Making tiny skulls

These tiny skulls are fairly easy to make and have many uses in my D&D game. I've used them to make a flameskull, convert minis into skeletons, decorate bloodstained altars, and provide some atmosphere in lairs. I start with white polymer clay. It's cheap and available at any craft store and most big box stores. The only tools I use for sculpting these skulls are a flat-head sewing pin, a pinch of poster adhesive putty, and a wine cork. Full instructions with pictures are below the break. 

LEGO Nothic

When I started this project, I considered using LEGO minifigs as Dungeons & Dragons PCs and humanoid enemies, but rejected this idea for three reasons: First, unless you already have a large number of Lord of the Rings sets, minifigs can get really expensive. Second, the 2-in scale of minifigs won't work with the 30mm scale of D&D minis. Third, the blocky cute aesthetic of LEGOs doesn't really mesh with D&D.

However, for non-humanoid minis, LEGO can be a convenient stand-in. This nothic, a one-eyed magical creature from the Redbrands' hideout, is a good example of a D&D creature that can be translated to LEGO bricks. The official drawing from Wizards of the Coast shows long legs, claws, and spikes along the back. I've used slope blocks for the back, but the horn pieces would be just as appropriate. The rear legs gave me the toughest time, but I think the hitch piece with the L-shaped piece attached looks fine. More views of the build and parts are available after the break.

Redbrand Ruffians and Glasstaff

In the second chapter of Lost Mine of Phandelver, the main adversaries are the Redbrand Ruffians. They are a gang of human bandits led by the wizard Glasstaff. I used the Andalusian Light Infantry for the gang, painting them with a burnt sienna with red belts and turbans. I applied my black and brown wash pretty thickly to make them grimy-looking.

For the Glasstaff miniature, I used the spear-weilding bearded man from the same Andalusian set. I cut off the point of the spear and painted the shaft white with a blue wash to make it look something like a glass staff. The model has a turban, but I painted the top of the turban the same grey as his beard and hair, while painting red the first fold of the turban and knot in the back. This way it looks  like he has a strip of cloth tied around his head.

I finished off the minis with 1-inch washers for the base. I coated them in white glue, then added uncooked grits. I painted everything black, then overlayed with a tan drybrush.

Sildar Hallwinter and guard

The first minis I painted from my Andelusian Light Infantry kit were a couple of armored guards. After starting, I realized that I'd need a mini for Sildar Hallwinter, the knight who appears in the first chapter of the adventure.

I modified the armored crossbowman by turning his hand around and cutting off the crossbow at the stock and trimmed up the bow to make crossguards. I then took a paperclip (similar to this style) and cut the flat part at an angle to make the blade. I superglued the blade into a notch I cut at the tip of the crossbow to make a nice-looking sword. I then took a flat pushpin with a paintable surface and glued it over his other arm for a shield.

For both figures, I followed the easy paining guide from Black Magic Craft. I used a thin solution of black paint, water, and dishsoap for my wash. I glued both figures to 1-inch fender washers, coated the surface of the washer in white glue, sprinkled on some salt and painted the bases black. I drybrushed the base with tan to make the rocks stand out.

Andalusian light infantry

For the second and third chapters of Lost Mine of Phandelver, several humanoid figures will be required.  The most cost-effective way to get 28 mm scale figures is to go with wargaming miniatures rather than fantasy minis. These tend to be cheaper because they are molded as multiple figures on a plastic tree (a rack) rather than individually. The ones I got were the 28mm Hat 28006 Andalusian Light Infantry  (Amazon link). The 28 mm Hat 28002 Spanish Light Infantry  (Amazon link) look pretty good too, if not better, but were more expensive on Amazon for some reason. If you're having trouble finding either in stock search for Hat + the model number on multiple hobby websites.

This is one of 4 trees that I got in a box that cost $10. All four trees have the same 8 model poses, but I plan to modify some of the models extensively to make them distinct characters.

To prepare the figures for painting, I first washed them in warm soapy water, rinsed them well, and allowed them to dry thoroughly. I then spray-primed one tree with white primer and will spray prime another tree with gray primer.

Once the primer was on, I noticed the prominent lines from the molding process. I used a hobby knife and sanding stick to remove these lines.

