Giant Kegger

I have finally finished my Reaper hill giantess conversion. Originally conceived as a suitable accompaniment for Otherworld's hill giant, she suffered through an extended stay on the back burner. Well, it's Friday night and she appears eager to make up for lost time. She's liquored up, she's got her red dress on and she's ready to go clubbing.

The conversion was an exercise in addition through subtraction. The more bits and pieces I hacked off, the better it looked. I removed the staff, cleaver, mammoth tusks, pigtail, sickle, a chunk of her skirt, a small frog, and a host of piercings.

The staff was re-purposed as a club and a mammoth tusk as a drinking horn. I cut away the base except for a section under the right foot which would serve as the starting point for a slab of rock. The thumb on the right hand was removed and the fingers pried open to accommodate the drinking horn. Some bending (made easier because this casting was part of Reaper's discontinued P-65 line) and putty-work followed and she was ready for paint.

The Otherworld giant is basically stock except for the base. OW supplies the mini with a metal base which I sanded down and mated to a standard base. A lot of filing, filling, and sanding was required to make this work. I also gouged out the area under his left foot and built up the area under his right so he would stand more vertically.

The beer kegs (looted from their original Dwarven owners) are resin oil drums dressed up with GW bits and some treasure from Reaper. The tarp is facial tissue coated with thinned PVA glue. Solder was used to represent the hose coming off the tap.

The flesh tones on both minis were achieved with Reaper's olive skin triad and Vallejo washes. I took some baby steps into the realm of tattoo painting with the aid of this excellent tutorial.

All's Well That Ends Well

I recently completed a small terrain piece (Reaper's 03969, Well of Chaos) that had previously been part of a painting challenge on the OW forums. Why wasn't it quite done when originally presented? Read on. 

Basing materials reside in many places; some readily apparent, some less so. One source that straddles the line between the obvious and obscure is the model railroading hobby. (I would say the allied model railroading hobby but I suspect the steam-or-diesel crowd might contest the point.) My utilization of this resource has been aided by the fact that a model railroading shop sits two doors down from my LGS. I used two products from Woodland Scenics on the well: Scenic Glue and Realistic Water.

Scenic Glue is basically a PVA adhesive that dries with a matte finish, as opposed to a standard PVA like Elmer's that dries with a gloss finish. It allows the addition of various and sundry basing bits (grass tufts, leaves, etc.) without any unwanted shine. A very useful, easy to use product.

Realistic Water, on the other hand, is not deserving of such unqualified praise. In point of fact, the stuff had me tearing my hair out. This is not to say that it produces poor results nor that it is especially hard to use. The problem lies in the number of applications required.

The degree to which the product shrinks while drying is astounding. I filled the well to the desired depth (not exceeding 1/8" as per the directions), waited 24 hours, and was left with little more than a shiny depression for my efforts. It took SEVEN such applications to bring the water's surface to the point where it was reasonably level. So, allowing for drying time, it took a week to produce a puddle. Very frustrating.

As a bonus, with each use the puddle's surrounding edge unavoidably became slightly higher. I had intended only to fill the well about 2/3 of the way. In the end it wound up flush with the brim. Some of the resin wound up creeping onto the mini in a spot where the resulting shine was unacceptable. Despite the label's warning against using any kind of sealer, a little matte varnish fixed the problem. Some leaf litter was added with the final layer. aesthetics aside, this also served to hide a nasty air bubble that cropped up earlier in the process.

On the plus side, I had used the product once before, so most of this came as no surprise. On the negative, I still have an enormous bottle of the stuff, and it wasn't cheap.

Enough of this unpleasantness. I came through my trial by water unscathed and am happy with how the mini turned out. What else could I ask for?

 

Is it just me or has Bob Ridolfi's sculpting really improved during his time at Reaper? I don't mean this as a slight towards his earlier efforts, rather that his more recent work is so good. The face on the well is superbly executed. Great concept too. With her beehive hairdo and tentacles, she looks like H.P. Lovecraft's take on Marge Simpson. Very cool..