Another test mold... 28mm, 15mm & 10mm

Here's a shot of another mold I'm commissioning from another new potential caster!

If they work out I'll be able to use them as masters and dollies for lots of variants and tweaked poses.

There's a few bits and pieces in there, specifically to test the quality of the mold and casts!

A quick run down for anyone interested...

• x5 10mm scale sci-fi troopers
• x4 15mm scale Fantasy Spearmen (different races)
• x4 28mm scale clockpunk rifles (details and clockpunk elements will be added later)
• x1 28mm scale Fallen Dwarf Spearman
• x1 28mm scale Orc Hoplite, with 3 different heads.

This will be shipped off in the next few days, then I'm preparing another lot of minis for another test mold at another caster...

Then once that's done I can get back to finishing lots of sculpts, preparing new ones and looking forward to working with a new (potentially more than one) casting outfit! Cool.

Faun Archer Prototypes

These seem to have turned out not too bad!

When I make retail versions there's a fair number of tweaks and improvements I'll achieve, including more varied poses. Overall though this is the direction I want them to take!

Faun Archers and Arabian Heroic Style

The faun's are for a personal project of mine, and kind of like a proof of concept for the design (semi wild and tribal). If they work out good I'll do some better versions for putting on sale..

Heroic style Arabians, WIP and needs some details and tidy up. Just need to make some heads, weapons and arms! The parts here are some out of production plastics I think, heroic style for reference! I'd love to get these done in resin somehow.

Exciting times - mini's going off for a test mold and cast.

I mentioned on my last post I'd found a local resin caster, very cool guy and great equipment: Hive City Terrain! Judging by the size of some of his terrain I'll be able to make BIG stuff... cool.

I've selected a few mini's to go in for mold making and casting. These are tests just to calibrate and start pricing things (how hard are they to mold, what's the best resin mix to use on them, etc.etc.)

First group are a safe bet and I've selected them because they are virtually "sale ready". Heroic style techno gothic parts. These will cast easy.

The second lot are the real test... will those spears survive? Will the rifles be too thin and prone to breakage?

Lets find out....

Last of the Desert Insurgents - SALE!

Hey all,

I'm down to my final 30 or so sets of Desert Insurgents!

The mold has had a good run but I have no plans to replace it... so this is the last shot to get them before they're retired.

To help get them moving (to clear space and then use the proceeds to fund some new molds) I'm dropping these to £10 + P&P per set. 9 miniatures in the set comes to about £1.11 per mini!

Help me spread the word! Thank you

Oh in other news I've just discovered a local resin caster, Hive City Terrain... the huge backlog of sculpts I have will hopefully have a new outlet in a couple of months! AMAZING

Fallen Dwarves - Living Statue!

If were really really really lucky... Anvil Industry might do this in resin for us and get it in their store.

No eta, Anvil have a successful kickstarter to fulfill, so this might come after the summer.

This took a while to complete but I'm really happy how the cracks on the stone have turned out, I used at a lot of reference pictures. The arms are held in place with blu tac so stick out a fair bit more than if they were glued in place.

I'm dead keen to get a few resin copies of the torso and sculpt different arms on them - perhaps a pair of giant halberd armed guards, one left handed the other right handed. Hacking my own mini's isn't out of the question either, so molds and resin casts for some terrain could be on the cards for me!

These are quick hatchet job pics... oh I hope to get a sorcerer in resin too, someone needs to rouse the stone beast.

44mm from bottom of foot to middle of the eye line. 55mm from bottom of foot to top of helmet. Wooden plinth is about 37mm across.

Salute 2015 - Anvil Industries

I attended my first ever gaming convention after 20 years in the hobby... Salute 2015!

It was also my great pleasure to meet up with Anvil Industries who produce and retail most of my sculpts.

http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/

The team are truly fantastic and treated me and several of their kickstarter backers to an after party at the Anvil studio. We received a tour of their forge and saw all their casting and mold making kit, then a small demonstration in 3D modelling followed by a game of Afterlife with the lights dimmed and the terrain lighting effects in full swing! Pizza and beers throughout too - very generous of Anvil and great fun for everyone!

After a circuit of the event I was relatively sure their gaming table was the best.. luckily that proved to be an unbiased opinion when they won the Best Sponsored Trader Game award!

Great work and thanks Anvil!

Imperial Peacekeeper paint jobs!

Quick recap then, these are test casts I had done and I've decided to quickly paint up a few as proof of concept.

I'll go back and remaster some of the sculpts and maybe make a few more for the range before getting production molds done, then I can offer some up for sale at some point.

(I definitely need a bigger light tent for group shots)

More painting WIP

These are all test colour schemes on test casts...

(White chevron on the shoulder pad doesn't contrast well with a white background)

And a little Techno Communion conversion final finished:

Peacekeeper painting WIP

I wasn't happy with the mold on this one, partly my fault for not reinforcing some of the sculpts (they got a bit bent and warped.)

While I remaster the set I've decided to paint up a couple of the test casts. Good chance I'll have scope to use different heads and make some variant versions...

The red guys are the desert planet police force, hence the riot shields. The blue guys are the same political allies, only acting like a space United Nations military force.

All I need is the crowd control mech and a couple of characters before I can organise production molds for a little diverse skirmish force. If I did this full time things would move a million times faster...

17mm...

One minute I'm trying to paint up some of the great Copplestone 15mm* barbarians, next minute I've started sculpting a load of minis in the same scale!

I'm torn between casting some stuff up like this, could do a skirmish/dungeon crawl set... or could do full blown armies in ranks maybe.

Left to right: Uruk-Hai Spartan, Arabian good guy spearman, Far Eastern legion bad guy, skeleton.

(spot the Fallen Dwarf. His heads loose in case I want to use this as a little dolly"

Few others in progress as well but not photographed.

I'll take a break from sculpting for a few days and have a think about what to do with them...

*actually 17mm.

Techno Resurrection...

No not a techno themed reunion night (not that I was ever into techno...), but a good chance I'll be able to offer some of the Techno Communion for sale again in the near future.

I've spent a fair amount on "R&D"the last few months in addition to contracting molds for stock parts like the Greek mythology dollies, meaning the small book that is Miniatures of the North is now well into the red: so I can sell some casts again as a means to break even.

Watch out for a future post on the blog for availability...

Also, some personal conversions I knocked up from old mis-casts: