15 mm Owlbear- a twanax modification

 I set aside 2 of the Twanax to use to try to make Owlbears for the wilderness outside the Dungeon. 

Using sculpey, I made about 10 attempts at sculpting the head, trying different styles until I got pretty close to what I wanted and could repeat the steps needed to mold the head. I made the one for the actual Twanax modification out of Aves.

With the head done, I used a dremel to carve away the Twanax head and a little into the chest area. Attached the head and then blended the body fur with Aves.

on the painting mount.

in the wild.

Initially I had a nice feather pattern on the head, but after toying with it too much kind of lost the pattern and couldn't get it back as Aves was beginning to harden. Decided not to do a second round of sculpting on the head since I didn't want it to get to big. 

I have one more twanax, so I will be making either another one similar to this or I might try the head of a barn owl 

Completed minis and markers

 Still in sculpting and casting mode, but got some more painting done this weekend. A Splintered Light cave troll and a Blue Moon Twanax. 

I did the cave troll in the same color as the other trolls in the group. This mini is a larger in size, has a weapon and is clothed, compared to the other trolls which are straight from the cover of the first Monster Manual. 

I painted the twanax sepia with a darkened vermillion for the eyes. 

I had plans to sculpt a Haystack creature, but I may try painting one of the Twanax in that color scheme and then just sculpt a plain haystack in a similar texture. 

The troll head and the vampirian head and hands corpse marker were done with sculpey on sculpey molds, which are not really all that effective, but I had not opened up the Equinox yet so I gave it a shot for fun. The lizard man marker was done with the Equinox silicone mold - better results and should be able to get numerous repros from it.

A 15mm fighter with them to show scale. The markers are pretty big, but all 3 of these types of monsters are larger than mansize.

Priorities for sculpting and casting in the coming days, are an owl head, a pumpkin head, and finishing up my 3rd plague doctor. 

15mm vampires and other colorless creatures

 I did not get as many miniatures done in Oct as I had planned, but I will try to keep the Halloween spirit going and proceed with taking on the undead lead. I spent the minimal time I had available this weekend preshading some figs. These are Blue Moon vampire set. Great detail and character - I need to really think about what color schemes will work for these. 

There are a few more in the set that I still have to preshade. 

I also worked on some random figures I had lined up. A cave troll from Splintered Light, a vampirian from Battle Valor, and a Wyvern from Ral Partha. The vampirian still needs hands and weapons attached. Although the Ral Partha is stamped 1978 I believe it may be a more recent cast. I will have to do a bit of research. 

The 3 smaller ratmen from Splintered Light Rat personalities set. These are loaded up with small details which is usually not my preference on 15mm minis but I will see how they turn out. 

A Heekin Casting dwarf and Splintered Light badger. The badger is an Out of the Darkness special for only $1. I plan on using it as a 15mm tasmanian devil for my games. 

These lizard men are from Battle Valor. I may use the shields that come with them, but have been having thoughts of sculping some turtle shell shields. I tried a different technique for preshading them, skipping the drybrush for a wash. I don't think it works as well. 

The next minis are just the best thing I've come across in awhile. These are the Twanax horde from Blue Moon aliens category. I never would have looked in there, but I saw one of them on a blog post and thought it may work for D&D, so checked it out. Glad I did as this is really a fine set of minis. Six to a pack with 6 different poses. Slightly larger than a standard human figure, and with menacing poses these will go great in a dungeon or outdoor adventure. 

The first obvious thought is this would make a fine yeti, or some type of were creature, but I have 2 of them set aside with plans to modify them. One I want to make into an Owl bear and the other into a Bugbear similar to the 25mm Archive bugbear in the Dungeon Nasties collection. 

I will need to make some cuts on the face and do some sculpting, but I'm hoping it will be minor work to get the effect. In the mean time I need to get some color on all of these. Maybe I'll go watch Pleasantville for some inspiration. Ha!