The figure poses are as follows:

Left to right from the top:
1. Short bow, robe, no head covering, full beard
2. Javelin held upright, socket in hand for holding second javelin horizontally, robe, turban, no beard (spear is molded separately but was broken in 3 out of 4 trees)
3. Sling, robe, no head covering, no beard
4.Crossbow, chainmail, helmet and turban, face covered (crossbow and hand are molded separately and glued on)

Going back right to left on the bottom:
5. Short bow, chainmail, no head covering, no beard
6. Two javelins (second arm and javelin are molded separately and glued on), running, robe, turban and beard.
7. Spear facing down, small shield (molded separately and glued onto peg on arm), robe, turban, and beard.
8. Crossbow, robe, turban and beard (hand, arm and crossbow are molded separately and glued on.

I'm pretty happy with my purchase. I got a total of 32 figures for what would usually buy between 2 and 5 D&D figures. One downside is that these figures are true 28mm scale. I had assumed that D&D figures were also 28mm, but measuring the ones I got from WizKids and a few others that I have from another campaign, they are typically 30-35mm. The difference makes these figures look out of scale when placed right next to the larger D&D figures. However, since these will mostly be baddies, I'm okay with letting my PCs be literal Big Damn Heroes.

And out come the wolves

After making goblins and a bugbear, the last enemies I needed for the initial adventure in Cragmaw Hideout were a few wolves. With their dual status as a photogenic wild species and a fairy tale villain, you'd think that finding a little plastic wolf toy would be cheap and easy. If not, a bag of plastic dogs that look wolf-ish should be readily available in the dollar store. As far as I could tell, this is not the case. All the wolf toys I could find are over 4 cm tall and cost upwards of $4 each.

So, I went super-cheap. This tutorial and this video demonstrate how to make an easy origami wolf. There are origami wolves that are more detailed, but this one works for my skill level and for the size of paper needed for D&D minis. I cut out a 2 by 2 inch (5 x 5 cm) piece of tan copy paper for my wolves, which ended up being just the right scale for my miniatures. I used a black Sharpie marker to add some details, then cut out a piece of cardstock to glue the wolf to so that it wouldn't fall over. The overall effect is a bit chintzy, but the origami wolf fills the role and is practically free.

Klarg the Bugbear

With a slight modification of the goblin instructions, I also built the boss for the first chapter of Lost Mine of Phandelver, the bugbear Klarg. I made the head similar to the go
blin heads, but bigger, and in a teardrop shape rather than a sphere. I cut off the narrow end of the teardrop before baking to make the flattened face of the bugbear.

I made the body and neck as described in the previous instructions, then cut two pieces of pipe cleaner and formed each into a U-shape. I used hot glue to affix both to the back and sides of the body. I cut down the upper pipe cleaner to form the arms, then added hands made from dabs of hot glue and glued on a club made from a broken wooden skewer. I bent the longer bottom pipecleaner section forward then down and made legs and feet. I lightly painted the pipecleaners brown and the body in a black leather.

I added a black kilt/loincloth to cover the odd joining of the legs with the body, making it out of paper mache like the cape. The cape itself I made a bit larger than the goblin capes. I used a 1.5-in washer for the base and again glued down sawdust, then painted it black with a tan drybrush overcoat to simulate a straw-covered floor.

Goblins!

To start my Lost Mines adventure, I need plenty of goblins, and I needed to make them cheaply. I took inspiration from the simple lines of the goblins in the D&D comic Order of the Stick. The red-cloaked lieutenant is also inspired by the same comic.

I bought a box of wooden pushpins in the office supplies aisle of my local grocery store for under $3. Plastic pushpins could be okay, but may be more difficult to work with. A standard pushpin has a dome-shaped protrusion near the pin, a cylindrical shaft, and a smaller reversed dome at the end away from the pin. For our model, the pin will form the neck, the large protrusion will form the shoulders, the shaft will form the torso, and the small protrusion will form the feet.

The head will be made from clay, but sculpting tools are not needed for this model. We'll use papier-mâché to make the cloak. The base is a disc about the size of a U.S. penny. The cheapest discs I could find cost over 1 cent, so I just used a penny.

