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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6757943" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>BEHIND THE SCENES: PC MINIATURES</strong></p><p></p><p>I thought I'd take a moment to discuss the miniatures we use for our PCs. In our previous campaign, we used a mix of plastic D&D Miniatures and metal miniatures, the latter sometimes being painted and sometimes being just bare metal. (Dan and I each have a small mini collection dating back decades. None of mine are painted; some of Dan's are.) For this campaign, I found a female dwarven shield maiden in the D&D Miniatures line that was perfect for Ingebold, so I picked it up long before we even started up this campaign.</p><p></p><p>But since we had decided the basic structure of this current campaign over a year before we finished up our previous one, we all had plenty of time to decide what types of PCs the players would run. Dan and I no longer work in the same office but we're both still in the same building, and one of his new co-workers was an exceptional mini painter. Through this co-worker, Dan made us all an offer: find a metal mini we liked for each PC and he'd have this co-worker paint them all for us for a nominal fee.</p><p></p><p>So we did some searching on-line and Logan came up with a gnome fighter he wanted to use for Binkadink. We sent Dan the make and model of the mini, as well as the color scheme Logan wanted it to be painted. The rest of the players did likewise, and Dan sent all of the info to his friend.</p><p></p><p>And then we waited. And waited. Finally, we were finishing up the previous campaign and about to start up this one, and the only mini we had on hand was Ingebold, the NPC (and spare PC in case of death). So I put some of the token-building skills I'd amassed over the years to good use and came up with a temporary "Plan B."</p><p></p><p>One of the things I do for my players is provide them each with a 6-part folder for their characters. The first section holds their character sheet, and the second contains an attack matrix I built that shows their "to hit" chances with each of their weapons. (As they level up, they update the Base Attack Bonus column, which modifies the final "to hit" chances.) The next section is a description of all of their class abilities and feats, and then there's a place for their equipment (mostly descriptions of any magic items and check-boxes for wands and such that have a specific number of slots). Spellcasters get a section listing their spells; those with familiars or animal companions have a section for those stats, and so on.</p><p></p><p>I have the players provide me a picture of their PC. In Binkadink's case, it was a color photo of a painted miniature of the same make and model Logan had chosen for his gnome fighter. Likewise, Dan selected a painted photo of the miniature he had picked out for Gilbert Fung. Vicki found a painting of a female elven ranger wielding a thorny whip to represent Finoula; Jacob found an elf with a bandanna over his lower face (from a video game, I believe) he chose to represent Castillan, and Joey used a painting of an elven ranger shooting a bow from a Wizards of the Coast book. For the PC folders, I took each image, blew it up, added the PC's name underneath it, and printed it off. It then got attached to the front of the PC folder with a piece of clear Con*Tact paper several inches bigger than the picture.</p><p></p><p>So, facing the beginning of our campaign without PC minis, I took these same images and shrunk them down to the "one inch equals 5 feet" scale we use for the rest of our miniatures and battle maps. These images got printed off onto large white address labels, cut out, and attached to blue poster board. Each image was placed onto an upright rectangle of poster board of the appropriate size with two triangles on the sides, in such a way as there was a strip of sticker sticking out below the bottom of the rectangle. Then I cut out one-inch squares of the same blue poster board, rounded the edges, and attached the bottom portion of the PC stickers onto these bases. Since I didn't have pictures for the backs of the PCs, I took each PC's image, opened it up in the Paint program, reversed the images, and then colored the whole shapes in black, so I ended up with a reverse-image black silhouette of each PC. These also got printed out onto white stickers, cut out, and placed on the back sides of the stand-up PC tokens I had made.</p><p></p><p>The end result is a stand-up miniature of each PC (they stand up by bending the two triangles behind the central rectangle) that is recognizable from both front and back, and which has the added advantage of being able to be folded down flat when not in use (or when the character is unconscious). Between sessions, they sit in an old check box labeled "THE PARTY," which also contains such things as the plastic jackalope, two plastic mules, and the simple wagon I built out of scrap cardboard.