Koyote in Frostheim -SORRY- ALL PHOTOS PRIOR TO P.14 ARE INACCESSIBLE

[markdienekes]

Love those old Heroquest rats

[Ingmar]

Best use of a GW movement tray and some moria ruines ever! Very good work, the terrain, the warband, I love it all. It just oozes character! Pure awesome, and keep inspiring!

PS. Would you recommend purchasing the pegasus hobbies ruined building set? I have one "gothic building large" set lying around, but I figured adding a set of ruines and a set of normal would fill all of my frostgrave/mordheim needs in the foreseeable future.

[ImhotepMagi]

Great job all around. Crisp, clean paint jobs, fantastic sculpting on the apprentice and gorgeous terrain. I really love the movement tray as flooring and it reminds me that I still have some left over...

[Koyote]

Love those old Heroquest rats

You are very observant.

Many moons ago I bought second hand copy of Hero Quest from a thrift store. I knew that it was missing pieces, but it was only $3 and I am nostalgic for the pieces.

An interesting bit of trivia about the original Hero Quest game, which is now 25 years old, is that it includes one of the two Fimir sculpts that are scaled to the size envisioned by their creator. As the story goes, the original design and concept art (pictured below), depicts the Fimir as Orc-sized, but there was a miscommunication somewhere between GW and Citadel Miniatures. The end result was an ogre sized model on a 40mm base with near man-sized stats.  The Fimirs' stats were published in Warhammer Armies (1988) before the ogre-sized Fimir were produced, so by the time the models hit the shelves it was too late to go back and change their stats.




I have two of these little beauties:  



I admit that it isn't a very good sculpt, but I have a tremendous amount nostalgia for the golden age of WFB and the Fimir in particular, so I'd love to see this model on a gaming board once again. Moreover, I believe that good paint job will help make up for some of this model's shortcomings.

As far as I know there aren't any White Gorillas running around the ruins of Mordheim, so based on the White Gorilla's stats and model size, I think that my Fimir model will make a good substitute as a counts-as White Gorilla. The Fimir is also described as being part demon, so I could use the model to serve as a counts-as Minor Demon, as well.  We shall see.

[Koyote]

Best use of a GW movement tray and some moria ruines ever! Very good work, the terrain, the warband, I love it all. It just oozes character! Pure awesome, and keep inspiring!

PS. Would you recommend purchasing the pegasus hobbies ruined building set? I have one "gothic building large" set lying around, but I figured adding a set of ruines and a set of normal would fill all of my frostgrave/mordheim needs in the foreseeable future.

Thanks.

The GW movement trays do make great flooring. I used it as flooring for all of my Malifaux ruins.  As you can see in the photos that follow, you can break up the edges of the flooring and use smaller pieces to make piles of rubble within the ruins or as scattered sections of floor tile on the base.  




And yes, I do recommend the Pegasus Hobbies Gothic City Ruins kit. Over the years I've used many  Pegasus Gothic City kits and I've never been disappointed. In fact, a year or two ago I began a terrain project to add some much needed ruins and LOS blocking terrain to my 40K boards. I used two sets of Pegasus Hobbies' Gothic Ruins and two of Pegasus Hobbies' Large Gothic City Building sets. From these four kits I made 12 sections of ruins, all for about half the price it would cost me to purchase the equivalent size and number of GW 40K buildings. Amazon lists each kits around $23.

You can customize your Pegasus ruins or turn your Pegasus building kits into ruins with a pair of strong snips, a small saw, and a hobby knife. To customize the ruins kit I typically cut out sections of window frames. Turning the walls from the building kits into ruins takes a bit more work.




I never got around to putting the finishing touches on my 40K ruins.  The 7th edition was the last straw for me, so I boxed up the unfinished ruins along with all of my 40K stuff and put them in the very back of my closet.  

Recently, I've been toying with the idea of repainting a few sections of these ruins and using them for Frostheim.  




My only beef with Pegasus' Gothic Building kits is that they don't include roofs or flooring for second floor. The ruins kits do include flooring for the second floor, just not the buildings or cathedral kits.




