The upside of certain plastic minis kits, like the Grey Knights for instance, is getting a bunch of arms and legs and putting them together however you like. This used to make for less dynamic models, but most of the newest Games Workshop plastic kits actually produce very dynamic (and detailed) miniatures while allowing lots of different possibilities.

With metal kits, like the Tharn Ravagers, you get very detailed miniatures but limited possibilities. With the Tharn Ravagers, there are actually only three poses. So, when buying a box of 4, you get two with the same pose.

I kinda hate that.

In response to the hate, I put effort into trying to make each figure unique. Previous to the existence of this blog, I fiddled with my Tharn Bloodtrackers enough to make the unit look pretty heterogeneous, but that was a bit easier than the beefy Tharn Ravagers will be.

I assembled three of the four as normal, but the fourth got some heavy modification. First, I used a pair of pliers and a pair of clippers to bend out the arms. But let me give you some tips on how I did this. First, check out the tools:

A Leatherman Skeletool and a cheap pair of clippers.

These tools both have large open areas. When bending a metal mini, the last thing you want to do is clamp down on the detail areas – it will irrevocably mar the miniature. Instead, I settled the lower and upper arms into the open areas in each tool, behind the cutting/gripping tips. This wasn’t easy, but it let me bend the model’s arm without ruining the detail. Here are the results (click for larger versions):

Original pose is on the left, repose is on the right.

Here you can see where I clipped the left arm to actually separate the upper and lower arm so it could be bent. I'll probably have to clean this up with some green stuff.

Another angle!

The modified Ravager is headless, but I intend to give him some unique Green Stuff addons to further distinguish the two, possibly including a headdress or hood.

The metal is basically at the breaking point, so I’m going to beef up the arms with decorative elements that will serve to strengthen the arms at the elbows and shoulders. I have a lot of fun trying to use Green Stuff to reinforce the model while making it look cooler. We’ll see if I can work that in this case.

More to come!

It was a rock... lobster! (Not really)

First, let’s look at Lug. With a giant polar bear, you want an inspiring base. I decided he should stand on a giant rock in the snow. So I pulled out my Apoxie Sculpt to make the aforementioned rock. I mixed it, waited about an hour, then started slapping it on the base and sculpting it with my standard sculpting tools (my fingers, and some actual tools). I went for a dynamic shape, which is, of course, a rock tapering wider from the base. The opposite looks a little more boring.

Once the rock cured completely, I drilled holes in Lug’s feet, glues pins into the feet, then pushed the foot pins down onto the rock. This left two little scratches as perfect guide points to drill holes. The end result was a very sturdy model:

Rawr.

So, happy with the big bear, I turned to his dwarf buddy. Brun Cragback has a slight problem – he’s leaning forward like a drunken monkey:

I know dwarves are stereotypically drinkers... but come on!

So, this is a problem easily solved with scenic terrain. To match Lug, he’ll be standing on a rock in the snow! This rock will be tilted towards the back so that Brun will even out. Again, I wait an hour after mixing, I sculpt the rock (making it tall to give Brun a little more height), and then I test fit Brun to make sure he’s standing straight up.

This angle actually makes it look like he's still leaning forward, but he actually is standing straight.

And from the front:

Not a great picture, but you can see the pointy front of the rock, which I like..

I also did a nice base for the Circle warlock, Baldur the Stonesoul, to make him a little more prominent on the battlefield.

Hopefully, the runes will show up alright when he gets painted.

Okay, maybe “scenic bases” was an overstatement, but Apoxie Sculpt is an easy way to throw something under a guy to make him look a bit cooler. It also can cover up a problem, like a leaning mini. Remember, I also used it to straighten up my Woldwarden:

I put a rock under your rock-man so he won't rock when he rocks. (Get it?)

So this is just one use of Apoxie Sculpt – I’ve also filled molds with it and tried sculpting more complex shapes with it. I need to practice with it more to determine how to sculpt it well, but I think I prefer Green Stuff for that purpose.

Anyway, I’ve got a backlog of things to post here, so hopefully, the blog will be busy for the next few weeks…

Hollow Bear!

I saw someone else on the internet fill this verysame model with Apoxie Sculpt, and that seemed like a fun idea. So, this post is about building a bear, but it’s also about Apoxie Sculpt, a neat product from Aves, who can feel free to send me free stuff.

