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After a lot of work and patience ... not to mention delays for surgery and rehab ... I present to you: The Old Way A diorama display base made from a cork mat (coaster, under plants, hot pad). If you followed the WIP then you know the story behind the piece but here's a revised summary ... "The Old Way … that road found in post-apocalyptic, fantasy societies that the current society has no clue how they made it. Once the road way in this piece was created by such builders that it lasted for millennia. At least until the water changed course and eroded the road bed and shifted the land. Now there are only small reminders of the once great society in a wondrous slice of creek bed." And a recap of what went into it ... The foundation are two cork rounds atop MDF. The land is made with more cork added to create the higher points. Ground red foam foliage surrounds a sculpted tree stump. A small pool of water sits atop the small hillock jutting into the creek. Flagstone pavers still remain clustered together for strength showing the shards of the Old Way. The creek bed is made from actual sand and the flora and moss in the water is more ground foam. Realistic Water covers the creek bed and pool of water. Now for photos ... Top views ... Close ups of the creek bed ... As always I appreciate any comments or suggestions and would be happy to answer any questions regarding the piece.

Maybe this should have gone in the Sculpting thread, but I didn't make a build log when I sculpted these about four years ago. It was my first game DMing, a 5e homebrew, and enigmatic mycelial conspiracies played a large part. At this point I only knew the FLGS as a source of minis, and they didn't have any myconids. So I made do. One of them is based loosely off of bracket fungus and one off of amanita toadstools. Showing them off now because a) I picked up some Nolzur/Wizkids new Myconid Adult sculpts to go along with them, and b) I'm seeing so many wonderful mushroom-folk on the forums and love jumping in front of bandwagons. The sculpting was ham-fisted and the painting leaves much to be desired, but I am proud of one innovation that you can use for your myconids: for that enokitake effect, get a bunch of sewing pins, clip to different lengths, and bend them into a gentle curve near the cut or pointy end. Cluster as necessary.

So, I was looking around, in the mood to paint a bust. Female, hopefully cheap, and something I don't feel weird about putting on my shelf (so no pinupy stuff, and no "adult" busts). ...why can't I find any. The only one that kind of fits is Portrait of a Young Tiefling, but it's definitely not cheap. So I decided to sculpt my own out of Super Sculpey. (See my sculpting thread if you want to look at the raw master for some reason) Hit it with a coat of gray primer and... ew. Did I mention how much I hate SS's transparency? Can never tell when something is smooth. Well whatever, I want to paint. I'll think of a patch method later. So I went over the worst offending bits with a bit of artist's heavy gel medium. It's transparent (well, translucent at least), fills out rough spots nicely, and is pretty easy to use. I had a jar of it I hadn't touched in years. Hopefully with a coat of sealer even the little bit of roughness will fade away. Also, yes she is missing eyebrows. Those will be sculpted in with more gel medium. Anyways, more to come, but I'm already excited to paint my first bust!

Well after a long time considering trying my hand at a bit of sculpting I got some Sculpey Firm and tried it out. The model in these photos is something sculpted with my 5 year old son doing the odd item in a 1 hour period. He wanted a "Ghost wearing a furry coat, with a claw and an eyeball tentacle arm" Here are the two photos of the sculpt following time in the oven. And here is a current shot during painting and basing. Overall I am happy how it came out. What's clear is trying to do something fast just doesn't work and this is a good testament to that. In addition the armature was poor and I didn't use very good green stuff. I plan to send a lot more time on the next few models as I want to chart my progress as I go from a complete amateur to someone who can produce some recognisable sculpt (if possible) As a material Sculpey is different to green stuff and quite forgiving, except when you mush the earlier detail. I plan to use a stage approach by doing some sculpting and curing as I go along, that at I can focus on the basics.