Instructions

Supplies:
Map-style pushpin (I used wooden pushpins)
Polymer clay
Wood file or whittling knife
Wire cutter
Paper bag or any paper
Scissors
White glue
Superglue
A penny or similar-sized disc
Acrylic paint and fine paintbrush

1. Take a pushpin and cut off all but 2-3 mm of the pin using a wire cutter. Using a knife or wood file, cut down the larger protrusion around the pin on two parallel sides until it is even with the shaft of the pin. The cut sides will be the chest and back; the uncut sides will be the shoulders. On the sides not cut, cut or file down the smaller protrusions even with the shaft, leaving the protrusion to front to form the feet.
2. Form the head out of a tiny ball of clay. Look at another miniature to gauge the size of a head. Put the head down on the neck to form the neck-hole, then reshape the head to your preference. With a separate piece of clay, flatten and cut our two
   
   tiny triangles to form the ears. Press the triangles to the side and back of the head. Remove the head from the pin and bake according to the package directions to harden. Sand down any seams where the ears meet the head.
3. Paint the body and head. I went with brown for the body, green for the feet and head. I used two different shades of green to distinguish different goblins.
4. Superglue the body to the base. If you use a penny as the base, add extra superglue to cover the raised engravings on the penny, then sprinkle baking soda, salt, fine sand, or sawdust on the superglue to give it a rough texture. Paint the base a ground color.
5. On a paper bag or piece of paper, draw a circle about 1.25 in (3 cm) in diameter. I traced a plastic soda cap as my template. Draw a dot in the center. Draw a pie
   
   piece of about 1/4th of the circle. Poke the pin part of your pushpin through the center dot. Draw a line where the chest of your pushpin figure intersects the pie piece. Cut out the pie piece up to the tip where you drew this line.
6. Make a thin paste of 2 parts white glue and 1 part water. Dip your paper cloak into the paste and then arrange over the body with a toothpick. Make folds with the front of the cloak to suggest arms under the cloak. 
7. Add a dot of superglue to the pin and put the head onto the body. Draw a face on the goblin with a fine brush or a  extra-fine tipped Sharpie and white-out.
8. Optional: Use spray polyurethane in a flat finish to coat the figure in a protective layer.

There goes my hero

For my player characters, I bought the WizKids D&D Icons of the Realm Starter Set. The minis are okay. The paint jobs are a bit sloppy in places, the rubbery plastic that they're sculpted in makes some parts bent, and at around $15 for 6 they're on the higher end of what I was wanting to pay per mini (for the cheapskate minis blog, I'm trying to stay under $2 per figure).

The wizard, the cleric, and the bow fighter or ranger

The druid, the rogue and the axe fighter.

However I'm happy with my purchase for three reasons:

1. Five of the characters depicted in the minis line up exactly with the described pre-generated characters in the Lost Mines adventure. If you're DM'ing for newbies, it's easier to ask, "Hey you want to be this guy with the axe or this lady with the fire?" rather than jumping into class jargon right away. The sixth mini, the druid, isn't one of the PC options, but there's a NPC druid later in the adventure that is calling his name.
2. The minis are made out of a rubbery plastic that seems very durable. These guys are something you could let a kid or clumsy adult play with and not have to worry about your precious paint job.
3. As I'm crafting my own minis for this adventure, it's good to have some ready-made minis to judge size and proportion. This set gives a few human-sized characters along with a dwarf and a halfling, so I can more easily judge how big to make, for example, the head of a goblin.

Setting off for the Lost Mine of Phandelver

Welcome! I started this blog to chronicle my efforts to run the Dungeons & Dragons Starter set Lost Mines of Phandelver on as tight of a budget as possible. The initial investment of the starter set is pretty low; when I bought it, it was priced at under $10 on Amazon or Target. Now, it's up to around $16, but it's still a good deal. That price includes the adventure, a basic set of rules, a full set of dice, and pre-generated character sheets.

Many of the encounters can be done with imagination (so-called "Theatre of the Mind") or by using paper cutout minis. I wanted to have three-dimensional minis, so I'll be putting in some more effort. Please leave comments if you have suggestions or ideas, but I already have most of this adventure planned out.