The Santa Claus miniature for me and my husband’s Christmas Diorama has been picked and painted! Read more about the full project here!
Conversions
WIP: 2016 Christmas Diorama
Christmas is slowly approaching, which means that it’s time for yet another Christmas Diorama. Last year my husband put together a small outdoor Christmas Diorama, which I painted.
We decided to do another one again this year, but this time it’ll be a bit more complex. You can follow the progress of the Christmas Diorama in the Projects Section or by clicking here.
The scene/story is set in Santa Claus’ home, where a young Mrs. Clause has brought her hot friend over, where together they’ll surprise Santa Claus when he returns home after a long day of work delivering presents.
So the very first thing was to start building a floor and some walls. We cut out some styrofoam to use as walls and used some cardboard (Was actually a component from a board game) for the bottom. Below you can see the very first picture of the project, after 1 layer of plaster on the styrofoam walls.
Miniatures & Furniture
We decided to use The Medieval Fireplace from Fenryll as the primary furniture in the diorama, setting up the scene around the large fireplace. As Mrs. Clause we’ll be using Mrs. Clause and Schnauzers from Dark Sword Miniatures and as Mrs. Clause’s naughty friend – Christmas Sophie 2009 from Reaper Miniatures without her wings!
The next picture shows the walls glued onto the bottom and two wooden sticks added to the top. Sophie is resting by the fireplace inside.
Click here to see more of the project!
Ranged Orcs (Mordheim)
I recently painted 5 Orcs for my husband’s Mordheim Warband. He needed some Ranged Orcs for his Warband (+1 Ballistic Skill for a group, might as well use it). Having found 4 “Ruglud’s Armoured Orcs” on Ebay not long ago, we figured that these would be perfect for the job, even though they’ll be using bows in the actual warband. The 4 Ruglud’s Armoured Orcs can be seen below:
Nicki (my husband) wanted one more orc for the group and decided to convert one using Orc bits from Spellcrow and an old plastic orc (From the Warhammer Fantasy 6th Edition Core Set). The result ended up pretty funny with the orc having poked out his eye and is now attempting to clean his teeth with an arrow.
The entire group can be seen below, you can also read some fluff that Nicki wrote about the orcs on his Mordheim Orc Warband page. 
Beastmen: Centigors
I have been painting all kinds of outdoors beasts and monsters, which will be part of our newly begun adventure campaign, that takes place outside of Middenheim. As our heroes are escorted by an accountant on her way to Dorfmark (City in Nordland), we are quickly thrown into a political scandal involving a suspicious Burgomeister and numerous raids on local lumber mills. The raiders are humans, but something sinister lurks in the shadows and the beasts are on the prowl in the Forest of Shadows. Several twists have already taken place (despite only 2 sessions!) so I have been busy painting all kinds of beasts for the sessions (as I don’t know for sure which ones will be used as I am not the GM)
Here are some of the larger Centaur creatures of the Beastmen Herd: Centigors
I had fun painting these and I went through a lot finding them in good condition and of course in metal, but I ended up with a bargain on Ebay, so everything went smooth in the end. I actually have 2 spare ones as I ended up purchasing a whole set in its original box. As these are heavier than they look, there was no way I could mount them on top of scenic bases, so I had to make my own using very fine sand, rocks and foliage. My husband is the base master, so I let him decorate them. I asked for a forest look in mainly green colours and I got exactly what I wanted.
Here are a few more pictures of these cool creatures:
I painted them in different colours, as I spent some time experimenting (as usual) I like the “Ginger” one best, that’s the one in the middle. I also experimented on their horns. It worked better on some than others, but from a distance it looks awesome and they look very frightening on a gaming board with forest scenery!
Oh and the original metal figures had ridiculously small shield attached, so I filed/cut them off and put on shields from the Ungor sprue, and it really helped the overall look.
Here is an official Games Workshop picture with “small shield” versions:
Advertising Pillar!
As I mentioned in my Notice Board post, I also made an advertising pillar using a lot of posters either found online or self-made. The Advertising pillar is from Thomarillion and it has a really good size with loads of space for posters.