Using Apoxie Sculpt

Now, a quick overview with tips on how to use Apoxie Sculpt. First, what is it? Apoxie Sculpt is a two-part putty that is mixed together, can be molded or sculpted, and then cures to a very hard plastic-like solid within 24 hours. Here are some tips:

• When first blended, it’s very crumbly and sticky, so do like the container says and wait 1 hour before trying to sculpt it. (If you’re shoving it in a mold, you don’t necessarily have to wait, but I think you get better results if you wait about 30 minutes.)
• When you’re mixing Apoxie Sculpt, wear gloves! It’s not hazardous, but it seems like the stuff sticks to your skin and can be very itchy as it dries. Mix it with gloves on and set it aside for an hour – when you go back to it, you won’t need the gloves (in my experience).
• Mix it very thoroughly – if you don’t, your final piece will have crumbly bits which will come right apart. You’ll possibly lose detail or structure, so just take the time to mix it well.
• Apoxie Sculpt isn’t Green Stuff, so your Green Stuff skills won’t apply so much. It’s a bit like a clay, but it has its own set of properties, so it takes some practice. For instance, water can make it easier to work with, but unlike Green Stuff, water will actually make it soggy, so don’t use very much.
• If using it in a mold (like Instant Mold, which I need to post about), Apoxie Sculpt doesn’t seem to take detail as well as a Green Stuff. I still could experiment with this more, but that’s my impression thus far.

4 lbs is a lot.

Apoxie Sculpt is inexpensive compared to Green Stuff and most other products. You can order 4 lbs from Aves for $35.00, and trust me, 4 lbs is a HUGE amount.

Apoxie Sculpt comes in a variety of colors. I ordered “Natural” because it’s a nice, plain gray, and I thought that would make it easier to judge how something looks (sometimes, Green Stuff is too damned green, and it’s hard to imagine what it will look like when primed and painted). The downside of “Natural” is that the two parts are nearly the same color – I don’t have any other colors, but it looks like, for instance, the red Apoxie Sculpt has a gray part and a red part. That would make mixing easier! As it stands, with “Natural”, I just have to make sure that I’m really thorough with the mixing.

So, first we take equal parts of A and B:

Gray and slightly darker gray!

I tend to flatten out each half, then press them together and start the mixing. Smooth, twist, smoosh, twist, et cetera, et cetera, until the ball has a pretty even color.

And now, it's a fairly even gray.

Then, I filled Lug’s legs and belly with Apoxie Sculpt:

Note that I have not let the ball sit out, so the Apoxie Sculpt was still very sticky when I pushed it into Lug, and when I stuck the pieces all together.

I pressed the pieces together, took out some extra Apoxie Sculpt, pressed them together again, adjusted, and put super glue on the metal lip around the body, then finally stuck the pieces together for good. And here is Lug all together:

There's nothing better than a bear in armor. That basically made "The Golden Compass" movie for me.

There was Apoxie Sculpt left over, which I try to always prepare for. I’ll show you in my next post the many other uses for Apoxie Sculpt – it’s not really meant to be a model filler, after all.

One last thing, though – did you notice that Lug doesn’t look right? I did. Why? Because Lug only has four claws on each paw! Everyone knows that bears have five claws on each of their four plantigrade paws! Sure, very few mammals have a full five digits on each extremity (although they usually have signs of the vestigal digits), but c’mon sculptor – it’s just a Google image search away!

Actually, I assume the sculptor chose four claws because he could make them bigger without making the paws look too huge… but still!

In the last part, I explained that the body wouldn’t fit in between the hip plates on the legs, so I had to separate them. With the legs separated further, I could fit the torso piece in there:

And, of course, the torso was mounted on a big ol' pin, because I am a pinning junkie.

Here's a quick front view.

Now my plodding woldwarden is starting to come together. The arms were stuck on pins, of course, and placed into the sockets without much problem at all:

This photo was taken with my iPhone, so it sucks. I think I lowered the left arm a bit after this picture was taken, giving the Woldwarden more of a "in the process of a slam" pose.

So, with the arms on, the last step was the head. Normally, the head fits on perpendicular to the shoulders. This would’ve resulted in a very bad look for my warden, who would’ve been staring at the ground. You could say, “Oh, Chuck, he’s checking to make sure he doesn’t trip over any roots or vines,” but we all know the Woldwarden has Pathfinder.

The solution – a pin! I first drilled a hole in the neck area of the torso. Then, I drilled a hole in the back of the warden’s head. By doing that, I was able to bend the pin once the glue set, putting the head at the precise angle I wanted. With that, my woldwarden looked like he was performing a solid slam maneuver against the enemy:

SLAM!

With that, the pose was done. The woldwarden is ready to go! But the angle at which he was standing wasn’t making me happy. So, using Apoxie Sculpt, I made him a nice rock to stand on, shoring up his overall body angle to be a bit more upright:

The rock gave him just the angle I was looking for!

And here’s the finished woldwarden from the front! I am extremely pleased with this repose – sure, his arms are swaying in the same direction as his lead foot, but that’s why I think of this as a “slam” pose, rather than a walking or running pose. Maybe he just smashed through some obstacle. Maybe he just knocked a poor `Jack off his feet. Or maybe he’s just striking a sweet pose for the Circle Orboros yearbook. Regardless, the arm and the head are just great.