So, I recently got the Frostgrave rulebook and that got me inspired to create warbands. Of course, I couldn't just settle with the minis I already had, so I had to get more Bones...and then I needed to start sculpting. I decided I'd speed up the process somewhat by using Sculpey to do the basic frame of the figures and then get some actual sculpting of the feet and legs. Beyond about that much, using Sculpey can lead to too much mess, so I cooked them at that point and got started on adding Green Stuff. The thaumaturge, as described in the Frostgrave book, lean away from opulent clothing and embellishments and weaponry, so I thought it would be a nice twist to have the wizard and apprentice be a pair of twins. The wizard is the responsible sister who adheres to the ways of thaumaturges and the cultural traditions of their people (I was going for something vaguely Middle Eastern looking) while her less focused brother tends towards more flamboyance and weaponry. She has attire more based on culture and functionality, so she has a harness on which there will be pouches and such. She also wields a thin staff as a focus for her magic. I'm thinking I'll do a head wrap on her, but I may just go with a hood. He is wearing a medieval English looking style rather than cultural attire, though I will be adding a sash so it's still some element of a Middle Eastern look. Maybe a falchion hanging sheathed at his hip as well. (The pictures were taken on the interior of the tavern I'm creating for my terrain pieces)

I present my finished Frost Wyrm As this is my first somewhat larger mini, it took me a bit more time to get started and to make a choice of colors. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but all in all I am very pleased with the end result. Last night I deciced to make a stand alone base out of super sculpey to display the Frost Wyrm when it is not in its "still under construction habitat" of the ice cave. Any C&C is as always much appreciated

I bought some sculpey III today with the intent of using it to make custom miniatures. I made a little armature out of brass wire and tried to build it up on top of it, but I find the sculpey too soft and I keep accidentally undoing my work. Does anyone have any advice for working with this material?

I am moving this to it's own thread.... Posted Today, 10:21 PM I bought some Sculpy today as well, but I plan on making a well, similar to 02634: Well Of Doom, but without the tentacles. (Bonus, Nice cashier lady had a 50% off coupon that she used for me!) And other dungeon dressing things. I was surprised at how malleable the stuff is, I expected to have to knead it for a long time, but it was pliable and easy to work with in under 5 minutes. So I started by making a circle 13/4" in diameter and about an 1/8 in thickness. I then laid a 'worm' of sculpy about 1/4 in in diameter around the outside, and proceeded to use clay shapers to blend it into the base, and then flatten the top, and carve a pattern like laid stone around the outside. I plan on another 2 pieces about the same size on top, so that the whole thing will be about 5/8 in tall or so. Pics of first layer: Astrid the Chronicler for Scale: The baking directions say 15min @ 275 deg F per 1/4 in. I am guessing that would be for a solid object. As mine is going to be more of a torus, about a 1/4 in thick, do I bake for 15 min? or longer due to the height? I have heard that sculpy doesn't like to be burned.... Also. I am sculpting this on the bottom of an upside down pyrex dish. when the sculpy is baked, will it come off the pyrex without breaking???? Thanks for any and all help! 8) George

Right. I think I will call her done! Or abandoned... At any rate, here is Dark Sword Miniatures Green Witch, sculpted by the awesome Dennis Mize. My idea was to create something that evoke growth and life. I wanted to do it almost entirely in a monochrome green. And I wanted to sculpt. So, I started with the basic form of a hand with curled fingers, sculpted the hand to look like animals and faces sleeping in the stone and then added vines and flowers. I also made some little paper butterflies and painted them. Last I added some etched brass foliage for the tree leaves and a few ferns. The colors are forest green, viper green, buckskin pale, sun yellow, tan flesh and leather white. Here are a few details: Enjoy! C&C always welcome and feel free to ask questions. This is one of my more ambitious projects, so I'm happy to break it down a bit more if you want!

I made these after the first one for a friend.

Having assembled Wyrmgear a while ago, I've been considering what to do with him. I thought of one thing ... Test: Reaper's Wyrmgear Meets Happy Seppuku on a Plinth ... and I tested it out.

Monolithic druid stone. Sculpey and acrylic paint.

So, I've been working on this fellow for about 3 months. He's the Darksword Ranger (with bow!) sculpted by Jeff Grace. He's a gorgeous figure, with a very expressive face. I loved painting him. The bird is Reaper's Hawk Familiar from Bones. I went to the Knoxville painting day last weekend, and Wren helped me figure out how to fix him up, so now I'm setting him free into the showoff forum! However, I'm taking him to Reapercon, so if anyone has any suggestions, please please let me know! I feel much better about the hair now! Enjoy! The Wip is located here in my running thread I sculpted everything except the 2 figures, mostly with sculpey, but a few details in greenstuff. Here are 2 close-ups of the ranger:

