Standing on the Corner watching all the Grells go by...
(May 2019)

So I made some Grell (or is it Grells?) out of Greenstuff because they're Great. And I didn't have any and I like the idea of them.

The Grell are done as far as I'm concerned. Just need to get around to painting and basing them. The bases are 25mm square so they're a reasonable size. I guess I'll just paint suckers on the tentacles or whatever. I'm not keen on the spiky bits on the ends of the tentacles in the latest D&D monster manual. Doesn't look right to me - and hard to reproduce at this scale with out being flimsy or bulky :-)

 

How I made the Grell

(May 2019)

The process took a couple of weeks to make the Grell with most of the time waiting for bits to dry overnight.

Tools :

• Magnifier Lamp  - so I can get a good look at what I'm doing on the figure 
• Sculpting Tools - to push greenstuff around. 
• Gardening Wire - got this from the local hardware store. It's 1mm thick or possibly less.
• Greenstuff - blue/yellow epoxy, kneadatite
• Glue Gun - mainly to glue the wire to the stand so it didn't flop around
• plastic 25x25mm square base - you can use whatever base you want.

Process :

1. The base - I drilled a hole in a 25x25mm base with my pin vice and stuck a roughy 1 inch long piece of gardening wire into the hole just deep enough so that the base sat flush on the table. I glued it in place under the base with some hot glue. I used hot glue as it sets pretty quick.
2. The body - I put a blob of greenstuff on the top of the wire slightly smaller than I want the brain shape to be and shaped it into a roughly brain shape.
3. Tentacles -  I rolled some greenstuff into a long thin sausage with my finger (a bit less than 1mm?) and cut off about a 15-20mm length. I squashed the end of the sausage on low on one side of the brain shape and then grabbed the other end of the sausage gingerly with my fingers and twisted and looped it until it looked all tetaclely. 
4. I propped the figure against a cup at an angle so that when the tentacle drooped back under its own weight it dried at a funny angle helping it to look like it was lifting its tentacles menacingly. I guess you could also try using bluetack to prop it at whatever angle you like. I left the tentacle to dry.
5. I repeated steps 3 and 4 four more times down one side of the brain, sometimes propping it sideways or backwards against something to vary how the tentacles hung.
6. I repeated 3-5 on the other side of the figure until I had a total of ten tentacles, 5 each side.
7. The body cont. - I rolled some greenstuff into a *very* fine sausage and then cut of roughly 1 inch lengths and using a sculpting tool, attached the sausage to the brain shape, making sure to make a squiggly pattern. I made sure I didn't go over the centre line of the brain shape so that I left a slight gap between left and right hemispheres. I left each section to dry before I continued so that I didn't ruin the pattern by squashing it with my fingers.
8. I repeated step 7 until the brain was covered in squiggly bits and a slight gap between, running from the back to the front and down the middle.
9. The beak. - I squashed some greenstuff to the front of the brain and low down, and shaped that with a sculpting tool into the shape of the lower beak. I made this relatively small as I wanted the upper beak to overhang. I left this to dry.
10. I squashed a larger bit of greenstuff above the lower beak and shaped that with my sculpting tool until it looked beaky enough. I left that to dry.

 

Vargouilles
(October 2018)

So I'm a DM for a couple of  D&D games at the moment (v5e). One group of characters found themselves recently in the infamous bowels of Undermountain. Their first encounter? Vargouilles. I didn't have any miniatures at the time so the ever-present goblins were pressed into service. Having never used vargouilles as an encounter before I found them to be unusual and fun so I decided to make some for future encounters.

Now I have a number of ghoulish/zombie/skeletal heads in my bits box, but no small bat wings. To make these I realised that the little squarish clips used to tie loaves of bread were made of plastic, and so could be used to make the wings. I have a feeling that someone has suggested using these before for model making but I can't for the life of me remember who it would have been but I would love to give them credit for this revelation as they are a great, free alternative to buying plastic card - for making small things anyway.

So after making the wings I selected the heads and cut little slots into the sides of them into which were glued the wings. Here's some GW zombie heads from years ago that I used.

