Skittlebrau Paints Miniatures

[Skittlebrau]

Let me show you one of my dumb little hobbies.

So y'all know I play RPGs and such. I talk about it at great length anytime anybody gives me the opportunity. Mostly Dungeon Snake. And while there's a lot of different ways to play those, toys were a big part of my childhood, so when I got into RPGs, I also got very into miniatures to go with them. I had always been fascinated by warhammer and WH40k (spent a lot of time gawking at the store displays), but wrote them off as too much money and labor when I was a kid, so I only approached the hobby in short fits, starter sets and things like that. But once I got into D&D, I went full tilt into making sure I could visualize at least most of what my players experienced in the game. And while I started with a lot of prepainted minis, and especially prepainted terrain, eventually the sheer expense of that stuff necessitated getting my hands dirty.

At some point, I'll probably post some of the better ones I've painted over the past few years, but right now I want somewhere to dump pics of stuff I'm painting now.

[Skittlebrau]

Though I do admire the minis, and the sight of two full armies waging war on the tabletop, I'm 28 goddamn years old and Warhammer is still too rich for my blood. Costs somewhere between 200 and 400 dollars just to get a full, fieldable army on the table, plus maybe another 200 dollars if you want it to be competitive. IE, buying the huge artillery models like tanks or mechs, or the goddamn leader or special character figures, which are, no shit, like $20-40 for a single fucking two-inch mini. That said, my initial love of miniatures was fueled by poring over the beautifully painted ones in the old 90s Warhammer catalogs, so anytime I can have some fun with those games, without going broke, I generally jump at the opportunity. Enter Mordheim.



Mordheim was sort of a Warhammer sub-game from the late 90s, based around smaller-scale skirmishes between warbands of 5-15 warriors. And unlike Warhammer, it's heavily encouraged that you individualize the minis, as every warrior will be named, armed, and gain experience, upgrades, and permanent injuries individually over the course of a campaign. It fucking rules so hard. And as luck would have it, like two years ago my girlfriend's brother in law was looking for people to play. Going in, all I knew was that it was a miniature wargame with a weird name. What I didn't know was that the guy was a Games Workshop store employee for years back in the day, and had a shitload of the original minis and a full table of ruined buildings and bloody streets and canals, ready to be played. I'm damn lucky to be able to play it at all, ever, let alone with such a quality group of players and a glorious setup straight out of 1998.

We're going to start playing again soon, and I wanted to bring something new to the table. The guy has a lot of warbands ready to play, but its been a couple years, and I've seen almost everything he's got hit the table quite a few times. I love playing as The Possessed, the representative "Chaos" faction in the game. They're strong starting out, have lots of cool spells and special rules, and are generally badass, before you give up character upgrades for extra mutations that eventually fuck you over in the coolest way possible.

That said, the default Possessed warband is a little... generic grimdark for my tastes. Lots of black and red uniforms, skulls, and general "blood for the Blood God" attitude, and Dan's warband is painted pretty much exactly how it looks on the box, which rules, but again, zzzzz. So, I decided to give my guys a decidedly different flavor, opting to theme them after one of the less popular Chaos lords, Tzeentch, the god of Change and Magic. I did have a major hurdle, in that I have basically no money to waste on minis right now, especially rare-as-fuck Mordheim minis they stopped making fifteen years ago. However, with a little creative conversion, and a few old figs sacrificed to the god of bitz, I was able to make a Chaos warband out of cheap plastic minis I've had sitting around for years. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

Tzeentch's Alter'd Boys


Going down the roster...


Brother Fress and Brother Remble
These two I did first, just to get an idea of how I wanted the color scheme. Just a couple cheap Reaper cultists I had around forever, though I had to convert them to have appropriate weapons (daggers are shit in this game). The guy on the right was a simple hand transplant, but the guy on the left was a bit more work, since he had both hands on that damn book. Had to carefully cut his hand off at the wrist, shave it off the pages of the book, and then cut behind the book so I could fold it inwards and make room for a weapon hand, which was kindly donated by a random wizard. These guys turned out well enough that I used them as the model for everyone else's uniforms.


Wretched Athok, and Bellsworth The Warlock
Guy on the left is the warband's leader and Magister, and thus gets a slightly fancier, but more well-worn version of the cultist's robes. Guy on the right is a hired mercenary, a warlock for coin that I'll have to pay for at the beginning of every battle, so I figured it appropriate that he'd have his own clothes and robes, and just be wearing the "hat" of whomever he's currently working for. These guys are basically unconverted Reaper Bones. If anybody is thinking of trying your hand at this stuff, can't recommend Bones enough, they're like $3 each, look great, and the plastic takes paint so well you don't have to prime it.


