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For my online business, we cut lots of wood and leave lots of pieces in the scrap bin. Well, we just processed a beautiful seasoned branch of oak and cut it every which way right up to the very last piece, the spot where it was cut from the body of the tree. For some reason I spent a few minutes looking at the piece and decided to bring it with me to clean up. As you can see in the pics it cleaned up but I wasn't sure what to do with it. So, I had just posted an ash burl to my website and suggested in the description making it into a treasure horde for your dragon. And I realized what this piece was... a broken column sitting amongst the dwarven horde lost to a dragon. As you can see below, I painted the middle to look like solid rock. I left it slightly exaggerated so the paint could be seen under the gold and artifacts I was planning to place on it. Next step, add the booty to the piece. Which is going to require making some treasure bits, golden and silvery pieces with a smattering of platinum. The last question is, being a dwarven treasure, would you use coins, bullion nuggets, or both for the piled mass?

My child received a set of board books one Christmas and once the box was open it served no purpose to anyone but me. I rescued it to turn into a "fancy display box." I will tape up the edges of the acetate, then cover all the non-sky surfaces- on the inside and outside - with paint. What I need now is help choosing a/ some colour/s. Dreadmere gulper for scale (approx 5x6x10.5). Please post colour combo suggestions though I'll probably do a pale blue on the inside sides. Help me decide.

So, recently me, my dad, and my grandpa*, most of whom are excellent woodworkers (with the exception of me) made a collaborative effort at making me a new shelf for my minis, as my old one was just a board nailed into the wall. A pretty piece of scrap, but scrap none the less. Continuing the trend, we used only scrapwood for this shelf. Thus, no cost, except for some stain (which I stole from my dad, so uh, no cost there either). *My grandpa is no joke Santa Claus. A bit of a potbelly, big bushy white beard, glasses, likes cookies and milk, and get this - he makes toys. Right now it's just sitting atop a bookshelf, but I may hang it up on the wall if I'm so inclined. Doesn't look the prettiest, but not bad for being made solely of scrapwood! It's also now a dishonor to me, as there are waaaay too many unpainted minis on that shelf. That will soon change, however... Note: We did put in an extra notch, as you see at the top. The boards that are the shelves get really stuck in that one, plus it leaves no room for my big minis, so I decided to leave that one vacant.

Dan's Build Journal #2 Ruined Keep Edition Finished Project Photos: My Other Build Journals: For those who followed my Halfling/Hobbit home build journal (Link here), you will know that I recently set myself the goal of building a series of display pieces throughout the year, to serve as scenic backdrops when photographing my miniatures. Maintaining a build journal is my way of holding myself to account (I have a bad habit of starting and not finishing things). I took a short break following my last build to catch up on some unpainted miniatures, but I am now ready to get cracking on my next large project, an ancient ruin. Future planned projects include: Sewers Dungeon Adventurers Camp Industrial Complex Spaceship Graveyard Urban Trenches With the Ancient Ruined Keep project looking to be the most complicated of bunch I have chosen to start that now, as I will be returning to work in a week or so and will no longer have a lot of free time, however after this project I have no set order planned, so if anyone has a preference as to what I should start next then I am happy to accommodate. Stage 1 - Casting the stonework. For this project I am going to be using 'Hirst Arts' blocks. For those unfamiliar with Bruce Hirst he produces silicone molds that can be used to cast a wide range of highly detailed modular terrain blocks which can be glued together in endless configurations and designs. The molds I will be using in this project are #704 and #708 (ignore the 3rd mould in the picture, I mixed up too much stone and so filled another none related mould to set aside for a future project as to not waste it). In my last build journal I used Plaster of Paris to cast the small rockface, this time because of the size and potential weight of the build I opted for Dental Stone which is similar to Plaster but sets harder and is much more durable. I suspect given the size of the project, it is going to take me at least a day or two to finish casting enough blocks, so here are a few screen shots of the blocks to give you an idea of what I will be working with (its basically glorified stone lego for diorama builders ).

Here is a Bones inspired kickstarter that I think my fellow painters will appreciate, a travel and display case for your mini. Mini Monument https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/minimonument/mini-monument?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=mini%20monument Thanks for looking!

Hey Everyone, first let me say thanks to all the great people who visited us at ReaperCon. You guys definitely made it our best Con yet. We sold out for the 3rd Straight year. We always love coming to ReaperCon! Now it is time for us try again to restock and continue to make the best storage and display solution for miniatures on the Market, No Foam required. Our latest Kickstarter has launched, and this version of the Clear XCase will be better, stronger, faster...OK, maybe not faster, but definitely better and stronger. These units are able to withstand pretty much any normal usage scenario that you might throw at them, for, what should be, years to come. Also, you will have a chance to get your hands on the first wave of organizational inserts we plan to offer for the XCase. The shelf and tray inserts that are add-ons will allow you to display your miniatures even more prominently during travel or will hold your dice, tokens, cards or whatever components your game has... except the board. This is a relaunch as our September campaign came up short. We did quite a bit of marketing this time and we are doing better but we could still use your backing I hope you will come check it out. XCase 2.0 Kickstarter

As mentioned on my previous post, that as aside from my Fire Giant Jailor WIP; I decided to do a few bases based on his for my Etsy site. Here's the second one: Broken Flagstone Courtyard Portal or Statuary Base Display Base You can find my original post for this on my blog: WoldStand

As an aside from my Fire Giant Jailor WIP; I decided to do a few bases based on his for my Etsy site. Here's the first one: Broken Flagstone Courtyard Display Base You can find my original post for this on my blog: WoldStand