Next I attached them to roughly 5cm lengths of garden fencing wire which was glued into the conveniently placed neck holes. I did use a pin vice to drill a bit deeper for some of the heads.

Next was to curl up the bottom ends of the wire so that they could be easily glued to some 20x20 stands using a glue gun.

I then used a little bit of greenstuff to add the odd tentacle and/or rotting tongue, etc and then finally  painted them and finished the bases.

The painting scheme is inspired by this image. I'm pretty happy with them, especially as they cost so little to make.

As a side note I was pronouncing them as var-goo-eels. My father questioned this as the word looked french and so expected the 'll' sound to not be pronounced ie Var-goo-ee. We looked it up in wiki and found it was pronounced slightly different again. Having thought about it for a little while I reckon my Dad was probably right...this time...;-)

 

Penanggalen
(October 2018)

I had Vargouilles and Penanggalen mixed up in my head (see what I did there?) but I then watched a movie called 'Mystics in Bali' from 1981 that featured this strange vampire like creature. As I was making Vargouilles anyway I thought I'd make this one at the same time.

Like the Vargouilles, this is basically a head from the bits box stuck on some garden fencing wire and then the wire was wrapped in bits of green stuff to act as various internal organs.

Another cheap miniature ready to use in a future D&D (5e) game.

 

Flameskulls (July 2018)

 

Flameskulls
(July 2018)

These Dungeons and Dragons monsters were pretty easy to make. I twisted two bits of garden wire around a pencil to make spiral shapes. One end of each I glued into the 20x20mm base after drilling some holes with a pin vice. I then drilled some holes into the backs of two GW plastic skulls I had lying around and glued them to the other ends of the spiral wire shapes. Then I put some greenstuff on the wire to make the trails of flames.

Stirges

(March 2018)

So I saw a youtube on how to make stirges using plastic leaves and a glue gun. It looked really easy and surprisingly effective. I decided to make some stirges as well but with wire and greenstuff.

The wings were two little blobs of greenstuff with some wire snipped and pushed into them. I shaped the wings roughly into little diamonds and let them set. After they had set I held them between the wings with some needle nose pliers and bent the wings up a bit to look a bit more natural.

At the same time I snipped off roughly 50mm of wire to serve as a stand. I bent about 8mm of each end at 90 degrees to the stand. One end was glued to a 20x20mm cardboard square and with the other I wrapped some greenstuff sausage shapes, leaving a couple of mm poking outside the sausage to serve as the proboscis. I did a bit of prodding with my knife to form a round shape at one end for the head, a gap in the middle for where the wings will be glued, and then dragged the knife down the body from the head to the rear, so that it looked like it had some hair, and let the body hang out past the stand so it looked like the wire stand attached more toward the middle of the body.

I let the body set and then glued the wings to the body. I got two tiny blobs of greenstuff and squashed them onto the head to form eyes and then painted the little beasts.

For a little bit more time and effort than Scotty in the youtube, I had me some stirges ready to swoop on the next lot of low level characters in my game. Looking at them now, I really should have just stuck some pins through some dead flies and be done with it ;-)

 

Snakemen!
(March 2018)

 So I finally finished my snakemen. This was a project sitting on my bench every since I saw someone's post about converting GW plastic salmanders into snakemen. I thought I'd make them beefier by using Heroquest and Battlemaster plastic Orcs instead.

These started out by trying to find something to do with the extra greenstuff that I had made up for other projects. With the left over greenstuff I would do something to these figures like add a nose or some mail, etc.

 

I chopped off their lower halves and replaced them with some curled wire. I then built up the lower bodies with green stuff.  I built separate layers on the backs of the snake bodies which gave them a segmented look - don't know why I did this, maybe I was thinking of worms or maggots?

 

I also extended and and put hoods on the heroquest coats with greenstuff to give them a cultist feel. The two battlemaster figures ended up being guard types so I fixed their mail armour. On all of them I puttied the faces so they had more snakelike snouts.

I didn't like the chopper on one of the figures - too Orcy - so in some kind of ironic move, I replaced it with a Heroquest Orc curved sword that I must have removed from some other orc miniature at some stage.

