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Needed one of these for a planned encounter so I built him quick, then the party went the other way! Just straight up glued together from bits off of the maple tree in my front yard, with some toothpick bits. Maybe someday he'll get to use that pummeling fist.

i stumbled across this neat article on social media. It seems doable enough - balsa, hydrogen peroxide +sun light, and marine epoxy? Not huge application, but I suppose it would allow glass skyscrapers, greenhouses, and... mostly windows? Will post if I try. Please share if you try.

Decided to give the group dice trays this year for the holidays. I wanted to get this done before Saturday and I wanted to take a shot at getting at least a first one done tonight. So here is the prototype. The finished format will be actually glued down as well as nailed down. I was trying to decide if I like the nail on the top. On the prototype it let's me move things around but they will be optional on the final version.

http://kck.st/2mr5iKg An enormous wooden d20 capable of holding up to a pound of dice. I haven't got one of these yet, but I have gotten some other items from Munchkin Metropolis, and was really satisfied with how quickly the items were produced and arrived. Great quality, too.

It's that time of year again, the High School Play where my wife, the English Teacher, handles costumes, props, hair and makeup. This year's play is an amusing comedy called ... And I was tasked with creating the badge. It started out as an oval of light weight wood from AC Moore or similar store; approximately, 4.5 in by 2.25 in. I printed a Star out on my computer to size and poked holes into the wood where I wanted the star on the oval. Then I marked the cuts I wanted on the edges to get the "shield" shape for the badge. Then I added cork pieces in the shape of the 5 points of the star from the middle to build the star. After hot gluing the pieces down I sanded a bevel into the shape. Then I skimmed the whole thing with DAS air-dry clay to bulk up the background and smooth the star over. Then sanded it down smooth and sealed it once it had cured. Then sanded down the seal with some fine grit and primed it white. From there I painted the background of the badge Reaper Scorched Metal and the star Reaper Honed Steel. Then to set off the star a bit, I pained just the inset top of the star with Vallejo Silver. Voila! I think it came out nice and should show well from the stage. The back just got a nice coating of a craft paint ... specifically Wrought Iron Black like I used to Prime the Marvel Golems. Of course, it got a heavy coat of Testors Dullcote to seal it all up. Seeing the play this Friday. The prop will likely get all of 10 seconds of visibility. LOL But it's all good practice. Enjoy!

Decided to put together a little farmstand scene for a basing project. Split pieces of balsa wood to give a rough lumber approach, now I'm considering how to do painting/sealing on it, as I have minimal experience w Balsa. Want to keep all that little wood grain that popped up when I split them visible. Going to paint it slightly darker with acrylic browns, and then some slightly darker spots and lighter drybrush highlights to accentuate the grain. Should I gesso, or stain the balsa before working on it? Can I just work straight on it and seal it with a varnish afterwards? Any balsa wood experience/suggestions appreciated.

I'm wondering what people use to reproduce natural or light varnished oak and pine wood. Darker woods and weathered wood aren't too difficult with Reaper's paint selection, but I can't seem to find the right combo to get anything close to natural oak or pine - either the "neutral" light wood color of oak or the yellower tones of pine and varnished oak.

Been a while since I posted here. Been a few slow months. Did get to play around with OSL, and plenty of gore on this one. I like gore. :D :

This was another entry in my year-end Conga Line of minis to finish. My husband gave me this whiskey (barrel) golem because it was made of wood and useful for a steampunk game he's running. This is Malifaux' WYR20603. (Apparently there is a slightly fancier version called the "Nightmare Whiskey Golem" which also has little goblin figures squirming all over it and drinking its leakage in disturbing fashions. I am just fine with this version, thanks.) This is the first polystyrene plastic figure I've ever put together. It was interesting, if fiddly. Here he is next to Reaper's 50016: Rosie, Chronotechnician for scale. Original WIP (from a while ago) here.

Mom's Birthday Present 2017 Wall-Mounted, Lighthouse "Fairy Garden" A while ago, I found a plank of boxwood for sale in Michael's. It had a slight s-curve to it and looked cool. So I thought it'd make a cool backboard to a hanging plant display. Well as some of you can plainly see, it turned into a full blown construction project. Checkout the full WIP for details on the planning, pieces-parts and what went into it. The bark crested pot on the left is open for my mother to add her own "fairy garden" elements. She's been talking it up for a while. Now she has no excuse. The top soil has moss that's been growing out back of my house for two seasons mixed in so it will regrow on the surface of the garden. Plant life: Top Left: Begonia Rex (Painted Leaf Begonia) Top Right: Dragon's Tongue Large Pot: Rabbit's Foot Fern (you can see one of the "feet" sticking out) The two buckets will likely require re-potting to larger homes and then she can place whatever she likes there. Here's the completed project: Enjoy!

