Stone Age Tribe on Tribe project (New photos on page 2, August 2024)

[Cacique Caribe]

Greg

Excellent.  Thanks so much!

Dan

EDIT
Found them:
https://www.magistermilitum.com/fmc627-undead-mammoth-x3.html

[FifteensAway]

My Irregular Miniatures order arrived today and at first I was a bit disappointed at the three piece larger mammoth (the baby is a single casting).  Then I realized the three pieces (left and right body and head with a 'post' to fit into the body) will make creating a dead mammoth and one in a pit a lot easier and may also give some options for showing the glacier captured beast being a bit malformed during the freezing process.  Sorry, no photos at the moment.

Added six new figures to each of my four tribes, 14 stands at 3 figures each means 42 - plus 3 'dead' figures.  Everything already received washed and additional needed bases prepped.  I think when I have those last items mentioned below, I will be a bit over 200 total animals.

Just waiting on a few items from Splintered Light, one item on back order, and I am going to call the collection complete.

[FifteensAway]

And now, having received my Splintered Light Order, I am calling the collection 'complete'.  Ordered and received one pack of dire hyenas - which will be used as cave hyenas since the dire were extinct half a million years ago, two packs of dire wolves, and one pack of cave bears, a total of 21 more animals.  No photos just yet but the figures can be seen here: http://www.splinteredlightminis.com/15anandcr.html. 

Once these last figures are washed and the last bases prepared, then it will just be a matter of filing the figures and glueing to bases and then painting away once I clear that other project off the table.

[Cacique Caribe]

“Now I’m calling my collection complete”

I’ve said that too many times to know there’s never such a thing as a complete collection of minis. 

Dan

[FifteensAway]

Only a year later and I'm back working on this project.  Needed a few additional bases prepared and decided I wanted the bottom of all my Stone Age bases to be 'stone' gray so I just finished painting all the bases a gray primer.  A lot of bases! 

Next step is to prep and paint figures.  A lot of figures!  What makes it so many are all the animals I've accumulated. 

Also recently acquired some blue glass bits from a craft store for making my glacier - with at least one mammoth caught inside.  Would be nice to find a complimentary appropriate green glass to go with the blue.

Did decide the 'adapted' Stone Age figures, mostly African villagers from Bluemoon, will just get a dry brush effect rather than try to create animal skin effect on them.  Will see how it goes. 

I did buy a board game at a deep discount last week called Tusk that has some cool ideas to adapt.  Flint knappers and berry pickers, a large part of the reason for the 'adapted' figures.  Majority of each Tribe is actual cave man (or woman) figures, four tribes, and a few Special Event stands of figures.  And some 'out there' bits just for fun.

Most of the bases - eighteen more drying for the wolves in three wolf packs:


The three skeletal mammoths after - carefully - removing from their bases.  "Surgery" with a Dremel tool with leather glove (metal gets hot) and wore a full face shield - safety first, always!


Here they are lying flat - but not quite flat enough:


And after getting pounded on with a sledge hammer - one direction worked better than the other to 'flatten' the skeletons.  Dead animals, not animated skeletons for my purposes.  Hopefully you can see the difference:


The three components from Irregular to assemble into a single animal:


A side by side of a propped together 'normal' animal and another one that had its legs chopped off with the Dremel.  Note that I made sure to keep the feet, mammoth steaks anyone?  The chopped animal will be modeled inside a pit trap, maybe with a sharp stake or two sticking out of its body, a bit gruesome but...:


And in a moment of inspiration, I've decide to use the three parts inside a glacier to create two animals got together and consoling one another as they freeze to death inside the ice - just have to be careful to hide that the rear body has no head.  But getting two for the price of one!:


That's it for the moment.  Next step will be two-part epoxy to assemble the last few mammoths and then drilling holes in the one in the pit and the one that has been hunted to insert spears sticking out.

[AndrewBeasley]

For my bases I used ready made basing scatter (Geek Gaming Scenics) and bought enough to fill a decent sized tub. Saves worrying that the bases will look different part way through the build as I've been caught before where named material has altered over the years of a project.

As for ice / snow - the best I've found is the Woodland Scenics snow with a little white glitter added in. One error I made was to use wood glue and not PVA - the one I had dried yellow and a had lots of figures to rebase!


Edit: Did you see this article on hunting (even if it's not your main aim it's still worth a quick read):
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-did-ice-age-humans-kill-huge-animals-like-mammoths-probably-not-by-throwing-spears-study-finds-180984958/

[FifteensAway]

Good advice Andrew - fortunately I have laid in a good supply of my two primary basing materials - Woodland Scenics Earth Blend blended turf, looks a lot better than the green 'golf course' effect, and children's playground sand which came in 50 pound bag, been using it for many years and still have plenty left!  Still debating how I will texture my Stone Age bases, probably a custom mix of both of the above and some 'gravel' bits.  For that I will need to make sure I have plenty on hand before I start.  Having everything based to a standard just makes a collection look so much better.

Tried to read the linked article and got the gist of it but got disgusted with the pop up ads coming up so fast and gave up.  The planted pike idea is curious - not sure how supported it is by evidence, perhaps in the part I didn't read.