 

The 2nd Battle for Stone Pass (Part 3)

The 2nd Battle for Stone Pass (Part 3)

(October 2017)

The main battle is joined.

The characters returned to where the Waterdeep light troops were staked out to the east of the keep. Carlssen was uncharacteristically brave and moved closer to the keep alone and cast his attack spell (lightning bolt). The goblin and ogre hordes, and now two regiments of orcs, began to advance on the characters' postion. They were soon joined by King Khargol himself, and Zindug, the orc shaman, who both appeared from inside the keep. The troop of orc guards (skulkers) at the top of the keep threatened to shoot their bows at anything that moved.

As the orcs advanced on the characters, the extremely blurry but disciplined Waterdeep forces of Captain Baldartin arrived. I decided to randomize where he would appear and his force (of course) appeared to the rear of the orcs to the south west.

Photia the Gnome decided to move north, back into the mountains. He claims it was to lie in wait and attack the ogre flank but Carlssen was secretly wondering if he was simply hiding from the battle.

The orcs advanced on the characters' position to the east and were oblivious to the arrival of Captain Baldartin. The forces of Mud Creek under Captain Darian then arrived. Again randomised, they appeared in the centre of the southern table edge, right on the flank of the orcs (of course).

Captain Baldartin moved his troops as quickly as possible toward the orcs' rear, trying to avoid the impassable huts and disordering terrain of the ogre squat.

Meanwhile, the archers and characters stood on the hill. They awaited the arrival of the ogres who could see their quarry and ignored everything else.

To the west, the goblin horde turned about, ready to face the troop of cavalry threatening to charge them across the disordering terrain and into their rear.

In the east the ogres were all but breathing down the necks of the archers. The wiley Tranky positioned himself on the ogres' flank and turned into a bear (i used the stats of a troll boss but without regenerate) and Photia finally appeared from the shrubbery on the ogres' rear. Ogre sammich coming up?

In the centre the orcs screamed their tradedmark warcry and charged the milita and one of the shieldwall regiments. King Khargol charged directly at Captain Darian while the shaman lurked behind them to bolster the orc spirits with a banechant spell. Captain Baldatirn wove through the orc huts, hoping for a flank charge on the orc regiment.

The orcs on the left flank fought nose to nose with the milita horde but neither gave way. The orc regiment on the right flank was repulsed and was then countercharged by both shieldwall regiments who were fought back by the tough orcs. King Khargol managed to waver Captain Darian but the Captain was healed by the halfling priestess Mistress Felliana, who graced the table in full plate armour and riding a small but viscious pony.

On the right flank (west), the Waterdeep cavalry decided they could not win a charge over broken ground at a phalanx horde of goblin stickers, so they retired.

On the left flank (east), the ogres were charged by Tranky and Photia and, due to the constant rain of arrows from the archers and the flank attacks, they wavered and were unable to countercharge. Carlssen moved into range of the keep and cast more spells at the guards on the roof.

The Orc regiment on the right flank (west) charged the shieldwall and broke it but were in turn charged in the flank by the other shieldwall who destroyed them. The remaining orc regiment and militia staggered back and forth but the milita finally broke and fled allowing the orcs to turn and threaten Captain Darian. It was at this point that the orc morale flagged when they saw King Khargol charge and fail to break Captain Darian. Captain Darian responded and charged King Khargol along with a shieldwall regiment and the King finally fell under their combined weight of arms. Mistress Felliana was there to utter healing prayers on the Captain once more. At the same time the goblins turned back to the centre to try and bolster the orc ranks.

On the left flank (east) the ogres were shot at by the archers but nothing came of it. This allowed the ogres to turn against their main threat, Tranky, who fought in bear form for the rest of the battle. Carlssen saw his opportunity and moved off towards the rear of the orc regiment and prepared his spells.

One more charge from Tranky and Photia and the ogres finally broke and ran. At the same time the last orc regiment was destroyed by a well aimed spell from Carlssen. Zindug the shaman found himself surrounded and was charged by Captain Darian and Captain Baldartin but managed to fight them off. The archers moved up and began to shoot at the guards in the tower who had been previously softened up by Carlssen's spells. Well aimed arrows fell upon the guards, causing them to flee.

