Unconventional Terrain for Malifaux (Carnivorous Plant)

Last weekend, my friend and I played a game of Malifaux using the Unconventional Terrain from the special encounters section of the book. 

We randomly chose the Carnivorous Plant, however, we didn't have any marker for it. We simply used an extra 50mm base to represent it for the game. 

The terrain actually worked very well. We avoided it at the start of the match, but eventually forgot it was there and moved toward it. The terrain ended up killing my Papa Loco and one of his zombies. 

So, since it was quite fun, I decided to make a plant out of green-like stuff. 

I have only limited practice with green-like stuff and have never sculpted anything with it before. Also, I say green-like stuff because I am not using actual green stuff. I am using some super cheap Korean putty stuff that is meant for plumbing. I imagine it works about the same, however, I feel that this stuff dries much quicker, is much stickier and ended up having bubbles in it when I stretched it. All of this can probably be avoided if you actually know how to use the stuff. However, I don't. :)

I started off with the base. 50mm cork. 

I painted this up brown and applied the new cracking earth soil stuff paint from GW around the edges. 

I figured I didn't need to get in the center as the plant will cover most of this base. 

The next thing I did was create the leaves. I had a rough idea of what I wanted the plant and the plant's leaves to look like in my head. 

It took me about 30 minutes and two different types of green-like stuff to make them. There was a lot of trial and error and I ended up getting better as I went along. The lighter green-like stuff definitely worked better. 

Next, I created the plant. I originally wasn't going to create a flower of any kind for the plant, but I ended up rolling the excess material from the leaves into a ball. It then gave me the idea to make the flower. 

The inside if the flower is the rolled up excess. I then made some more shitty leaves and wrapped them around the ball to look like a flower that hasn't bloomed. 

The next part was rolling some plant tentacles/arms/branches or whatever the hell they are. I think they ended up being a bit thick in the end, though. 

Next, I based everything in black. 

I then started putting on layers of green, working from dark to light. I also hit the bubbles on the leaves with some red to make it look diseased. 

The flower was next. Again, I just added a few layers of red, working from dark to lighter colors. Later, I cleaned up the branches with a brush. 

The next step was laying out the leaves in an arrangement that I liked. 

After gluing them down, I placed the flower on top and glued it down. 

The whole process took about three hours to do. There were a lot of tough parts and a lot of learning. I will make another plant some time soon in the future since the scenario calls for two plants to be put down. I think I will be able to produce something a bit nicer next time. Also, hopefully I can get my hands on some real green stuff. 

Here are a few more pictures. 

Malifaux Sorrows Pt. 2

I have finally finished painting my three sorrows. Before I started painting them, I decided to take my time with them and paint them one at a time. 

From this, I have leaned that keeping a consistent paint scheme across these models is very hard when you complete them one at a time. 

Here they are. 

The biggest issue is the third one's skin. It is obviously much darker. I think the reason is a combination of three things. 1) the green/tan skin color was too dark. 2) I went a bit heavy with the wash. 3) I didn't wipe away the wash quick enough to create the wasting away effect. 

The one good thing is that I kept the green ghostly mist fairly consistent and I am happy with that. 

Overall, they were pretty fun to put together and to paint. They were my first ghostly figures and I think I learned quite a bit from them. I will be able to apply this experience to other things later. 

Malifaux Terrain (Gallows)

*Update*

I got the rope tied up nicely and put on the gallows. I think the scale actually worked. 

And for fun. 

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My second terrain project for Malifaux was building a gallow. 

When I originally started looking for terrain ideas for Malifaux, the first thing I came across was a YouTube tutorial on how to build a gallow. 

It looked awesome and not too hard, so I decided to make my own. I didn't end up copying every aspect of the tutorial, but the overall idea is the same. 

It took me about 90 minutes to put all the wood together. I had a hell of a time making stairs, as I have zero experience making stairs. After a few failed attempts, I decided to just go with stacked wood. I haven't connected the wooden stairs and I don't think I will. Maybe I will build better stairs one day and just use the stack of wood as...well...a stack of wood. 

I also made a few stools out of green stuff. I wanted to put one of the stools on its side, but I got lazy and decided to not put much effort into the details on the bottom sides of each stool. 

The painting took me about another 90 minutes. I feel that 3 hours was pretty good for this piece. 

The last part I have to add is two nooses. I wasn't sure how to do it at home with the supplies I had. So I went to the craft shop near my school and bought the thinnest rope I could get. This is the result. 

They may be a little too thick, but I think they will do until I can find something a bit thinner. 

Unfortunately, I now have to wait until I finish work to find out about the sizes. 

I have also decided to start building the special rule terrain from the Malifaux scenarios. There are 12 pieces (I think) and they should be pretty fun to put together. 

Malifaux Terrain (Murder Shack)

I played a game of Malifaux at my house this weekend for the first time. A friend made the trip out and I was excited to try out the gaming board that I had put together. It wasn't perfect, but it got the job done. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to put together any terrain for our game, so we had to use whatever we could. 