Tybalt and Wink, Mutants
Playing Chaos is fun because you get to send in the mutated freaks. In this case, giant protruding spines and a prehensile eyestalk. Both of these guys are actually made from the same base model, a Reaper ghoul. Tybalt got his hair from the same dark elf I stole Remble's mace from, which was a really fun to paint but I kinda fucked up with a glossy finish, and borrowed a spear from a Heroclix amazon I have like 10 of. The spines are just plain old toothpicks, cut to size and glued whereever I could fit them! Meanwhile, Wink got his eyestalk from an off-brand Beholder I'd been putting off painting (you'll see where the rest of them ended up shortly), and his arms I took off of a prepainted Bugbear I got when I first started collecting. He's a cool mini, but he's also a Bugbear, which are a pretty fucking stupid monster race, so he mostly served as an off-color orc I'd throw into crowds. The scale on the arms is way off, but I figured fuck it, he's a mutant.


Bilecraw The Radiant, Beastman
Beastmen are fairly easy to come by, but at this point, who gives a shit about a skinny minotaur or some asshole with a goat head. I wanted to get weird with it. This guy was a good old-fashioned kitbash, born from me desperately rooting around in my bin of old heroclix gathering dust in the basement for (a: something bird-themed (Tzeentch likes birds), and (b: a beefy torso and legs, preferably armed with a club. I eventually found the raw materials I needed in an admittedly cool Dark Phoenix figure, Hercules for the torso, and a quick hand transplant from Absorbing Man. Very happy with how the paint job on the wings turned out, he's definitely going to stand out on the table, which may be a problem when it comes to, say, crossbowmen, but I guess that's a bridge to be crossed later.


Reinholdt Forever-Altered, Possessed
For the mutated-beyond-sanity heavy-hitter of the warband, I dove into my bitz box, and basically combined pieces from something like four different already-cut-up minis with a little filler putty and superglue, to make a thoroughly fucked-up Chaos spawn. Original figures, to wit: head, body, tentacles (remember I said these'd show up again?), claw. Because he's got a lot more depth to him than most guys, its hard to photograph him, so you miss stuff like the arc of the claw, the little red eyes on the tentacles, or his windswept white hair, but you get the gist. Just a big ol Cronenberg.

All that took me about a week and a half to get through, but it was a lot of fun! I'm hoping to get more done over the next couple weeks, just for laughs and to get through my backlog of unpainted minis. I'm also eyeing the aforementioned now-tentacle-less Beholder, who at this point is a few easily-obtained horns away from being a dead ringer for a DOOM Cacodemon.

[OmniromX]

Very cool! Did you paint underneath their loinclothes? Like a little bit of penis or butt crack showing?

[Skittlebrau]

the very slightest hint of cheek. nothing anatomical is actually sculpted down there, its basically a flat surface, so anything like that would have to be added freehand. like, I could sculpt a tiny little dick and balls and tuck it under there, it wouldn't even be hard, but thats just not something I'm looking to do at this point in my life.

[Tony Clay]

Originally Posted by Skittlebrau

the very slightest hint of cheek. nothing anatomical is actually sculpted down there, its basically a flat surface, so anything like that would have to be added freehand. like, I could sculpt a tiny little dick and balls and tuck it under there, it wouldn't even be hard, but thats just not something I'm looking to do at this point in my life.

[Dungeon Snake]

hahahah

[Bobby Swisha]

That's cool, I've always wanted to paint miniatures but have never had the money / time for it. I paint my ceramic pieces now though so that's kind of similar. I love the amount of detail on such a small figuring, though. I wonder how they make these?

[Dungeon Snake]

Originally Posted by Bobby Swisha

That's cool, I've always wanted to paint miniatures but have never had the money / time for it. I paint my ceramic pieces now though so that's kind of similar. I love the amount of detail on such a small figuring, though. I wonder how they make these?

at least in the past, i think it used to be a reverse casting process. basically you have a mold and you inject it with lead or plastic. that's probably how these were made. nowadays though i think its more done with 3d printing. skittlebrau probably knows more than i

[Izak MD]

i remember i briefly thoguht about playing warhammer for like 1 month in my life when i was about 15, then gave up on it because too expensive, and i didn't have a job or allowance.

anyhow i had like one little pewter figure of like a little wizard guy, and i painted it all correctly and shit. i felt very very proud

[Skittlebrau]

No, you’re right, that’s still the primary means of making this stuff. 3D printing is amazing for miniatures on a small scale, but for mass production it’s ludicrously inefficient. A more common modern shortcut is for minis to be sculpted on a computer, and 3D print a very high res “master” sculpt, which is then used to create the injection mold the others will be cast in. Personally I prefer the look of hand-sculpted minis, but the industry is definitely shifting toward the computer-first model for the most part. GW loves it because you can cram tons of tiny details on those $30 Finecast figures. And I guess in general 3d modelers are easier to find, work with, and replace than sculptors, which . But yeah! Lots of reverse casting and injection molds, which is still expensive, because molds get a lot of residual buildup and are only good for so many castings before the details get lost and they need replacing. But it’s still the best way to do the job!

