Tooling Around 4/18/16

Today was all about building what was in front of me.  My desk is also my workspace and I need to clear it off before tomorrow night when I will be playing Traveller on Roll20.  Yes, I do realize the irony of playing RPGs online when you make hundreds of scenery pieces a month, but Tuesday night is my 'play online with my high school chums' night.  And in any case, we often play Hero.  You don't build scenery for Hero.  You don't have time.  Can I get the obligatory "what what!"  For those of you who don't follow, the Hero system is to Dungeons and Dragons as aspirin is to opium.  Don't do drugs.  Well, maybe aspirin's okay.

Where was I?  Oh yes, my desk is covered with stuff.  I mean a lot of stuff. I have an old school chaos dreadnought that I've been converting for more than a decade (translation: I've got a dreadnought I use, so I'm in no hurry.  Plus, the codex keeps nerfing dreadies.  It's ridiculous.).  Tons and tons of little pieces here and there and everywhere.  So today was all about putting some of those things together and painting them.  Also, I watched The Holy Grail and The Life of Brian.  I'm on a Monty Python kick.

Here are the results:

A few notes:  

The brain beast.  I am often weirded out by how much people shy away from a plastic mini.  I mean, yes, I like lead too.  But painted, who cares?  Look at that guy.  For those who are wondering, the legs were brick.  The pincers were sand colored, the brain was pinkish-purple.  I then overbrushed it with white (pink on the brain part). and then hit the pincers and crabby parts with ink.  That's it.

The...let's call it a column:  I like 'em in pairs (obviously), but I didn't have two on my desk.  So I put this one together.  The base is an interesting trick.  Mainly it's pressed from two molds, but then basically laid that piece over some liquid building material on another mold.  That way, it looks like flagstone's been shattered, and underneath it is just plain stone.  I've actually built entire dungeon sets to look like this and they're fantastic.  This might have been left over from a big build.

Tree:  When you build one tree, you are determined.  I never build, much less sell, trees singly, but it does bring up a weird point.  How much is a tree worth?  My thinking is $1-2, but honestly, who would buy one tree.  By the way, the trick to keeping the stuff on the tree is the varnish.  Spray varnish is absolutely necessary if you hope for the thing not to shed.

Urbanmech:  That's an urbanmech.  It's from Battletech.  It's pretty good.  So, tip.  Look at the base.  Big stones and sand.  which do you put down first?  Big stones.  It's not open for debate.  Glue down the big stones and then let the sand fill in around it.  Do it the other way and it will look weird.

Any case, I hope you enjoy them.  I'll post more of my creations tomorrow.