A novel idea? Bas relief miniatures

[Daniel36]

Hey guys,

I have had this thing in my mind for a while now that just doesn't want to go away, so I just had to share it. Having been a member of this forum for a little while now, I feel this is the right place to discuss this idea.

Bas relief "miniatures"- tokens. So flat, round tokens with a face on it.

What I am thinking of is basically the face of heroes and monsters in relief, which you could paint, and which clearly depicts a specific encounter. Possibly with a weapon somewhere to differentiate from other encounters.

These would be perfect mainly for dungeon crawl boardgames or tabletop role playing games, but also for those folks who feel miniatures are too much to carry around but also dislike printed tokens. Lastly, even very basic paint jobs would work well for these.

Is this something that has been done before? Apart from the odd embelishment to adorn your walls with, I can't find anything hobby related, just large art things.

Now onto question number two, because I am not much of a sculptor. Are there folks who would be willing to give it a try? I would say the basic diameter of 1 inch for human sized figures and smaller would be perfect, as it would be easy to use with grid based games. I think that would leave plenty of room for interesting facial details, and perhaps some room for a designation of the type of weapon it wields... I don't know...

I want to refrain from being too specific in my wants, because I just want to see if people would be interested in trying it out and if other people would be interested in having this type of "miniature".

Oh, and I have begun work on a dungeon crawl ruleset that could potentially benefit from this type of thing too...

Thank you for your time!

Cheers,
Daniel

[LordOdo]

I think it could actually work very well!

[Westfalia Chris]

So, are you considering tokens with a basrelief of the character, or a standup silhouette with a basrelief? The latter reminds me of "flats"-type tin soldiers, and while I still want to paint some for a change once in my "hobby career", I'm not exactly keen on gaming with them. Bit too "oldskool" for me.

Hey guys,

I have had this thing in my mind for a while now that just doesn't want to go away, so I just had to share it. Having been a member of this forum for a little while now, I feel this is the right place to discuss this idea.

Bas relief miniatures.

Basically, these would be perfect mainly for dungeon crawl boardgames or tabletop role playing games, but also for those folks who feel miniatures are too much to carry around but also dislike printed tokens. Lastly, even very basic paint jobs would work well for these.

Is this something that has been done before? Apart from the odd embelishment to adorn your walls with, I can't find anything hobby related, just large art things.

Now onto question number two, because I am not much of a sculptor. Are there folks who would be willing to give it a try? I would say the basic diameter of 1 inch for human sized figures and smaller would be perfect, as it would be easy to use with grid based games. I think that would leave plenty of room for interesting facial details, and perhaps some room for a designation of the type of weapon it wields... I don't know...

I want to refrain from being too specific in my wants, because I just want to see if people would be interested in trying it out and if other people would be interested in having this type of "miniature".

Oh, and I have begun work on a dungeon crawl ruleset that could potentially benefit from this type of thing too...

Thank you for your time!

Cheers,
Daniel

[Daniel36]

I meant the first, and I will update my first post to better reflect my idea, but yes, tokens.

A bit like this : http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v46/jullevi/Cult%20of%20Ulric/wolfkinshields.jpg (which, by the way, I would love to have a couple of for a Middenheim warband) - for Wolf encounters...

Basically a face of whatever monster or person it is you want to depict, but preferably front view.

[Elbows]

I could see the appeal for say...a quick and dirty travel version of a dungeon crawl.  Coupled with quality card-board hexes you could bring an entire dungeon in a single box.  I wouldn't prefer to game this way though.

Also, perhaps a way to have quick-stand-ins for monsters you may not have completed or painted yet?

While the bas-relief would be neat, I'd also be fine with simple cardboard tokens that I don't have to paint if we're going for that. 

[LordOdo]

Now onto question number two, because I am not much of a sculptor. Are there folks who would be willing to give it a try? I would say the basic diameter of 1 inch for human sized figures and smaller would be perfect, as it would be easy to use with grid based games. I think that would leave plenty of room for interesting facial details, and perhaps some room for a designation of the type of weapon it wields... I don't know...

I'll give it a try!

[LordOdo]

First try. Now gonna paint them

[Daniel36]

Not bad! Thanks for trying it out for me, LordOdo. Obviously needs a bit of refinement but it definitely gives a good idea for what it will look like.

I was thinking some more about what would be smart, and perhaps instead of a weapon picture, it would be better to have a scroll below the face, on which you can write the type of creature and its weapon. 

And with scroll I mean something like this:

[nic-e]

I'm a sculptore, But generally speaking a stone and plaster one! So this is the sort of thing i actually have experience in!
You could easily care something like what you're proposing in plaster and take simple moulds straight from it.


Depending on the size and level of detail you wanted, you could actually sculpt something like this quickly and cheaply from plaster. (high quality casting plaster makes an amazing but delicate small scale sculpting material. )

[Daniel36]

Thank you for the tip. Unfortunately I myself have very little talent to do it myself, but I was just sending the idea out into the world. I would most certainly buy some if I liked the designs.