I was wondering if any one had some recommendation on "risers" for miniature display. I have seen someone post about it before, many years ago, and I can't seem to find it. What I remember seeing is a stair-step style display with a clear acrylic cover. I would like to put it on some book shelves and line them up. Any other recommendations would be appreciated too. Thanks you fellow formnites. ~Devin

We just launched our Kickstarter for a brand new Ultra Clear Variant of the Xcase, Expandable Transport and Display. Now the XCase not only can transport your figures but it can show them off as well as many much less versatile options. Check it out. <iframe src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/activemindsgames/xcase-ultra-clear-expandable-miniatures-display-ca/widget/card.html?v=2" width="220" height="420" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

I'm just getting into painting and have outgrown the little chessex box that I originally purchased - that and I now have a few that are just too big ( 02599 - Frorigh Frost Giant, 03749 - Succubus, 02263 - Trezzna and 03184 - Varessh, Female Demon so far) for the 'standard' sized little storage slots. Also, there are a few that I want to be able to display and without having to go crazy trying to keep them all dusted. I have a spare chessex dice box that seems to be about the right size for the average mini, but some have longer swords, or like the Succubus, wings that need more space. So, the question .. what do you guys use for storage and display?

So I think this should probably go in the show off section: So last year, after working at a spice export company for ten years, in management's ultimate wisdom, they closed down our office and moved it to two different offices, one in California and one to Chennai, India. I got a new job in a different industry, so all's well that ends well. One of the perks I did end up was this display case that they used to show off spice samples. I've had it in my basement for quite a while now, but a few weekends ago I finally found a cheap piece of furniture to put it on, so last night built the shelves I got from Super Duper Target and filled it full of my painted stuff. Here it is with an angle to the little area I slavishly paint away at And a closer view

Need somewhere to keep my dwarf army. Thought to build LED underground small garrison fort/outpost. Will have 4 floors Magnetized bottom floor for large models And will try to stuff as much detail as I can. Began with a wooden simple frame, and 2" PinkFoam. Was debating to build up all details and then paint it at once, or paint it in pieces and install them into the box as I go. Do to the nature of the LED lighting, and much uncertainties with LED lighting, I decided to craft it piece by piece instead of all at once. Also, I do not have a good way to cover very large, hard to get to, very detailed area with coats of paint very efficiently, thus will take slower path. Have some plans how to dress up the outside but want to leave that part for last.

I love to whittle away the hours....painting, sculpting and finishing up with basing.... But I've, on occasion, bought a huge game with many many figures....and I want to actually finish painting the figures - seal and organize, maybe even play? But, I can't stop fidgeting with them.... One game I've sorta almost finished, but now I look at all the figures (still have to base most)- and I want to start touch- ups on more than half! The second is Arcadia Quest, which I've kinda started. Made myself a promise that I would do base colour, 1 hilight, and then a wash for shadows. Retouch hilight for metals and be DONE! Nope...started the repainting last night 😭😇 Guess I'll just give up on gaming...and just keep painting! So, how do others cope?

For a chibi mini swap I've joined, I'll be preparing this Monkey Queen model. On my original Arcadia Quest pledge, the model came without her hair, so I was able to request and receive a replacement from CMON. This brings me to this mini swap where I can now make her hair and a display base to fit into the original packaging. My first step shown here was to create a thin wire armature for the hair and bulked it out for later texturing.

Hi !!! My last commission work for Via Ludibunda (new french minis dealer ^^) :

This is my first time posting stuff online. I am still fairly new to the miniatures hobby, but I dove in head first and started collecting and grabbing up all the minis (old and new that I could). This is my first big non-gaming use piece. I am still learning different terrain techniques, but I thought it would be a fun use of some old Kings of War white metal minis that I didn't plan to use for gaming. Sorry I am not a great photographer. I am sure that is something I will get used to as I photograph more of my projects. details, details (mostly done with repoduced bitz)

My wife and I both paint and collect miniatures. As you might expect they start to take up space over time. I wanted a better way to display some of my favourite pieces so I started looking for a glass case. I finally found one and thought I would pass it along here. Here's the picture of the unit from the manufacturers web site: I thought it was easy enough to put together and was pretty inexpensive. My wife and I each got one. After we put them together I started looking into lighting for it. Being the tinkering sort I put one together. The unit has a hole pre drilled in the top for a light. The basic kit comes with two translucent white plastic plugs to close up the hole if you don't have a light. I thought they would make a great light diffuser and were designed to fit in the provided hole. I had an broken LED flash light in my junk box. You can get these cheap from lots of places: I stripped out the circuit board with the LEDS. It had a spring contact in the center. I removed that with my handy dandy soldering iron. I then cut the connectors off an old telephone cord to salvage the wire. I soldered the wire to the connections on the back of the board I located a "wall wart" with the lowest DC voltage I could find in the junk box: The current going to the LEDs is limited in the flash light by the internal resistance of the batteries. Since I'm using a power supply I needed to do something to limit the current or the LEDs would burn out very quickly. Using Ohm's law I calculated the resistance I needed. Running them on low power they last about 10 years before dimming to half brightness. Low power is about 3 volts at 10 milliamperes each. 7 LED's are on the board so I need about 70 milliamps. The power supply puts out 5 volts so I need to drop 2 volts. The formula is R=E/I ( where R is resistance, E is voltage, and I is current) so: R=2/.07 so I need a resistance of about 28 ohms. I had 33 ohm resistors in the junk box. I tried it and found it wasn't very bright. I doubled the current by using two resistors in parallel. I took off the connector on the end of the wall wart and connected them in line: The final result: and with it installed: Hope this inspires you other hackers. I'd be happy to help if you have questions. Happy Painting!

A kickstarter for one of the fanciest mini cases I've ever seen. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/819121569/tablewartm-mini-case?ref=search A bit over engineered and complicated for my needs, but some here might find it useful.