Stirges! Bloodsucking fiends swarm the party
A desperate struggle against the stirges
At least they saw them coming! A fight against giant fire beetles
Scratch-sculpted and press-molded stirges
The stirges from overhead
Stirges Making-of
See my previous post for more on the making of the stirges. Making the stirthe hardest part about making of the stirges. The hardest part came at the end, with the making of the flight stands. After experimenting with drilling a hole in the base and keeping a pin at 90 degrees with greenstuff, I decided soldering was the way to go. I cut squares from steel shingle and rigged up a jig using a "helping hands" tool, a mechanics square and a magnet, holding a pin to the helping hands with a magnet and lining it up with the mechanics square. Even after watching a number of how-to videos and buying recommended solder and flux, I'm nowhere close to getting solder to cooperate. When it melts it seems to run to the spot I want it least to go.
A surprise bonus to this basing method is that I can store the stirges on a metal plate with each stirge atop a rare earth magnet. The intervening .04" black plasticard base perfectly lessens the hold of the magnet to where they nicely stay put without holding so fast there's danger of breakage when I slide them off.
The hardest part was soldering these flight stands
Stirges in AD&D
Stirges are vicious in the AD&D game as they are deadly accurate (attack as a higher HD monster) and suck HP until they are bloated full of blood or are killed. I painted them in the canonical colors, rust-brown with yellowish eyes and feet, and a pink proboscis fading to gray at the base. The size is not specified but I made them scale with the illustrations in the game. These may be the only scale stirge miniatures around, though I seem to recall an offering some years back that was pretty close.
Giant Fire Beetles Making-of
Scratch-made giant fire beetle miniatures
The fire beetles are cast flat in greenstuff in a one-piece mold (insta-mold material) but when I glued them to the base, I first glued a block (of off-cut lead) to the base and mounted the beetle on top of this, and then folded his legs down to glue them to the base. This way they are off the ground at a believable height, and I added a dimensionality to them that a flat casing can't provide. I used blocks made of lead to give them a little extra weight as well. The mandibles being off the ground and separate adds a lot, as does having the thorax.
Giant fire beetles in AD&D
Giant fire beetles are the least of the giant beetles at 2.5' long, but well-protected by their exoskeleton and stronger in a fight than their size implies and can cut deep with their great mandibles. They are so-called for their three red-glowing glands, two above the eyes and one near the back of their abdomen. These models are to-scale (length measured from tip of mandible to tip of abdomen).
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