Starting a 15mm collection || Archers (26 Jan)

[Idle Doodler]

Thanks all. Yeah, I'm eyeing up some of my leftover LotR Goblin Town denizens to live a second life as ogres or trolls (though the king might be a bit too plus-sized for a 15mm battlefield). All these 28mm minis I've been hoarding for the last few years can surely serve double duty.

Are the figures magnetised?

Indeed they are, for storage purposes if nothing else - gives biscuits tins a new purpose. I've started making some geomorph tiles using table mats and flattened biscuit tins in the hope that they might keep minis secure, but I fear that the amount of terrain going over the top will render the magnetic force negligible. Still, we live and learn!

Finally painted up this prototype house built with leftover materials from various projects. Scraps of cork floor tile for the structure, some old business cards for the cardstock roof and assorted detail made up from matchsticks and coffee stirrers. Turns out cable ties make rather nice shutters at 15mm. Also magnetised in opposing corners to reduce the likelihood of the house tilting into the air on an uneven ground.







In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to which way round the cork walls were being glued. The rougher side makes for some great texture for paint to cling on to, while the smooth side proved trickier to work with.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Excellent. Can't beat a scratch-built building. And at 15mm it's even manageable to store that sorta stuff. Can't wait to see this all painted.

[DivisMal]

Thanks all. Yeah, I'm eyeing up some of my leftover LotR Goblin Town denizens to live a second life as ogres or trolls (though the king might be a bit too plus-sized for a 15mm battlefield). All these 28mm minis I've been hoarding for the last few years can surely serve double duty.

That’s a pretty good idea! I gave most of mine away some time ago, but the not too large weapons and „realistic“ (i.e. not comically exaggerated) proportions make them ideal for smaller scale! 15mm would be the right scale to make them fearsome trolls!

[Cacique Caribe]

Doodler

Thanks so much for the photos of the cabin, including the underside pic.  I have plans to make a small village for a raid* and was hesitant on how to proceed.  Thanks for the inspiration!

Dan
* https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=138326.0

[Idle Doodler]

Glad they might be of use to someone else. I need some more cork tiles before trying again.

[Idle Doodler]

Finally, in the aftermath of much teeth gnashing having doused the first paintjob in too heavy a black wash (those YouTube videos with everyone proclaiming that washes brighten when dry aren't always right...), I've got some underground cavern tiles done. The end result isn't quite what I'd pictured in the planning stages, but by the point of drybrushing everything again for the umpteenth time I just wanted to start playing on these.

The blog post goes into a bit more depth on the build process, but in essence these are a series of second-hand table mats with a biscuit tin layer in a failed attempt to make them magnetic-friendly (ended up texturing too much for the magnets on the mini bases to get any real purchase), cork strips for sturdy and relatively uniform walls, kitchen foil for the rocky texture and sand to distinguish the floor apart, all coated with several layers of gesso for some extra hardiness and painted with cheap craft paints and defunct Wickes paint sample pots.










   



   





   

[LouieN]

That is wonderfully creative.  Well done on the execution of it. 

[Major_Gilbear]

I agree, I really like the caves; shame the magnetic part didn't work as you hoped though. Still, a good result all-round I think?

[DivisMal]

That’s really a clever idea!  Love it.

[Idle Doodler]

Cheers, folks. Just need to find a box to store them in now. Not found anything with a 17cm footprint yet.

Need to start thinking about some eqsy-to-makr scatter terrain so that not everything blocks line if sight as well as movements. I did play around with sawn-down matchsticks to make some crates, but they ended up being a bit too fiddly at this scale and too weirdly-proportioned. Frames too thick for their size and all that. Back to the drawing board.

[Major_Gilbear]

I did play around with sawn-down matchsticks to make some crates, but they ended up being a bit too fiddly at this scale and too weirdly-proportioned. Frames too thick for their size and all that. Back to the drawing board.

Aaaages ago, I tried making crates in 28mm from matchsticks too... They turned out to be way too fiddly and irregular to make them worth the bother.

For 10-15mm scale, you could try one of the following options instead:

1) Coffee stirrers/lollipop sticks. These are wider than matchsticks, so you can make each face one piece, and use offcuts to act as a packing "filler" to keep the faces of the boxes apart and sturdy. Still a bit fiddly though.

2) You can also just cut slices off some timber moulding purchased from your local DIY store. You may be a bit limited in terms of shape, but it's a reasonable option that's cheap for how many crates/barrels you could make! This is a good option for crates, but for barrels you may have to cut the moulding in half and glue it back-to-back before cutting off your slices. This is because such mouldings are normally designed to be affixed to flat surfaces, so for cylinders and similar, you will only get half-profiles. Note that for exact cylinders you can buy wooden dowelling in various sizes though, which is obviously easier than mucking about with mouldings!

3) Buy some wooden beads. Easiest option at 10-15mm honestly, and you can get all sorts of shapes to represent all types of weird containers. Cheap too! You could look in your local indoor market/haberdasher (if you still have any near you...), or try looking in places like online craft stores/haberdashers, various meeples/game pieces stores, eBay, and even Amazon. This would be my recommend option really - minimum effort for a nice outcome at budget prices. You can also get very small beads if you want to make smaller containers for things like finished goods for market stalls.

[Idle Doodler]

Cheers, Major. I've now a bag of A****n-ordered beads to play around with - not so useful as crates, perhaps, but they should do nicely for some large ceramic jars with more intricate patterns than I could ever hope to craft. Just got to find the best way to fill some of the holes in the designs.

I'd tried the coffee stirrers with similar issues to the matchsticks. I think they'd be ideal, however, for the bands around the matchstick crates if I could just work out how to neatly cut them into thirds or quarters. Splitting them in half unfortunately just brings them to the same breadth as a single matchstick so it doesn't quite work for the bands laid parallel to the matches.


I've now made a start on repurposing some of this pile of unpainted 28mils. First up is the previously floated MESBG goblin as an ogre, or whatever 5 Leagues aberration might be needed. I played around a bit with contrast paints, mixing the bone colour with a dash of black and flesh, followed by highlights with a light dab of the flesh on the collection of boils which, frustratingly, I couldn't capture in the photo. It's effective enough to make one wince ever so slightly when picking the mini up.



Here's a companion to give an ideal of scale

[LoxIslay]

Defiantly some ugly monster to slay for your heroes. 

[Pattus Magnus]

That certainly looks like an ogre or troll to me!

[DivisMal]

That goblin works brilliantly as a troll! Good choice!