Well! I finally got the Christmas present my awesome older brother has been hard at work building since early December! This is truly the coolest fucking thing I've ever gotten! Thanks bro! Happy new years!
Sometimes, the old folktales about large things in the water are true. And sometimes, they're worse. Bracken Billabong, named not for its imposing plantlife but rather the salty quality of its water, has had a history of disppearances from the shoreline, and stories of blubbery, hulking ambush predators that drag the unsuspecting into the water.
Of course, many adventurers know of the bunyip, a creature more dangerous than its seal-like appearance may suggest. Some may mistake one for a walrus with strange fangs. Those, however, are not teeth, but sensitive and prehensile tendrils that help it firmly grab prey on land or in the water, holding it firm to allow the bunyip to bite, and, for air-breathing prey, drag it to the depths to drown. But, Bracken Billabong's ecosystem has been irrecovably damaged by arcane experiments, and there are stranger specimens to find in those waters.
Bracken Billabong's tainted waters are always an impenetrably inky hue and the arcane reagents that cause this have mutated the fish, giving them the power of invisibility. So, their hunters have also mutated to adapt. The sensitive tendrils have, in some mutants, given the creatures an arcane sense, perfect for catching these insivible fish, and for tracking other arcane sources of energy on land - like the young wizards and witches from a nearby magic school who gather spell components at the waters edge.
Crafting notes: These were inspired by the variety of descriptions of Bunyips in Australian folklore, and by the fact that a bag of toy marine creatures I got had no fewer than three walrus/seal/sea-lions that were perfect for making into a set of creatures. The idea of an aquatic ambush predator adapted for catching arcane prey without using sight got me thinking of the creepy but fascinating faces of star-nosed moles. The mutant bunyips' oozy faces, increasingly gross, are a mix of bits from other toys, like stegosaurus spikes and plates, and Green Stuff moulded to make their tendrils. A little bit of UV resin gives it that fleshy shine.
I saw a vid for cheap tabletop setup tutorials and he used Magic the Gathering cards he found that were cool and cheap at a gaming store and cut out the character to clue it to a small block of wood (instead of just printing out mini character designs on cardstock, laminating it (with clear package tape is cheaper) and then doing whatever you want for it to stand.
So now I have a video I can use to scare my friend who loves MtG
HEY GUYS! Still clearing out the mini cabinets! I’ve been stepping up my mini painting game and have been trying to make space for the more display-style stuff!
Turned out pretty well for my second ever painted miniature.
It's almost done it still need some minor details but I was just to proud of it not to post
A delicate clink of a hammer gently tapping on metal rings out through the workshop. Hunched over a workbench, her pitted and scratched shell reflecting forgelight, is a tall, broad shouldered tortle. Her wizened eyes flick from her work to you, and she says "Alright I'll be just a moment, you take a load off there." She points to some well-made wooden benches with her brass walking stick. "And feel free to help yerself to some stew from Pot". A nearby cauldron, animated, waves a ladle at you. After a few minutes, the old tortle makes her way over. "Now," she says in a soft, curious voice, "what can this ol' shellmarm do for ya?"
This is my first scratch-built miniature - the soft-spoken, multi-talented tortle artificer Quzo. She started as a blacksmith, but has since dabbled in alchemy, homonculus design (hence, Pot, her cauldron assistant), gunpowder, and baking. She's not much of an adventurer these days, resting an old injury to her leg while her apprentices do more around the workshop. But, when required, her magical hammer is always in easy reach - to beat out a piece of enchanted metal or to beat on some bandits.
Any chance to learn a new skill will pique her interest, and despite needing to save for her eventual retirement, she often finds herself giving discounts to favourite adventuring parties if their requests pose an interesting challenge. Some plot hooks she might offer:
An ad on a local jobs board offers to "enchant a couple three suits of armour, you supply of course" for any adventurers willing to provide aid and protection on the maiden voyage of Flippershell, Quzo's prototype airship. Local adventurers are less willing after her last one caught the attention of a young red dragon, however.
Rumour among adventurers has it that, if you're short on coin and big on guts, offering to help the eccentric tortle with collecting ingredients for her potions can get you magic items at a healthy discount. The only concern is that one of her favoured ingredients is froghemoth spawn, which she needs to gently collect by hand. If you can keep that creature off her, she'd be much obliged.
To transmute this miniature, I started with a small plastic sea-turtle, and the limbs from a few other plastic dinosaurs. A nugget of purest Green Stuff helped mask the joins, as did the apron made from small strips of scrap pleather. The hammer and cane are both bits of braided wire (from a bottle of sparkling wine, I think), and the hammer's an old resistor, with some extra Green Stuff to flesh out the shape. This was my first time using such a strange kind of alchemical reagent, but I was impressed with the versatility of this "Green Stuff".
For those of you who aren't aware chicken coop wire is pretty cheap and can be used with paper mache (and paint) to create mountains and hills and buildings and various other things that you can think of for your players, if you wanna be really fancy.
See this? That's 2ft×10ft of chicken wire, just use the wire cutters on pliers to snip it to an appropriate length and the pliers will help you get it into an appropriate shape.
Edit: if you have a character who flies you can also use wire (even just paperclip wire) to create a stand that indicates that they are flying
My body has been trained and I wasn’t able to sleep in today, so instead I made a quick little dice pouch that you can open to use as a rolling surface. As my dice collection grows I’m expanding past the capabilities of my regular dice box, and the idea of a little flower shaped pouch (with the mushroom fabric) full of floral and botanical dice just makes me so happy. Check out @feywild_dice for a closer look at the dice.#dndiy #dnd #dicefordays #notadicegoblin #dicegoblin #sewing
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8obduapSe_/?igshid=1wjboa7clu07d