[Bobby Swisha]

What do they sculpt them out of that they’re so fucking small and don’t fall apart? I know it’s not ceramics

[Skittlebrau]

Epoxy putty is the industry standard. “Green stuff” or “gray stuff”, depending on the formula. Basically ribbons of half-lime green, half-blue (or black/white) putty that, when mixed together, will set and harden relatively quickly. In my experience you have about ten to twenty minutes with green stuff before it’s unworkable, depending on how big a piece (and like, air conditions and shit like that). I think gray stuff you have longer to work with, I’m not sure the advantages with it. I’ve only ever used it for conversions or simple augmentations, I’ve never had the stones to sculpt a full mini. Reaper does make apertures though, like skeletons you can build on, so it’s something I’ve considered. If it’s something you’d want to try, i totally encourage you to check it out. Lots of guys doing small-batch miniatures these days.

[Bobby Swisha]

That's cool. I'll probably post my ceramics here pretty soon.

[Skittlebrau]

Cool!

[Dungeon Snake]

i've worked with green stuff before and it is some of the goddamn most difficult shit to work with. it's so hard to get the consistency right and it gets hard so quickly. i'm always astounded when i see professional sculptors who are churning out these like, unbelievably detailed dwarfs wearing like full sutton hoo burial garb.

[Skittlebrau]

Oh yeah, I’m my haste to get my thoughts out I forgot to mention that green stuff, despite being what professional miniature sculptors use, is a fuckin bitch to work with on any scale project and is rightfully loathed by a lot of people. I am also floored when I see the original “greens”, the green stuff master sculpts before they’re put into production, because the idea that someone could do so much with such a finicky and inconsistent substance is ri-fucking-diculous.



But yeah, it takes tiny details like a champ, and there’s almost no growing or shrinking when it dries, so sculptors love it. If you want to try your hand, though, sculpy is way more forgiving, even if it does shrink a bit. (grow? Shrink?)

[Bobby Swisha]

Those are so cool looking.

Reminds me of these: http://japanesemetal.tumblr.com/post/71186614605

[Skittlebrau]

They always reminded me of jade, but I love the comparison to the treated copper like that.

Played the warband in the first game of the Mordheim campaign! They did extremely poorly! All but three of them were taken out of action, the Possessed and the one-eyed mutant were killed, and the warband leader was sold to the fighting pits, fought a gladiator, and died. I will likely have to just start over fresh and hope to catch up in experience with everyone else.

MORDHEIM BABY!

[Skittlebrau]

Was bored today. Shuffled through my big bin of unpainted minis, grabbed a random sci-fi dude I picked up like two years ago for like a buck. Didn’t do an amazing job, but he was fun to goof around with.

[Skittlebrau]

I got a bunch of these little knee-high demon guys, they’re fun for when I don’t feel like doing anything big or involved and just want to chill out and paint for an hour or two. The two in the middle were attempts at capturing the DOOM Pinkie and Cacodemon palettes, the guy on the left is based on rough memories of the movie Ghoulies, and the Cthulhu is just a Cthulhu, enjoy.

[Dungeon Snake]

was just wondering how the painting was going! glad to see progress

[Skittlebrau]

I started doing a couple of giants like two weeks ago, and right now I’m at the point where before I can do any of the fun shading and detail work, I have to basecoat all the tiny stupid shit they have stapled to themselves, bones and little sacks and things like that. And I just haven’t felt like pushing through that, so I did some little gremlins to pass the time. I’ll probably finish up the big’uns before the weekend’s over.

God I wish I was good enough to justify getting an airbrush. I’ve seen great ones go on sale for 60-70, and it seems like the way gods were meant to paint. But man, I see motherfuckers with their pencil-thin lines and elegant-ass simulated colored lighting, and I’m just not THERE yet. Not to mention the dudes just showing off, doing full side-of-a-van airbrush art on their guys and whatnot, where you’ve got a space marine dreadnought with a fuckin Yes album cover all over it. I still have a lot of theory to practice, and a lot of steadying for my hand, before I drop money on an airbrush.