D&D with miniatures - Evil wizard and Kenku Warlock 3/24

[CookAndrewB]

A few weeks ago I started playing an ongoing D&D campaign with my son, a buddy of mine, and his son. After a few missions of pushing around various colored dice on a map, I decided to custom make some figures for everyone as a gift. This was my first time sculpting at 28mm (vaguely) scale and I thought I would share the results.

My son's character Garo the monk.




My friend's character Caraman the archer (fighter specializing in the bow).




My friend's son's character Valdosta the Halfling Rogue.




On the whole, I can say two things really gave me fits; Faces and hands. Faces I'm writing off to the number of times these characters have been beaten about the head and neck with various weapons of war. You just don't survive that and look like Brad Pitt. The hands though... yeesh. The best I could do was Simpson's style three-fingered hands, and even those turned out a bit swollen as if they had been slapping bees all day. It was a great learning experience and gave me a real appreciation for the work of some of you do (and sculptors in general).

The intrepid warband poised for a fight!


Any pointers on hand and face sculpting would be welcome. I think it is fair to say this will never be my day job, but I would like to improve in my hobby all the same. I feel like there has to be a easy way to get decent results. The sculpting equivalent of dry brushing highlights, or whatever. 

[Pattus Magnus]

Those look pretty good for home-sculpts, especially since it’s your first time sculpting figures!

I don’t know if there are really any easy shortcuts for faces and hands - both are challenging! One option for faces would be to use pre-made heads or sculpting ‘dollies’. Hasslefree makes some heads and maybe dollies, and Reaper used to do some dollies (and still might, I haven’t looked for them in the catelogue for a while).

If you’re going to do your own faces, I think the main thing is to be patient and build them up in stages. Initially just get a blob the right size and orientation in place (and a bit smaller than you want the final head to be), and let it cure. Then use small bits of green stuff to fill in the details (brow and cheek shape, eyes, nose and lips, ears, then hair or headgear) in stages so you can let each part cure before working on the next one. It takes a while, but you’ll get a better defined end product and if a feature  isn’t working, you can pull it off and start over if everything else around it is cured. I haven’t done much with hands, but I think the same approach should work (get a rough shape formed initially, then layer on details).

[Reed]

I recently tried to sculpt a 28mm figure too, but I effed up the proportions a little bit and now I have a WIP sculpt of Sirenhead

[Little Odo]

Those are awesome. They have a certain charm that really works for me. Great job!

[beefcake]

Good work. Maybe for the eyes get some very small ballbearings, they work wonders.

[Mister Frau Blucher]

These guys are pretty cool!  Not too far off, quality-wise, from my beloved Heritage Fantastiques!

[CookAndrewB]

Thanks for the replies, all. Appreciate the kind words and hints in equal measure.

Not my first time sculpting, but I have avoided sculpting humans as there is some definitive standard to measure against. Sculpting 15mm aliens for my sci-fi gaming has been fine because legs that are too long/short, an oddly shaped head, and so forth barely matter as they are aliens. Yes, that is EXACTLY what that alien species is supposed to look like! Good job, me! 

I think they have a charm as well, but I find that despite the flaws I'm awfully fond of my own creations. That said, I'm giving these to the players and I guess I have a little anxiety that they won't find them nearly as charming as I do. It is one thing to love your own child and another to try and find something endearing about someone else's kid. 

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

It takes guts to tackle sculpting at any level, especially entire figures from scratch - I'd honestly say just keep practicing. You hit all the right beats and everything is recognisable as what it's intended to be. I would say in particular that you really nailed the 'flow' of clothing - that's seriously impressive. Keep at it

[Munindk]

I really like these

As ofters have said, the overall proportions are good and the clothes are very good.

The slighly oversize hands and noses gives them a sort of marionette puppet look, which is very charming.

[CookAndrewB]

Yep, just keep practicing. I'm thinking I may squeeze in a little extra practice by sculpting some key NPCs for the campaign. Low pressure on those as I'm really the determiner as to whether they look like the characters. I worked with my son quite a bit to get his monk right. Color of clothing, hair, etc. The others will be a bit more of a surprise. So hopefully, they match the general mind's eye image the players have.

Again, I appreciate the comments.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Good work mate! Certainly far better than what I could sculpt.

[SotF]

The one thing that jumps out at me is the number of fingers, but since it's consistent across them for the 3 fingers and a thumb, I'm assuming that's a style choice there

[CookAndrewB]

The one thing that jumps out at me is the number of fingers, but since it's consistent across them for the 3 fingers and a thumb, I'm assuming that's a style choice there

Yes, I went Matt Groening on them. Mostly that was a "not sure I can squeeze in another finger and still get them to shape the way I want" decision. My talents currently end at three fingers and a thumb! 

[CookAndrewB]

With campaign turn 2 under our belt, I decided I needed to get some monsters on the table and stop using dice to indicate their position on the map. Since mission 3 involved a goblin raid on the resort/amusement park where the party is currently staying, I did a little digital kitbashing with some freebie goblins from http://www.illgottengames.net/



All the figures shown are freebies from Thingiverse. A few canonical notes about these goblins.
1) They are the goblins of Clam Island, which is a tropical location. Shirts just make things hot.
2) This tribe of goblins has become addicted to a particular healing sandwich that the resort makes with a secret ingredient. Hence, they are also a little on the pudgy side.
3) Rather than using bows, the goblins have a rudimentary black powder weapon which we just call the "boom stick." This is described as looking like a pan flute on a pole, and is essentially comprised of bamboo packed with black powder and rocks, and lit with a wick. Used indoors it is not only a projectile weapon but has a chance to stun people (including themselves) as well.

The kitbashing efforts included adding the horned helmet to the chieftain (center), The chieftain's pole mace, all of the boom sticks (replaced spearheads), and the spear goblin's shield (second from right, front). I also did some left/right mirroring for variety, but that is pretty low-level manipulation.


And a look at the goblins compared to a human for scale. I did want to keep them on the short side of things.


All figures were printed on an Anycubic Mono SE. The total time for the batch was about 1.5 hours.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Great work mate!