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, Dan got word that his mini-painting friend had gotten behind on his painting schedule, to the extent that he hadn't even purchased our selected miniatures yet (his preferred method is buying everything himself and getting paid in full once he turns in the painted minis), but had just gotten word he was being transferred to another duty location. He volunteered to hang onto our order and get to it when he could as his schedule allowed, but Dan, realizing that this would likely be another half-year delay (or longer), canceled the whole thing. And then he ordered them all on-line himself, thinking we could learn to paint them.</p><p></p><p>I think they came in right before we went through our fifth adventure in this campaign. The new Castillan, Gilbert, and Darrien were put to use immediately in their unpainted state. Binkadink's scabbard was bent, but we ignored that and pressed on with it. Vicki's new Finoula miniature, however, required some assembly before use, as her two arms had to be glued into their sockets, so she opted to stick with my "upright token" Finoula mini. And even though Dan had picked up a female dwarven cleric for use as Ingebold, we all decided the plastic D&D mini we'd been using for her looked better than the unpainted metal mini Dan had purchased.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, Dan did some research and found out that one of our local gaming stores has an informal painting class every Wednesday night. He offered to take Logan and I there so we could all learn to paint minis; Logan readily agreed, but I had to beg off, as I doubt I'd be well-suited to such a hobby. (Plus, as DM, I already use my free time to write up the adventures, crank out the monster stats, print off the tokens and initiative cards, build the geomorphs, and so on.) So last week, Dan and Logan brought their new minis to the painting demo, bought some brushes and a jar of white paint for a base coat, and learned the basics of miniatures painting.</p><p></p><p>Due to a prior commitment, Dan couldn't make it this past week, but the two of them are planning on hitting the demos from now on. In the meantime, Logan opted not to take on the intricacies of Binkadink as his first painted miniature; instead, we looked through my collection and picked out an old Ral Partha owlbear for him to use as his practice mini, due to its relatively simple color scheme (brown feathers with maybe some white mixed in, yellow beak and talons, black base coat and eyes). Plus, I also have a griffon and a hippogriff (also from Ral Partha) that should be able to be painted using the same color palette, so those should give him plenty of practice before he commits himself to Binkadink's mini.</p><p></p><p>And in the meantime, we have our "stand-up tokens" to use.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6757943, member: 508"] [b]BEHIND THE SCENES: PC MINIATURES[/b] I thought I'd take a moment to discuss the miniatures we use for our PCs. In our previous campaign, we used a mix of plastic D&D Miniatures and metal miniatures, the latter sometimes being painted and sometimes being just bare metal. (Dan and I each have a small mini collection dating back decades. None of mine are painted; some of Dan's are.) For this campaign, I found a female dwarven shield maiden in the D&D Miniatures line that was perfect for Ingebold, so I picked it up long before we even started up this campaign. But since we had decided the basic structure of this current campaign over a year before we finished up our previous one, we all had plenty of time to decide what types of PCs the players would run. Dan and I no longer work in the same office but we're both still in the same building, and one of his new co-workers was an exceptional mini painter. Through this co-worker, Dan made us all an offer: find a metal mini we liked for each PC and he'd have this co-worker paint them all for us for a nominal fee. So we did some searching on-line and Logan came up with a gnome fighter he wanted to use for Binkadink. We sent Dan the make and model of the mini, as well as the color scheme Logan wanted it to be painted. The rest of the players did likewise, and Dan sent all of the info to his friend. And then we waited. And waited. Finally, we were finishing up the previous campaign and about to start up this one, and the only mini we had on hand was Ingebold, the NPC (and spare PC in case of death). So I put some of the token-building skills I'd amassed over the years to good use and came up with a temporary "Plan B." One of the things I do for my players is provide them each with a 6-part folder for their characters. The first section holds their character sheet, and the second contains an attack matrix I built that shows their "to hit" chances with each of their weapons. (As they level up, they update the Base Attack Bonus column, which modifies the final "to hit" chances.) The next section is a description of all of their class abilities and feats, and then there's a place for their equipment (mostly descriptions of any magic items and check-boxes for wands and such that have a specific number of slots). Spellcasters get a section listing their spells; those with familiars or animal companions have a