sculpted a lil 2mm sculpt and I just had to at least try sculpting something tiny. Turns out it's both harder and a lot easier than I thought it would be. I took some process pics but it's very difficult to take good pics show I ain't sharing them here. I ended up sculpting 4 little figures and I thought they'd look good on a tab so I did that. 

 

 I've been playing a bit of Flying Ostriches and Floating Castles, so I have quests on my mind. I feel like it would be very satisfying to move little 5-6mm guys around on a hex map. Maybe not, but it feels kind of nice to put these four little dudes together and say "Think about adventure!"

 I really can't imagine how people write solo hex crawls btw. FOaFC got an astounding amount of tables.  

gomblins

 

gomblins

 

I finally did something with my polymer heads. I should make more of them because wow this really works for me. It's like, chibi proportions but with wretched gomblin features. Truly innovative!

 

Apparently it's gencon this weekend, I might go on saturday idk. don't look for me but I might go on saturday.