I used Vallejo Satin Varnish on both sides of the paper posters like old time posters! Though a lot more succesful than Donald Duck’s attempt with soup can advertisements!
I simply added layer after layer of small posters, and I’m pretty sure there are shortcuts to this such as full printed sides, but this just gives it such an authentic look!
I actually made two of these as one of them was for my pre-painted section a while ago. It sold the same day :-)
It looks great on our Mordheim table as a terrain piece!
Here is the Pillar shown from one its sides :-)
Most of the posters on this side of the pillar is made up of posters from the internet and our cool Ulli & Marquand Wanted posters. The wanted poster is Geralt of Rivia from the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings!
I made a link in another post with some of the cool posters I used for my Notice Board Poster. Check it out :-)
Posters for Notice Boards!
I’ve received several mails and comments about the posters I used for the Message/ Notice Board, and I have made a PDF file with all the posters in various shapes and colour shades. Sometimes it just fits better with a pale neutral poster when I put them on buildings and such :)
Download Here – It’s a really BIG file in high resolution. (15 mb) so have patience!
Here is one we used as hand-outs for our RPG sessions. My husband is the GM and made the poster from an old softcover book.
We originally intended to use it for the old collector miniature Ulli & Marquand’s Wanted Poster Sign, but we ended up with another idea. Reminds me that I need to get that up on the blog some time :-P
Here is the Message Board in its full glory as shown on the Original Post
I used a small decal scissors for the cut-outs and something called Alles-kleber (which I assume is normal hobby glue) and very carefully glued the posters on the wooden frame :-)
Notice Board!
One thing we have always used in our RPG’s but never had terrain for is a notice board! It is a very useful prop whether you are in a big city or a small village, ’cause you can always find a missing person note, an advertisement, a wanted poster or a help wanted notice! We couldn’t find any such thing anywhere, so we made one ourselves!
Using balsa and a bunch of accessories it ended up looking pretty cool! We printed out some of the posters we initially made for an advertising pillar (which I will add to the blog at some point!) Ulli and Marquand is loose in our Middeheim campaign so they were an obvious choice for a wanted poster along with other posters (handouts printed in mini-size) a notorious witcher + Scoia’tael leader, advertisement for an awesome shop called King Games, and a real cool handout from WFRP 1st edition (think it was a fan-made version. Thanks to whoever made it!)
UPDATE: I recently posted a link to the posters I used and some tips www.cabanaminis.com/posters-for-notice-board
Travelling Empire Merchant
A little month ago I made a post about a Forge World miniature that I had converted into a travelling merchant a character that fits right into the Warhammer universe – He’s carrying a bunch of junk he’s hoping to sell. You can see the WIP post here: WIP: Travelling Empire Merchant
I finished painting the miniature recently and I’m very happy with the result. I’m sure he’ll often be taken out to stroll the streets in our WFRP sessions.
With all the extra details added to the miniature he did end up taking quite some time to finish – but for a unique model I don’t mind it at all :-)
The Pictures
I’ve included 6 pictures to showcase all the various junk the poor guy is carrying around on his back.
WIP: Travelling Empire Merchant
I decided to convert a Forge World miniature (Manann’s Blade musician) to a Travelling Empire Merchant – I spent a while adding LOTS of parts, you can’t actually see it that well in the pictures how much I added, but it’s a lot! He’ll be used in the WFRP campaign, so expect to see him painted soon :-)
EDIT: The Finished merchant can be seen here
The Dead: The Hanged Man
Another piece done for my project “The Dead” which basically includes corpses, casualties etc.
This time it’s a converted piece called “The Hanged Man”, I used a pole from The Hobbit terrain piece “Goblin Town”. I then added a Games Workshop zombie hanging from a rope, a kind note from the Witch Hunters who hunted this heretic down, a crow eating a piece of rotting flesh from the ground and that’s more or less it.
The result ended up being an excellent terrain piece that can be used for many settings.