When I was assembling Pegasus' cathedral kit for a Malifaux table, I built my own flooring.  I used balsa wood for the planks and heavy-density balsa wood for the beams.  I built the floor so that it can be removed.  This makes it easier to position models on the bottom floor.

[tyrionhalfman]

Great looking scenery. I might have to get some to add height to my board. Thanks for sharing

[Koyote]

Spellcrow Miniatures is best known for its 40K conversion bits, but Spellcrow also produces a model line of quirky yet cool Fantasy minis for it's skirmish game, Umbra Turris.

A couple of weeks ago I was perusing FRP Games' Daily Specials and I saw that FRP was selling Spellcrow's Sasquatch miniature for 50% off. I couldn't resist the bargain.

The Warhammer fluff includes Yetis, so my original plan was to use the model as either a counts-as White Gorilla or a counts-as Frost Giant.




Well, it turns out that the model is too large to serve as a White Gorilla and too short to serve as a Frost Giant. Its torso and arms are really long, but its short legs are comically short.  I knew this when I purchased model, but what I hadn't noticed is its small feet. Who has ever heard of a Bigfoot with small feet? Unacceptable.




Making the model shorter wasn't an option so after mulling it over for a while I grabbed my hobby saw and went to work.  




I used a pin vice and brass rod to make a framework for leg and feet extensions.  




This particular Yeti, which has grown to enormous proportions because of the mutating effects of Mordheim's warp stone, won't be as large as GW's plastic giant model, but as you can see, it looms large over man-sized models.




I used greenstuff to fill in the missing parts of the feet and legs. After sculpting the underlying flesh, I will add fur to the legs, from hip to ankle.

One leg...






"Two legs good, one leg baaad..."



All that's left to do is add fur to its legs and it's ready for paint.

[tyrionhalfman]

Great looking conversion. Thanks for sharing

[monkeylite]

Wow. That looks great.

[Nooblord]

The kind of great modelling skills I can only dream about. Good stuff.

[pacarat]

very cool.

[horridperson]

Nice work!  The sasquatch/yeti thing was a really cool model but you improved it.  Very clean undersculpt with an almost classical musculature; Very impressive.  Looking forward to seeing the rest of your process. 

[Koyote]

Nice work!  The sasquatch/yeti thing was a really cool model but you improved it.  Very clean undersculpt with an almost classical musculature; Very impressive.  Looking forward to seeing the rest of your process.  

Thanks. This was my first attempt to sculpt bare legs. I'm still a novice sculptor.

I'm having trouble reproducing the look of the fur found elsewhere on the model, so there won't be much progress until I can do more research.

[horridperson]

Fur is one of the most basic techniques.  I use a dull blade or a fine point sculpting tool when I'm at it.  Plan where you want the areas of fur on your models.  Take a piece of green stuff and lay it over an area you want covered.  It's important not to put too fat a piece on but you still need enough depth to a piece you can give it texture; Too thin and the detailing will appear flat and unconvincing. 

Start at the bottom of your piece most of the time for humans in pelts.  If you are sculpting on a "living" animal it is a good thing to look at your subject in photos; Google is helpful.  Use the tool to "pluck" into the gs then pull down (if starting from the bottom of the piece.  This will suggest the direction/lay of the strands of hair.  It's a feel thing.  By adjusting the length and direction of your pull you can change the texture considerably.

When you are happy with the low row do the same above it.  By pulling subsequent layers over the previous you create  layers that give your fur depth/fullness.  Your "low row" can be at any point on the model as long as "up" is moving away from the last.  Your best reference for the project is probably the model you are working on.  Study the fur detail on the yeti and practice pulling a piece of green stuff while checking it out.  Once you are happy with your match commit to it and work on the model.  By the look of the yeti the sculptor used a fine blade rather than a tool.  Their "pull" was almost a cut down the material with a curling motion as they drew it down to introduce a wave to their strands.  There aren't many rows in the fur sculpt because they used longer strands.

[Koyote]

Wow. Thanks, horridperson!

I'll give it a try tonight and let you know how it goes.