Okay, so not completely a miniature-related project but it's all I got for the moment. I will be employing a lot of the techniques I have learned over the years though for building bases and terrain. This is a birthday present for my mother (March 30th) and we're in the last days of this project. I bought the pieces over the last couple of months and have been playing with the concepts and working the project out as I could. Same thing preventing me from getting any painting done on minis has hampered this project. So, here's a quick run down of how this came to be and where it stands. I found the boxwood crosscut board in Michael's and decided it was a neat piece to make something from. Originally, and this would have been MUCH EASIER, I was just going to install three tin pots and do an herb pot holder. The idea being a slightly backwards tilting board with three tin pots that would hold similar sized terracotta pots with herbs planted in them. Simple. Naturally, my projects escalate really quickly. So now, I have a lighthouse fairy garden with two herb buckets wall hanging for her new kitchen. The darker background wood will work nicely with the lighter foreground wood in her new kitchen. I'll take a picture when it goes up. On to concept and construction I brought it altogether today after some serious conceptualizing over the last two weeks. Some efforts were made with my buddy and his planer on the black walnut I have which is still at his place so I used a "stand-in" graphic to simulate the surround for the backing. Here's what I mocked up.... Yup, assembled from a photo I took, stock pics, and my mad, photoshopping skills! The bucket at the bottom is pretty much stock. I will line the inside of it to waterproof it. The water around the lighthouse will be blue sand, light blue pebbles and blue moss to keep the "garden" feel glued down to a cork insert shaped into the bucket end. The cork is currently drying, as I glued two pieces together to make a sturdier insert. I drilled holes through it so water can still be applied to the roots and dirt below. I added a bevel to have it sit in the bucket at the right height and structural integrity. The bark/gravel beneath it will provide the main support but this will prevent shifting since I can glue it directly to the sides. On the water will sit a rowboat which could use some more paint and cleaning. The boxwood board has a plastic wrap in that picture still, hence the label. Not sure I want the terracotta pot or something lighter for the wall hanging. I might just use the top of the pot with the broken pot look that a lot of fairy gardens go for. The mini buckets are taped in place but I will be screwing them in. Prolly with some washers and sealer to ensure the tin doesn't slowly rip over time. The little buckets will likely get mini-pot inserts as well as sealed against water damage though rusting will only enhance the look of the piece over time. The big wood block at the bottom won't be the bottom piece. It'll be a piece of black walnut. That's just a stand-in piece of lumber I had around that was the right width. More work continues tomorrow night. Enjoy and Stay Tuned.

I hope the leaves are covering enough. I tried to make her look like she's made of wood anyway.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2002202304/dice-tower-and-tray-ii?ref=category_newest Our goal is to make affordable but efficient dice towers and trays for gamer's.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1392488709/the-dungeons-keep-hard-wood-dice-cases-for-tableto?ref=category_newest Prices actually seem reasonable..

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1584169644/scroll-and-codex-dice-tower-and-rolling-tray?ref=category_newest A bespoke, leather-bound scroll case that transforms into a dice tower with a scroll that unrolls into a rolling tray

Just a couple of pics of some barrels that I did for the challenge.... Thanks for peeking! George

Hey folks! Been finishing up my exchange minis, but I am going to put them on a 4" x 4" wooden base that I have stained. I plan on using Green Stuff, because it is what I have to hand.... Is there anything I need to do to the wood to make sure the green stuff sticks to it? I would really hate it if it got trashed in shipping or for some other reason because I didn't do the right prep work! Thanks All! 8) George

This is the regular Malifaux Whiskey Golem, WYR20603 (not the "Nightmare Whiskey Golem" WYR21015 which has a slightly different pose and extra goblin figures). My husband gave it to me for my birthday as part of a selection of minis which could be used for steampunk. As he said, "It's a wooden robot!" This is the first plastic figure model I've put together, and only the second plastic model. Many thanks to the Reaper forumites who suggested glues to use, as my tube of hardware store Duco Plastic Model Cement was way too gloppy and crude for the fine detail of this model. Thanks to Doug Sundseth and haldir for recommending Tamiya Extra Thin Plastic Cement, which, although terrifying, worked pretty well. This model did not have an assembly diagram. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the sprue to accompany this statement, because yikes. Zillions of fiddly bits. Fortunately, I found a diagram online for the related "Nightmare Whiskey Golem", which is close enough to work for this one as well. Between that and the render of the model on the back of the box, I could suss out how to do it, starting with the extremities and working my way in to the main body. The Tamiya thin glue comes in a little glass jar with a tiny applicator brush, perfect for detailed little models like this one but probably frustrating for people who need to apply it to large surfaces. The glue is so toxic I assembled the model outside and I wore a NIOSH respirator (and of course gloves) while assembling it. The one thing I left off was a little stack of mugs meant to hang off the peg on the upper left barrel on its shoulders. They were a little fussy and I wanted to emphasize the woodenness, not the whiskeyness of the figure. This means that I now have a spare little line of tiny mugs. Maybe I'll add it to a bartender mini ...

A new creation in the works ... Dragon Eye 4" long by 2" wide and made from driftwood oak. The piece was found like this. So far I've painted the "lash" with Reaper Black Ink and the "Iris" with Reds and Oranges as well as the Black Ink. A gloss coat covers the iris. Plan to build up the iris in gloss layers to give it some depth. Teak Oil finish.

Hi ! A really quick paint for my roleplay collection. It's my pathfinder character :)

Last time I was at the local gaming shop, my girlfriend tagged along. She's been looking over my shoulder a lot when I fade off into fantasy-land; and when she found some "cute" miniatures, she decided she wanted to learn how to paint them. So here is the result of the first sessions. Just simple painting mechanics for the table top. I was impressed at least. :) And of course: Showing interest in my nerdy hobbies get her some extra stars. ;) She painted the one on the left. Sort of mimicking what I did on the right.

Needed some simple minis just to keep painting. This is the treasure pile of 77138 (I've done the candleabras already so this completes the set). Apologize for the photo quality, only got one good photo out of the bunch.

These guys were my first attempts at painting wood grain. Could have gone a little better, but practice makes perfect! (Also: I need a steadier hand.) The general effect I was aiming for was "carved wood painted in thin paint by primitive tribe" so I tried to keep the wood grain a tiny bit visible through the paint of the masks.

This could easily be applied to Reaper paints but Vallejo posted this to their FB albums today: Wood grain finish using Vallejo washes These look very cool ... finished piece: Thanks to Shane at Figure Painter Magazine for reposting it to FB for me to find.