"Hi there. Looking for some POW 15 fists? Cause I got those."

And with that, the woldwarden repose is finished! Of course, he has to be painted, and I’m still trying to practice and get better at that. But when I do get to painting my fancy guys, I’ll post pictures here!

I cut the arm with a rotary tool with a cutting wheel. It goes a little faster than a jeweler's saw, it's easier than trying to clip it, and it makes a basically clean cut.

I liked the shoulder joint, so with this cut, I can spin the forearm inward to make the pose a bit more… sensible. So, I drill a tiny hole in each piece of the arm, stick in a pin, glue it up, and get the following:

This didn't want to hold, so I had to glue it two or three times.

Now, back to the legs. Each leg, at the hip, has a plate along the woldwarden’s side that sticks up. At the angle I had glued the legs, the chest piece wouldn’t fit into between those two plates. This put me in a dilemma… I could clip the plates, or bend them, but I decided to just pull the legs further apart.

I put a longer pin in, and then tried to fill the gap with Green Putty. This was basically successful. Here’s a photo:

The codpiece there is off-kilter, but you can't even notice it on the finished pose.

To make sure the pose would look alright when actually standing up, I stuck the legs in some wax. The wax is from a Babybel cheese – it works great for holding something for a bit (except the wax sometimes has to be wiped off the piece). In this picture, you can also see the first half of pinning on the body.

Cheese wax! Lots of things come in handy on the minis workbench.

And here’s a side view:

You can see the woldwarden's gait is going to be a bit ponderous, but that makes sense for a giant made of rock and wood.

Next on Reposing the Woldwarden… putting it all together!

So let’s talk about the woldwarden.

The woldwarden is a great-looking piece from the folks at Privateer Press for the Hordes game. This is my first Hordes & Warmachine post, but I ‘ve had an army from the Circle Orboros faction – a secretive group of murderous druids, cannibal barbarians, and their various warbeasts – for a few years now. I enjoy the Circle, as I’ve always been a fan of fantasy druids in most any setting, and their collection of wolfmen and natural constructs are appealing.

The woldwarden is a mighty construct made of wood and inscribed stone, towering over the battlefield with their mighty stone fists. Unfortunately, their sculpted pose is really goofy. I present Exhibit A:

Or he might be doing the Charleston. Or he might be one of those gameshow ladies who point their arms toward a product.

I don’t like the pose. First off, obviously, what’s his right arm doing? Is that supposed to be threatening? His footing is another concern – it looks kind of like he’s walking a tight-rope, since his right foot is a little too in-line with his left foot. Another problem with the model (which I don’t correct in my repose) is that the leading arm is the same as the leading foot. But that’s not how bipeds walk – the leading arm is the opposite of the leading foot when walking or running. Now, perhaps he’s meant to be shoulder-checking someone, which would mean he leads with the same shoulder as his leading foot, but… well, anyway, the pose just doesn’t sit well with me.

So recently, I added a woldwarden to my collection in pursuit of “fleshing” out my army with constructs. (Get it? Fleshing? Constructs? See, constructs don’t have flesh, so… y’know… it’s funny.) I knew even before I received my metal monstrosity that I would be reposing it. However, rather than really going crazy and cutting every knee and elbow, I decided to do as few cuts as possible. (If I add a second woldwarden in the future, I promise to go all-out.) Here’s how that started.

First, here’s another angle on the legs as they’re supposed to fit together:

A different angle than the "official" image above, where you can see the legs want to tilt in towards each other.

In this angle, you can see better (I think) why I don’t quite like the leg pose. To make this an easy fix, I’ll just splay out the legs more to give him a, uh… “wide stance.”

This is attempt #1. Later, I learn I have to separate the legs more. Hooray!

That’s a start! But for the rest of the process, you’ll have to wait for the next installment.

Next Time on Reposing the Woldwarden: Fixing that awful right arm pose, widening the stance a bit more, and visualizing the final pose.

In case you don’t know, transmogrification is a feature of World of Warcraft whereby you can transform the appearance of your current gear to another item (of the same armor/weapon type) that you already own. Since this has zero game effect, it is obviously one of the most important things in the game to me. As I’ve stated before, I love the “Barbie Dress-Up” portions of video games, and transmogrification has added that feature to WoW.

Until recently, Stormcrow was wearing the Heroes’ Dreamwalker Battlegear, one of the few druid sets that looks good on a tauren. Here’s a shot of him in that set:

It's all about the purples, so why not wear purple?