Meanwhile in the centre the Waterdeep cavalry finally charged the goblin phalanx frontally and, not surprisingly were repulsed. The goblins rubbed their little green hands with glee and countercharged the cavalry, causing devastating wounds on the cavalry. But then a double 1 was thrown and the goblins were shocked to see, after the dust had settled, that the cavalry still stood their ground!

This left only the shaman and the goblins of the orc forces. Sadly round 6 was already over and there was no round 7 to be had so the game was called. I can only surmise that the goblins and shaman would have been scattered under the combined mass of the remaining human forces and characters.

But even though the shaman ran away, would he be back again another day?

 

The 2nd battle for Stone Pass (Part 2)

The 2nd battle for Stone Pass (Part 2) 

(October 2017)

The photos of the battle below are all oriented so that the southern edge of the table is at the top of the picture. This part of the game was more of a preamble to the main battle.

 

The battlefield at dawn. The troop of light infantry is to the left (east) with the three characters behind the hill. Between their position and the Stone Pass keep is the now empty boar corral. The mountain range is to the north (bottom of the page) and the orc huts, ogre squat and goblin shanty town are arranged along the right side of the table (west).

A troop of Waterdeep Light Infantry snuck up to the east of the orc camp behind a convenient hill. The characters, Tranky, Photia and Carlssen followed them and then the three characters moved further north to the the edge of the mountains. Therese couldn't make it this time as she had to meet up her mates online instead (15 year olds *rolls eyes*)

 

From behind the hill the characters could spy out the whole encampment. They discovered that a troop of guards (skulkers) was still on top of the partially ruined keep.

The characters found that goblins had recently joined King Khargol's forces and erected a hasty shanty town to the north west of the keep.

The characters snuck westward to the goblin shacks but encountered a troop of skulking orcs hidden in the brush near Stone Pass itself. The skulkers shot their bows but missed everything and the characters soon routed them.

The characters slipped past the goblin shanty town to the west. Tranky decided to sew some mayhem and set the shacks on fire with the use of a Flaming Sphere spell (fireball), represented by the orange D20.

Immediately, a horde of goblins leapt out of the shacks along with a horde of orclings (snotlings, miniature goblins, whatever) and advanced on the characters.

The characters cast spells and shot arrows at the orclings and soon routed them with some lucky dice rolls before the orclings could retaliate. The characters then decided to retreat as the goblin horde advanced, backed up by a horde of ogres and a regiment of orcs who were roused by the goblin/orcling screams and smell of smoke

...concluded in

 

The 2nd Battle for Stone Pass (Part 1) (October 2017)

The 2nd Battle for Stone Pass (Part 1)
(October 2017)

So I've been playing a D and D 5e campaign with my family for the last year or so and it's come to the point where the players have decided to attack an encampment of Orcs with the help of some of the local townsfolk and some reinforcements from the neaby City State of Waterdeep. Instead of playing it out as a D and D game however, I thought it would be interesting to use Kings of War instead.

The campaign itself is based on  'A Source of Secrets' by Kristjan Matthiasson with a fair bit last minute modification by myself, as is usually the case with any campaign I run.

The characters are :

• Photia the male gnome barbarian (played by my father)
• Tranky the male half-orc druid (played by my son)
• Carlssen the male halfling sorceror (played by my brother)
• Therese the female tiefling bard (played by my other son when he's not on the computer)

The battlesite to be fought over was a mountainous field surrounding a defensive keep that protected the valley of Kyros from potential invasion through Stone Pass, the mountain pass to the north of the valley. Orcs and other greenskins had been sighted around the mountains to the north in increasing numbers and for several months there were rumours of a potential orc invasion. These rumours were soon found to be true when the Big Boss, King Khargol emerged to lead the greenskins toward the fertile lands in the valley of Kyros.

The first battle was between a force of orcs that had gathered under the banner of King Khargol. This force included orcs (including boar riders), orrogs, goblins, orclings and ogres. The humans, under the leadership of Captain Darian and Sargent Derrier, were attacked by an orc force under cover of night and the Stone Pass keep set alight. A confused battle ensued and, after losing Stone Pass keep itself to the flames, the Captain was forced to retreat, with as many forces as he could save, to Mud Creek where he and the villagers prepared their defences.