section for those stats, and so on. I have the players provide me a picture of their PC. In Binkadink's case, it was a color photo of a painted miniature of the same make and model Logan had chosen for his gnome fighter. Likewise, Dan selected a painted photo of the miniature he had picked out for Gilbert Fung. Vicki found a painting of a female elven ranger wielding a thorny whip to represent Finoula; Jacob found an elf with a bandanna over his lower face (from a video game, I believe) he chose to represent Castillan, and Joey used a painting of an elven ranger shooting a bow from a Wizards of the Coast book. For the PC folders, I took each image, blew it up, added the PC's name underneath it, and printed it off. It then got attached to the front of the PC folder with a piece of clear Con*Tact paper several inches bigger than the picture. So, facing the beginning of our campaign without PC minis, I took these same images and shrunk them down to the "one inch equals 5 feet" scale we use for the rest of our miniatures and battle maps. These images got printed off onto large white address labels, cut out, and attached to blue poster board. Each image was placed onto an upright rectangle of poster board of the appropriate size with two triangles on the sides, in such a way as there was a strip of sticker sticking out below the bottom of the rectangle. Then I cut out one-inch squares of the same blue poster board, rounded the edges, and attached the bottom portion of the PC stickers onto these bases. Since I didn't have pictures for the backs of the PCs, I took each PC's image, opened it up in the Paint program, reversed the images, and then colored the whole shapes in black, so I ended up with a reverse-image black silhouette of each PC. These also got printed out onto white stickers, cut out, and placed on the back sides of the stand-up PC tokens I had made. The end result is a stand-up miniature of each PC (they stand up by bending the two triangles behind the central rectangle) that is recognizable from both front and back, and which has the added advantage of being able to be folded down flat when not in use (or when the character is unconscious). Between sessions, they sit in an old check box labeled "THE PARTY," which also contains such things as the plastic jackalope, two plastic mules, and the simple wagon I built out of scrap cardboard. In the meantime, Dan got word that his mini-painting friend had gotten behind on his painting schedule, to the extent that he hadn't even purchased our selected miniatures yet (his preferred method is buying everything himself and getting paid in full once he turns in the painted minis), but had just gotten word he was being transferred to another duty location. He volunteered to hang onto our order and get to it when he could as his schedule allowed, but Dan, realizing that this would likely be another half-year delay (or longer), canceled the whole thing. And then he ordered them all on-line himself, thinking we could learn to paint them. I think they came in right before we went through our fifth adventure in this campaign. The new Castillan, Gilbert, and Darrien were put to use immediately in their unpainted state. Binkadink's scabbard was bent, but we ignored that and pressed on with it. Vicki's new Finoula miniature, however, required some assembly before use, as her two arms had to be glued into their sockets, so she opted to stick with my "upright token" Finoula mini. And even though Dan had picked up a female dwarven cleric for use as Ingebold, we all decided the plastic D&D mini we'd been using for her looked better than the unpainted metal mini Dan had purchased. In the meantime, Dan did some research and found out that one of our local gaming stores has an informal painting class every Wednesday night. He offered to take Logan and I there so we could all learn to paint minis; Logan readily agreed, but I had to beg off, as I doubt I'd be well-suited to such a hobby. (Plus, as DM, I already use my free time to write up the adventures, crank out the monster stats, print off the tokens and initiative cards, build the geomorphs, and so on.) So last week, Dan and Logan brought their new minis to the painting demo, bought some brushes and a jar of white paint for a base coat, and learned the basics of miniatures painting. Due to a prior commitment, Dan couldn't make it this past week, but the two of them are planning on hitting the demos from now on. In the meantime, Logan opted not to take on the intricacies of Binkadink as his first painted miniature; instead, we looked through my collection and picked out an old Ral Partha owlbear for him to use as his practice mini, due to its relatively simple color scheme (brown feathers with maybe some white mixed in, yellow beak and talons, black base coat and eyes). Plus, I also have a griffon and a hippogriff (also from Ral Partha) that should be able to be painted using the same color palette, so those should give him plenty of practice before he commits himself to Binkadink's mini. And in the meantime, we have our "stand-up tokens" to use. [/QUOTE]
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