Do you even dungeon bro? (Part 1)

My dungeon crawl project started on February 2 2019. It’s been quite the journey and more than a year into it, I have amassed some tiles. This post is a year in the making so I’ll try to remember it all as best I can. Please join me and let’s get down, you dungeon degenerates:

My girlfriend and I made some test pieces to prototype with. My girlfriend made this piece. It is by far the best one from our efforts.

I think the brick work is excellent. I failed to produce anything close to this. She used a ballpoint pen and drew directly onto a piece of 1/2” foam. Sadly this was the only one she made.

The floors are 1” thick foam cut into 12” x 12” squares. The walls are 1/2” thick foam 3” tall.

I tried to glue the exterior walls on top of the floor but this was way too fiddly and kept falling apart. I ended up gluing the walls to the side of the floor. If that makes sense? Much more stable and very solid. It wound up making the walls 2” high. Which is about perfect for being able to reach miniatures on (in?) the tile. Here’s one of the first ones.
 

The first group had hand drawn flagstones or bricks. Adding interior features such as walls, stairs and   other stuff really brings the tiles to life. Painted black then dry brushed grey. More shots of the WIP.

After our first game on these tiles I figured it would be a lot more interesting if they had doors! So I set about making some to add to them.

The next batch that I made were built a little different. I made the walls with built in doors added texture with glued on sand. Hand drawing all those flagstones is labor intensive! 

Admittedly, they are a bit generic but do add a maze like feel to the experience. It maybe hard to see in these pictures but there is green blotches painted into the floor. This is to represent dungeon slime making these tiles more dangerous to the unwary adventurer.

Almost done degenerates, one more tile for this post! This one is something that I have wanted to make since the beginning of my Warhammering way back in the day. A terrain piece with a giant Chaos Wheel!

I want to do a post later on just on this tile.

Tiny head, hairy legs

So this guy is a solid throwback straight before 3rd WH. His tab has 1985 on it. Let me think for a minute and I could probably come up with some scenario why he has the mutations. I guess I’m too intoxicated to come up with something right now. Here he is:

I don’t know who sculpted this Minotaur but whoever it was had a thing against proportions. The tiny head and big giant hands, upper body is gigantic. It’s actually a great model and fits very much so into the whole Realms of Chaos stuff from the late 80’s. I painted the small head and furry legs strawberry blonde. The upper body is different shades of P3 Bootstrap Leather. The hands, muzzle and tail are a fleshy color. I made the tail bright to make it seem like it could be prehensile.

Anyone know who sculpted this buff beast of a Minotaur?

UPDATE: Stuff of Legends is an awesome site. This Minotaur is C25 series and his name is Bhovus. Sculpted by Nick Bibby.

Behead the Gorgon

Xuezea stepped around the pillar of the ancient and decaying temple. The ignorant man that had come here had no idea what he was facing. His gaze met hers and in an instant he was now one of the many stone statues that littered the temple floor.

The title of this blog post is in reference to the song Behead the Gorgon by the band Lair of the Minotaur.
https://youtu.be/-S9HWMdNnO4
The miniature is from Otherworld Miniatures
https://otherworldminiatures.co.uk/
 If you haven’t bought anything from them yet, you should. What are you waiting for? They make some excellent miniatures in an old school style. (I am in no way affiliated, employed, sponsored, paid, or compensated for my endorsement of this company). They make good stuff, ‘nuff said.

I’m not so happy about how her dress turned out but her skin looks dope in real life. She’ll make a great enemy for my players. Good thing their main characters just got some magic weapons. Their henchmen on the other hand are definitely going to have a very tough time.

No tab, no problem

When buying vintage lead sometimes you come across a miniature you want at a good price...but there is something wrong with it. Broken or worse yet missing weapon, smashed nose or in this case: no tab.

There’s lots of options here and the choice is really up to you but this is what I do.

Grab your favorite pin vice and drill a hole in each foot. Be careful not to drill too deep or you’ll burst through the top of the foot and be doing more repair work! 

Then I bend a paper clip into a flat bottomed U shape and super glue it into the holes. 

If you chose to use a thicker wire, it may fill up the slot in the base nicely. For thinner wire like I’ve used in my example, you can bend it in a “S” shape or if you want to go all out, use it as an armature for green stuff tab!

“Look Ma, no hands!”

The Nurgle Brothers Grime

Heinrich had given up his privilege of being one of the Emperor’s Marshals for a life of peace and prosperity with a loving wife that blessed him with two sons. After many battles and much bloodshed, the humble life of a farmer suited him. Alawishus respected his father’s calling to humbly reap the bounty of the land. Bocephus on the other hand was drawn to his father’s past. When the Plague struck, neither was armed to deal with the ramifications: first the crops died, then the live stock. Heinrich and Josephine, full of boules and pustules, finally succumbed, their sons began to pray...

Their journey took them far. North and north of the family farm. Into wilderness unknown. To smite the foes of those that would not succumb to their Master’s Blight.

These two Nurgle Champions were the first two finished painted miniatures of 2020! Both are classic Jes Goodwin sculpts from 1988. Happy New Year! And may the Chaos Gods bless you.

Why blog?

As a warning: this is going to be somewhat of a rant, somewhat of a bio and possibly some pictures of miniatures at the end (after all this is about miniatures/gaming)...Blogs are dead right? Why blog? Well, for many reasons. If you’re reading this you probably have a blog about miniatures and gaming with them too. (If you don’t have a blog, start one and share what you’re up to!) The main reason I’m starting this is to track my progress painting and share it with like minded people. This is probably the main reason most of us start blogging. Why not do this on one of the many other social media web sites? Well, I hate Facebook. Too much drama and hacking of personal information. And I have joined many forums over the years specializing in many different subjects. Unfortunately, they can become a little cliquish. I’m not meaning to be a Negative Nancy here, but a blog gives me a more personal internet experience. Follow it or not. This is my blog. And it is going to be about old school miniatures and gaming. So if you’re into that kind of stuff, please come along for the ride!
Another reason for my blog is that it gives me an outlet. My girlfriend, friends and coworkers are tired of hearing about the nuts and bolts of my hobby. Even though my girlfriend and best friend game, they really don’t care about the difference between this Bob Olley sculpt and that Jes Goodwin one. But you and I do.
I’ve been gaming and playing with miniatures off and on for the better part of 30 years. I have probably lost more battles than I’ve won and I’m ok-ish at painting. But I have a ton of fun with it all.  One fond memory was going to Games Day ‘97 in Baltimore. I met John Blanche, Nigel Stillman and Rick Priestly.
There could be many more trips down memory lane but I feel I’ve bored you long enough. As this blog is new there will probably be a flurry of posts as I have a backlog of painted miniatures, terrain and games to share. I’ll leave you with some Middlehammer Dark Elves I painted back in July of 2019.

Wizardz gonna Wiz

Here’s a Wizard I painted back in November of 2019. A Tre Manor sculpt from Reaper Miniatures. He represents a new painting  style I’m trying for.  What I’m trying to do is mix Grimdark with the quick and bright highlights of 80’s Oldhammer. My purpose behind this is not to win any painting contests but created paint schemes that look good on the table top.

A tattoo artist once told me that tattoos that look great from 6 inches away look like mush from 6 feet away. This applies to our miniatures too, especially on the table top. After all, these little guys that we spend hours painting, converting, and sculpting are just super awesome gaming pieces, right? Oh, and I think my light is washing these pictures out. One day I’ll learn some photography/photoshop skills.