Pimp my Standees part 1: Strange Aeons

[Cherno]

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Edit: This project has seen a big update after one year! See it here:
Shocking Tales of Madness and... Cardboard?!? My take on Strange Aeons
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Main thread:

Pimp my Standees! Hub thread for my cardboard miniatures

This is the first part of my ongoing series of articles concerning the way I make and use paper standees.

These standees are made with graphics from the 1997 first person shooter Blood. They were the first standees I made, and it shows. Because the sprites were pretty low-resolution, when enlarged they became blurry. Also the dark parts fade into the black background, and the print quality is mediocre at best. Still, the characters they represent are immediately recognizable, so there's no reason why I wouldn't use them when I finally make some Investigators to find against them.

Note that some of the boss monsters are made from random art I found on the web.

A sample page I printed out:



Zombie, Fat Zombie/Butcher, Cultist, Gill Beast, Hell Hound, Gargoyle, Phantasm.



Stone Gargoyle, Dark Young, Cthonian.



Flying Polyp, Shoggoth.



The terrain shown here follows the same boardgamey philosophy: Cheap and easy to store, sturdy, looks good. The tiles are TLX tiles from World Works Games Hinterland Forest, The trees are from rpgmapshare.com, and the cabin is from some old DnD floorplan I think. The tiles are not aligned properly here and show some gaps, I didn't use TLX Linx for the photo, in actual play everything would be held together firmly. I made enough forest tiles to cover a 4x4 area, and I used them for outdoors encounters for All Things Zombies too.

[styx]

Very interesting stuff, I have seen people do this with Warhammer (both Fantasy and 40k) to test out something before they invest money into it. I admit it is cheap and easy to get for the economical gamer, still not as enjoyable as painting a nice figure up and having that true all round effect that it gives is the only sole downside.

One interesting thing I have been watching is the new 3-D printers, exepensive right now, but a few years ago so was a regular printer when they came out long ago...I figure someone will make figures and sell blueprint rights to people like software (with codes and such to limit piracey) and people would just print out what they want and paint it....hell by then they may have one in color.

[Cherno]

I agree, there has been a lot of talk about 3d printers in the last few years, with prices falling steadily, print resolution getting better, new materials to choose from, and services like ShapeWays opening up to the wargaming community (or rather, the latter embracing the possibilities of the former). It remains to be seen if one day we will be able to havev our custom 28mm figures printed up at a low price or if this remains in the hands of traditional metal casters.

Back to the topic at hand, the nice thing about a very personalized hobby such as wargaming is that one can customize every aspect of the hobby. Some people enjoy painting miniatures and the aesthetics associated with having a bunch of figures that approach little personalized works of art on the table, coupled with intricate terrain for a great visual impact. Others, like me, like to give the visuals a second seat and concentrate on aspects like being able to throw everything back in a box carelessly after a game and storing it all flat for a pick-up-and-carry version of a game. One reason I more or less made the full switch to cardboard is because I can never be satisfied with the comparatevely small amount of options a limited time and monetary budget gives me. I could buy figures for 40 dollars and use them in a game, but what if I want to have a team made up only of zombies, or giant spiders, or something else? And then something else for the game after that? The same goes for terrain. A grass mat, some fences, a treee and two small buildings is enough for a scenario, but what if I want to play in the forest, or at a lake? So I made everything modular, with hundreds of terrain tiles to choose from. Of course, this approach has it's own disadvantages. What matters in the end is that the game is fun to play. 

[Mo!]

Nice... not for me personally but i'm hardly one to talk  most my stuff is unpainted metal so this looks at least as good 

I do think there is a lot to say for this aproach... many times i ordered some stuff to have lost interest in the game by the time they came in... This way you have something pleasing to the eye without investing heavely... when interest wanes you just chuck them or store them for future use!

I prefer nicely converted and painted models myself but your way probably better fits my (tied up by small children) daily life...

[Cherno]

Using cardboard standees pretty much fits my "hobby style" perfectly: Ever yfew weeks I somehow stumble upon something I like from a movie, comic book, or even something on the internet and I think "man, I gotta make a game out of it!". Often, these themes are kinda obscure (like the upcoming article for the figures based on the 1993 amiga game Hired Guns), and my interests change quickly, so it's nice to be able to assemble a bunch of figures fast and most of all make them exactly the way I want them to (as long as I can find suitable pictures).

[Mo!]

Tempted to your side of the grid more and more!!!

[Mason]

Whilst I am firmly in the miniatures and scenery camp (it is what first attracted me to the hobby, after all), I can see the upside to this format.
So many options, just not as much fun puuting a project together, but horses for courses, and all that....

[Cherno]

Truth be told, the time it takes to gather the required graphics, insert them into the template, cutting and assembling it all is probably equal to the time it takes to paint a miniature But it's really nice to realize lots of different projects I have no cash to buy miniatures and terrain for, and once a figure has been templateified (?) it can be reproduced again and again. I hope with my articles I can inspire some people to consider it as well as I feel using high-quality custom standees is an underused alternative to traditional methods of bringing the magic to the gametable, so to speak 

[supervike]

Wonderful stuff. 

As someone who doesn't want to "play" until all my minis are painted up, this sort of thing is becoming more and more appealling.  At least to fill out some random miniatures.