So, on Sunday, I decided to buy some Popsicle sticks and try to make something. 

At first, I was aiming for an outhouse. 

This was the result after the first hour or so. I had originally used colored Popsicle sticks, since I could only get my hands on colored ones. So priming and covering up the green, blue, yellow and purple of the Popsicle sticks wasn't the easiest thing. 

Still, it turned out okay. 

I also wanted the shack to have a dilapidated, moldy feel, so I put some green crap on the bottom of each panel. 

It was at about this time that I changed from an outhouse to just an old shack. 

I also got the idea to put some Warhammer Dwarf props on the shed. 

This is the final result. 

I made the sign with something similar to green stuff and the nail in the sign is a piece of a sprue that I cut up. I then hit two sides of the shack with blood splatter using my airbrush to blow the new blood paint from GW off my brush. 

And finally, here is a Malifaux model beside the shack. I think the scale is okay, although maybe the shack is a few centimeters too high. 

Overall, I am very happy with the result. It was super fun to put this together and not at all too difficult. 

Malifaux Sorrow Pt. 1

After finishing my wood bases, I moved onto the models for the box. I decided to start with a ghost type character called a sorrow. 

I have never painted a ghost or spirit before. I have also never painted something that is supposed to be translucent and intangible. So I am at a bit of a disadvantage with this model. 

I decided to not make the entire model a ghost. I decided to only have the bottom be the ghostly mist and instead, have a decaying corpse monster emerging from it. I think the idea is good and I will continue it with my next models. 

A criticism I received from a friend is that the bottom of the model (green part) is a bit confusing. It isn't full clear that it is suppose to be a ghostly mist. It also doesn't convey the intangible quality that the mist has. 

I am going to give the second sorrow a shot tonight. I am going to try basing in white this time instead of black. I am also going to go lighter on the green and maybe avoid washing. 

Experimenting with Bases

*Update*

Here are all of the bases that I've done together. 

I like the theme and I think they turned out well. I will now finish off this Malifaux crew before I move onto making new bases for the next set. I am not sure about the theme yet, but maybe bricks of some sort. 

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One thing that I always notice on other people's models is their awesome bases. Some people buy amazing bases from retailers and paint them up nicely. Others are really talented with crafts and green stuff.

For me, I have always found the store bought bases to be a bit pricy and hard to get ahold of. And I haven't had the courage to bother trying to make my own (until recently). 

For the most part, I used to just slap some static grass or mud on my bases. 

Not any more!

My first experiment with bases happened a few months ago. This was the result. 

It isn't terrible, but the end result wasn't exactly what I wanted. The grass didn't work, the glue was shiny and the rocks didn't turn out as well as I hoped. 

I decided to give this kind of technique another shot today. 

This time, I wanted to create a wood sidewalk old west themed base. 

I bought this stuff from a store and got started. 

The stuff has a nasty smell to it and it hardened much quicker than I thought it would. Still, this is how it turned out. 

I went with the 60% base coverage accidentally. I wanted to see how hard it was and ended up snapping a plank off. But, it worked out in the end. I just treated it as the edge of the wooden sidewalk. 

And this is how it looked after I slapped some paint on it. I think it turned out much better than I thought I would. I have 6 more of these to make. I think they will make my models look a lot better than just plain old grass or mud. 

Pumping Out Warriors

*Update*

This is as done as they will get. 

About two weeks ago, I decided to buy a box of dwarf warriors. Why?  

Well, there are two reasons I guess. The first, I can use more warriors instead of using so many proxies.  The second, the store I buy GW stuff from only had a single box of dwarf warriors in stock. And they haven't had new stock in the last three weeks. 

One of the difficult (obviously) things about living in South Korea and being a wargaming is getting models. It really isn't too big a deal for most games, but for GW, we are limited. I either have to rely on the single store in Seoul, order from that store or maybe use the GW online site, but I am not sure how easy that is with their stupid regulations.

Anyways, I didn't have too much motivation to paint these guys, but I did manage to get them to about 90% in about 4 hours this morning. 

They turned out...standard. The dwarf warriors are just so boring to paint. The part I especially hate about them is the cloth. I haven't been able to make it work. This time, I used a sky blue color (oops) that didn't go on as well as I had hoped. 

I also tried messing around with the bases, but I don't like the result. It was too rushed, but oh well. 

I am happy that they are basically done. I will spend a few hours tonight before bed touching up each model and basing them with flock. I will likely end up redoing the sky blue as well. 

The only cool thing that came out of this was the model on the far right. 

I actually had a set of arms left over from Grimm (shooty dwarf guy). I decided to slap them on this model and he ended up looking badass. I will certainly spend more time with him later. 

I think if I make any more dwarf purchases, it will just be with elite units. I may end up getting a few copters and a few more boxes of Ironbreakers.