Hill Giant #2 (scratch-build)

How do you like my new hill giant?

I sculpted him over a Reaper Bones ogre. I got it to test the material and I have to say I was less than impressed. I have a bunch of prepaints I've collected over the years mainly to use for parts, and they tend to be much sturdier and with a material that takes paint a better. From sturdiest to most bendy the progression goes Pathfinder > Heroclix > D&D prepaints > Reaper Bones (though I only have 1 pathfinder figure to go by). You could easily put one finger on the base of this ogre and holding it thusly against a surface you could press his head down to touch it's forehead to the surface using very little pressure.

I also didn't care for the figure very much. The proportions in particular were egregiously wonky. But I noticed it was roughly the same size as the Otherworld hill giant, for whom I had wanted to make a partner in crime, so I wound up doing this to it:

That's concrete patch. If you know me, you know I like concrete patch, so much so I even sculpt with it. I find it pretty handy to quickly bulk out mass areas with. I would be hesitant to use it on figures that would be vulcanized during a molding process but for one-offs, it's great. It sticks like glue to most surfaces and dries rock hard. No kneeding, mixing or baking, and if you have bucket of it for terrain purposes using in minute amounts like this is essentially free.

I decided against the comb-over in the end. I can't say I really recommend this approach I took. It's a lot of work and had I just gone the extra mile and did the hands and feet, etc, I might have something worth casting. I'm pretty happy with it, though. And I have to say, although Paul Muller's giant is awesome and I have a very long way to go to get to that level, there's one bit, the fur, where I can say I like mine quite a bit better.

I took the idea for the armor plates from the following illustration by Gustaf Tenggren. Making whole sculpts after these giants would be a lot of fun!

I also wasn't entirely satisfied with the paint job on the first giant so I reworked it. Here's the final version of him along with a group shot.

You'll notice I didn't go all out on the second one with the baked-in-the-sun skin tones. A bit of that is laziness but it's also that the Bones surface just doesn't take paint right. It's just not a good experience painting it, and I had a strong sense it wasn't up to taking glazes, and that it would risk making a mess. It marks them a bit apart from each other, but oh well, overall I'm pretty happy.

There's also no way it's going to bend any more. It's got an inch or so of tire wire going up through either leg. Which I guess would be a potential solution to other Bones figures that may be giving you trouble. Cut them apart and glue back together with tire wire.

By the way, being how I am I've decided that I'm not satisfied with this being my only take on hill giants. For example I have a Dungeon Dwellers one here cleaned up and ready for priming. And a bunch of giants elsewhere.

a quickr pickr post

There are more shots of these on flickr.

Miniatures to prime when the weather turns warm

The weather is too cold to prime these days and the minis in need of priming have been piling up. Amongst these are hobgoblin reinforcements, hellhouds, saracens, undead, harpies, giants, adventurers, and various beasts and monsters. Honestly cleaning, fixing and restoring figures is not my favorite part of the hobby. Much of these have been languishing in various "on the workbench" trays. In some cases as I was sorting through them I had the thought, why did I choose to start on this particular miniature out of the thousands unstarted? Most of these I look forward to painting, however, especially the harpies, hobgoblins and that big giant.