Nyrfherdr's Mini Thread - Inspired by Pogre (NEW 3/1/07 - AFTER A YEAR!)

[nyrfherdr]

Thanks guys! You are too generous with your praise.

Kane: GenCon SoCal was a blast. I hear a lot of people trash talking the event, but I had a great time all 3 years. Here's my summary for this year.

1. Yes it was lightly attended, but it is only year 3 and there was still tons to do.
2. I ran 3 IK RPG games. All 3 were full (6 players each). If I had run more, I would have had full tables for those too.
3. I attended 2 sculpting seminars. Excellent. There were painting seminars too.
4. I did the Paint-n-Take and got a cool mini from Magnificent Egos. My son got a cool bug mini from Mongoose's new Starship Troopers game.
5. There were painting seminars too.
6. I didn't have time for the Speed Painting, but looks like it was a blast too.
7. The vendor/exhibitor hall was small again this year, but all of my favorite guys were there. Chris Pramas from Green Ronin, Privateer Press was there in force and of Course Wizards.
8. I scored two boxes of minis from PP for their Hordes game. They are also monsters from the Monsternomicon, so I will be using them in upcoming RPG games.
9. Other goodness: I bought some other mini's from other vendors. There was a new tabletop skirmish game called Rezolution that had some neat near future mini's. Great for shadowrun, d20 modern or other game. I got a cool scenery piece from a company and I did a boffing demo with my son and he cut off my leg, my arm and stabbed me in the chest. I only got one good hit. Reach is a big deal, but both fighters need to be quick, and I am not. The art are had some great prints from some of the great artists. I didn't buy any prints because I prefer originals, and I hadn't budgeted enough to buy any original work this year, (although I have in the past.)
10. There were some wargames going on, but I didn't have time to play them.
11. There were lots of card games and computer/console gaming for fans of those.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a more fun 3 days and I'll be going again next year if my work schedule permits.
Just some ramblings from the nyrfherdr

Now back to my regularly scheduled mini thread...
I have painted my servitor robot and will take pictures this weekend. I hope to finish some other painting projects this week before getting on to some sculpting projects I'd like to work on.
Game ON!
Nyrfherdr

 

[Kanegrundar]

Sounds like a good time. What Magnificent Egos fig did you get? I've picked up a few of those lately. Some of them are a pain to get put together due to extremely small parts, but they look good once they are done.

 

[nyrfherdr]

Kane: I got Koyote, Master Assassin sculpted by Drew Williams. A nice little mini.
I spent some time trying some wet blending techniques while at the paint-n-take. I'm hoping to finish him over the next few weeks with my other projects (too many as always)

I'll post him when I'm done.
Game On!
Nyrf

 

[JoeGKushner]

Some great stuff here.

How did you learn to sculpt? Was it a gradual thing that you worked on, took some classes on or all on hands? Love the fact that you create customized figures for your games. I'm too lazy to even customize existing figures because I'm so far behind on my paintings!

 

[nyrfherdr]

Thanks Joe. I appreciate your kind words.

I obviously love miniatures. I've been painting for countless years. I started customizing about 6 years ago and about 2 years ago started sculpting.
I learned to sculpt on my own as a labor of love and something I'd always wanted to try since I purchased my first mini.
I learned a lot from web sites and books. But the key was to just practice. My first sculpts were really bad. I've thrown away some even though my wife thought I should keep them. Even with 'failure' I kept at it. The stuff I produce now gets the job done.

This year at GenCon Indy I took a couple of seminars from some greats... Bobby Jackson and Gene Van Horne. At GenCon SoCal, I found another couple of seminars led by Matt Gubser.

I learned a lot. They taught me some much improved techniques. But even with that, it takes practice...

You'll see if it helped when I finish some new sculpts I'm working on...

On the topic of custom mini's. I found that character mini's are readily available. Some key monsters are readily available. Now with Wizards D&D Mini's, you even get some unusual monsters, but I was still often sitting on a great villian but didn't have a great representation. I would sometimes change my vision of a villian to match a miniature.

With my sculpting, I've been able to more closely match a villain with a miniature or to customize a miniature to match a character more closely. (I've found my players often challenging the envelope on that score.) But mostly it is the ability to craft something in 3 dimensions that only existed in 2 before. That part is COOL!

Just some ramblings from the nyrfherdr

Game ON!

 

[nyrfherdr]

Hey gang,
My road trips are apparently done for awhile. I've been able to finish a couple of sculpting projects. Here is a medium sized bear for a Druid in our game. Take a look:

Bear:




Enjoy!
Game ON!
Nyrfherdr

 

[frankthedm]

Cute little bear.

 

[nyrfherdr]

Thanks Frank...

Here's a Robot/Droid/Supervillain:





Enjoy!
Game ON!
Nyrfherdr

 

[pogre]

Wow, I really like the sideview. So what kind of campaign are you running with all of these robotic pieces?

 

[nyrfherdr]

Thanks Pogre...

The steam/servitor stuff is for my homegrown D&D campaign. It has elements of the Iron Kingdoms in it.
I also run 1 shot Iron Kingdoms games.

The robot here was inspired by a M&M Supervillain. I really like the M&M system, but don't have time to play a game in it. The inspirational pictures provide nice sculpting challenges though.

Just some ramblings from the nyrfherdr