But still, this gear set says “mysterious druid,” whereas Stormcrow, in my head, is more of a gritty, turns-into-a-bear-and-rips-your-face-off feral druid. So I really needed to find a gear set that suited that attitude.

The first part was easy – an eyepatch. I went with The Eye of Rend, which I already had in my bank. The next most important thing is shoulders, so I went with Spaulders of the Monstrosity, a great item from Naxx that I also had in my bank. The spaulders are spikey, and (as with all shoulders) nice and huge on a tauren.

From there, it was a matter of color-matching. The spaulders are blue, so I needed to match them with similar blues. To accomplish this, the folks at icy-veins.com have a visual guide that will show you every piece of gear wearable by a certain class. This is a huge win.

Stormcrow’s new chest and gloves are from the Eviscerator’s Battlegear (which I had to get a Leatherworker to make for me), and Merciless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Legguards (the PvP recolor of Tier 6 druid armor) filled out the leg sot. I didn’t play with the belt because my current belt isn’t a horrible mismatch, and boots don’t show up on tauren with skirts, so all I did to finish was transmog my staff into Origin of Nightmares and I was all done.

The finished look:

...for when you absolutely, positively must look like a pirate in a dress.

You’ll also notice that Stormcrow changed from black hide to light gray hide. I had to do this because my raid leader kept confusing the two black cats in the raid. I only want to get blamed for what I do wrong, so I opted into the gray look. The gray bear is pretty awesome.

So, that’s our first article on Transmogrification – stay tuned to see more. Or stay tuned and try to ignore senseless articles about the clothes my video game characters wear! Or don’t stay tuned, and miss out on all the fun!

To finish the Wolf King (finally), I gave him a different (better?) axe. Here’s Magnus with his new double-edged axe.

This axe looks a lot more like Morkai, the axe wielded by Logan Grimnar of the Space Wolves. Since the Wolf King is a stand-in for Grimnar, it makes sense to use this axe.

To cover up the gap in between his hip and right leg, I decided to add another animal pelt to the Wolf King, this time as an “apron” like those often worn by Space Marine commanders. Also, to make the corpse of the Chaos Lord on the base blend better, I added some Green Stuff to make it meet the base at a smooth angle.

A shot of the Wolf King... probably the last shot before he's primed... probably.

And now, a close-up!

Ooo, details!

Now, when the Green Stuff cures, just a little cleanup and filing and he should be ready for primer!

When I get around to painting him, I’ll post more… but for now, say farewell to Magnus Sorensen, the Wolf King!

First, I added a furry pelt to his right leg. This was really just to give his legs a bit more detail, since most Captains and Chapter Masters have really detailed armor. However, Magnus, the Wolf King, is from a ramshackle Space Marine Chapter whose gear is in poor condition. Rather than a golden god, Magnus is a barbarian lord in the best gear that could be scrounged together for him.

This fur doesn't look too bad...

Additionally, I added a furry pelt to the inside of his right shoulder.

Ok, it's a little weird to be wearing a pelt right there, but if you don't think too hard about it, it looks good.

Great, right? Well, then I got the new Space Wolves Thunderwolf Calvary, and there’s a great axe in there which looks closer to the axe that Logan Grimnar uses (and Wolf King Magnus “counts as” Logan Grimnar). So… I took clippers to the wrist…

Oopsie. Looks like someone dropped his axe... and his hand.

Since it was a joint I’d previously glued together, the clippers just pushed apart the wrist and forearm – a nice, clean cut!

Next time on Wolf King… the new axe, filling the last few gaps, and the last few touches before priming!

The next step was to add the shoulder armor. These are just boring old Space Wolf Terminator shoulders. I also started to clean up the beard and hair a little with a scalpel. Pro-tip: Scalpels are really sharp. They are so sharp, you will not feel it when it slices your finger open. This makes them excellent tools, and a great way to get scars.

Wow. There's a lot of damage in the plastic there... a DSLR really accentuates the parts I messed up, doesn't it?

Here’s another shot:

This is a decent shot of the shoulders, where I filled the gap in the leg, and the defeated Chaos Lord serving as a doormat.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I ended up using the Instant Mold to mold and cast the wolf head from the original Logan Grimnar. I also molded a wolf pelt cloak from one of the Space Wolves Grey Hunters. I took these two parts and glued them to the Wolf King:

This wolf head is a much more suitable size.

Now, we take a blob of Green Stuff, stick it in the gap between the head and cloak, and push in our tool (after dipping it in water!), making smooth lines joining the head and cloak:

Wow! It's like they were never separate pieces! That's the power of Green Stuff!

Next time, we’ll take Green Stuff and cover up some gaps and add some enhancements. I will take a moment now to say this – I am totally in love with this guy. I’m almost never this happy with my work, but I don’t have many complaints about the Wolf King so far.