aka All Your Base Are Belong to Us! This tutorial will teach you some basic and some intermediate ways to use Sculpey to create custom bases for your miniatures. First, some basic information. Sculpey is a polymer clay which does not self-harden. It must be cured at 130 C/ 275 F, baking time based on thickness. After it is baked it is rigid, can be sanded, carved and painted. There are several types. Fimo, Sculpey, Super Scupley, Scupley III, Premo, etc. It is less expensive than some of the other sculpting materials available, making it great for basing projects! It is similar to standard ceramic clay in terms of workability, but a bit more elastic. It can be stored for years, and only requires a bit of kneading to soften it again. You will need: Why super sculpey, you ask? Because I have some! The same thing applies to the tools- you can use just about anything to shape sculpey. Wooden tools, pins, flatware and especially fingers! But for the projects below, I specifically used the tools above. The pin tool is from a standard ceramic set and the other two shapers from a wax carving set. We need to start by waking our sculpey up. It will come in an easily separated cake of cylinders. Break off a piece, knead it in your hands, warm it up, roll it around, etc, etc until it's nice and pliable. If you've never used it before, play around with pushing different textures into it. Rocks, sandpaper, pinebark, plastic wrap, canvas, and cork can all create interesting patterns. Plus, you'll get a sense of how much detail the sculpey can hold. It's not as much as some of the other sculpting materials available- which I think of as a plus. It won't really hold a fingerprint for example, so you can safely pick up what you're working on. It makes it a very forgiving medium for beginners! And you'll quickly realize it has the best quality of all- it does not stick to everything! Now, what can we do with this sculpey? How about cobblestones? Those make great bases, right? So here we're using the thin shaper to carve stonelike shapes and smooth our edges. That sort of pattern can be created very quickly with just the single shaping tool. I like my cobbles to have curved edges, making the stone looks more 3-dimensional. Bricks, or a brick pathway is another option. Here's an example of how to use the pin tool (like a thick needle. A small nail would also work if attached to a handle) Using our trusty Canadian Sandpaper as a guide, the pin tool creates a brick layer. Then we go back and add the individual brick shapes and add some details. Cracks, slightly curved edges and the sandpaper texture can all be used to make a more realistic brick. I also used the thin shaper to curve the edges of the brick. I've only added details to the top bricks to illustrate the process. But this is boring, you say! Bring on the fancy bases. We want props! Ok... for this next project we'll be using twigs from the garden. Here I've stuck a few twigs in a slightly carved lump of sculpey. I rolled out some little coils to make roots and pressed them on. Now I smooth the edges of the roots with the larger shaper. Then add texture to the roots with the pin tool. ...and we have terrain! In our next installment I'll go step by step through an entire base! Stay tuned! Let me know if you all want more detail or clarification on anything.

Not sure this is in the right spot on the forum, but it'll work. I plan to go through step-by-step a marble effect, so this may be picture-heavy. I'll also include some alternative patterns after the step-by-step, so if anyone has a color request or marble style request let me know! I'm not attached to any particular marble. Except maybe the pretty ones. I found these marble tutorial resources helpful: Chest of Colors Massive Voodoo Oz Painters First I made a marble base out of sculpey: Once it was baked, I primed it using a combination of gray and white. Gray for the recesses/grout areas, and white for the marble surface. I used a fairly dry brush with the white primer to just cover the surface of the tiny edging tiles. Hmmn... now it looks like a little window icon. Sigh. Ignore the cartoony base. It will be painted! Right now I'm tentatively leaning towards this marble pattern, but this is as far as I got, so request alternatives if you want! I got it by searching google images for white marble. Link: http://www.cepolina.com/stone-marble-white.html I like it because it will let us play with creams, reds and some freehand lines. More later!

I think I'm done with this one. I sculpted the base from Sculpey and the miniature from Greenstuff. C&C always welcome! And a scale shot, just for fun. It did end up larger than I'd originally wanted. All respect to those mini sculptors out there- it's hard to make things so tiny!

P1000913 by kitchen_wolf, on Flickr P1000904 by kitchen_wolf, on Flickr SWMBO calls this one King Krakkatootha. P1000909 by kitchen_wolf, on Flickr This is why you shouldn't lead with your chin before your official portrait sitting. P1000886 by kitchen_wolf, on Flickr Rumors that the statues continue underground and can rise from the earth as vengeful stone are only half true. The Easter Island Moai are some of the most evocative works of art anywhere. You should read about them because they are nifty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moai

I've been working on my Bones Werewolf Cut and Reposition and finally he's done. All C&C welcome.