Word was sent through to the nearby City State of Waterdeep that the Orcs were on the move and, if left to their own devices, would soon overrun Mud Creek. This was a worry as the orcs could use the valley of Kyros as a base to gather more forces and potentially threaten Waterdeep itself.

The characters were not present for this first battle as they were busy elsewhere chasing a nasty necromancer. They had managed to unknowingly release this necromancer from his prison and they were trying to chase him down and put him back in prison before he could do any further damage.

Some weeks after the 1st battle of Stone Pass, the charming Captain Baldartin arrived from Waterdeep, heading up a force of cavary and light infantry. He assumed control of the valley's forces (which ruffled the feathers of Captain Darian) and called for some of his troops to scout out the area while the rest of his troops were to join the locals in building wooden palisades etc against the imminent Orc attack. The characters offered to help and scouted around the area. They found several disparate tribes of Orcs and Goblins who were busy ransacking farms, setting fields on fire, ambushing unsuspecting woodsmen, trapping boars to use as mounts, and generally having a great time. They also discovered that King Khargol had set up camp with a force of orcs and ogres in the half ruined Stone Pass keep and was waiting for the other rampaging orc tribes to calm down and rejoin him. The characters decided to at least hobble King Khargol's force by stampeding the boars that had been collected in a corral to the east of the keep, and then sneak back to the village.

Before all the orc tribes regrouped into an effective attacking force, Captain Baldartin decided to strike. The characters moved forward to Stone Pass keep to scout the area along with 10 of the Waterdeep light troops. Captain Baldartin followed up with his main force and his plan was to strike after dawn when the humans could see and the orcs would have bedded down.

 The human forces:

Captain Baldartin (hero)
2 x troops of Archers (Waterdeep Light Infantry)
2 x troops of Sargents (Waterdeep Medium Cavalry) led by Sargent Leff and Sargent Vite

Captain Darian (hero)
Mistress Felliana (wizard)
2 x regiments of shieldwall (experienced village warriors)
1 x horde of militia (village women, children, old men, incendiary pigs, etc ) led by Sargent Derrier

+ the three adventurers Photia, Tranky and Carlssen.

The Orc forces:


King Khargol (Krudger on a boar)
Zindug (Shaman on a boar)
1 x horde of goblin stickers led by the goblin boss Sagbag
1 x horde orclings
1 x horde of ogres (trolls but no regenerate) led by the ogre boss Clob
2 x regiments of orc ax
2 x troops of skulkers


How the 2nd battle for Stone Pass unfolded is in

 

Forgotten Heroes - Final Rush Job

Forgotten Heroes - Final Rush Job

(June 2017)

Okay so here are my final entries for Forgotten Heroes. I was running out of time so I've thrown paint roughly in the direction of the figures and hoped for the best.

 

I went with the version of Color Kid that appears in the Legion of Substitute Heoes Special. This was released in 1985 so I guess that explains the shoulderpads and wedge haircuts. I started painting the rainbow that appears on Color Queen (on the right) and then I copyed this onto Color Kid. It wasn't until later that I realised the rainbow wasn't the usual ROYGBIV order - yet this is how it appears for Color Queen. Then I looked at all the versions of Color Kid and noticed that the artists didn't seem to stick to one order of colours, even within the same comic! But its too late now, I won't be changing them :-)

I left the eyes that blank color as that's how they appeared in the '85 comic - I don't know why the eyes are black as (I think) he wasn't made blind until a later story arc. I found the shoulderpads for Color Kid started out in the original concept as an elaborate collar, as seen here in the 1968 version. You can also see here the rainbow is out of whack again.

The hair in the '68 version seems sort of like that crew cut that some young kids seemed to get in the 60s, and is also sported by a very young Suggs from Madness here.

I regret not spending more time on these guys as they show some promise when you look a them from a distance :-) Maybe next year I'll make the guy I was first drawn to - that edgy, fatalistic Color King...