Transforming the Blob

Transforming the Blob

That thing, up there, is the Blob from Marvel Comics, as produced for the HeroClix game. The figure is from many moons ago, and wasn't considered to be particularly useful in its prime (let alone when power creep started to skew the point system). It was, however, a common figure, so there are many available and nowadays ... for cheap. In theory, since 'Clix was nominally a 28mm game (whatever that means), this figure can be used with other 28mm. He's a little big, as we shall see, but given his size, still works well to make a big guy.

Above are some simple sumo conversions. I repositioned several of the arms on the original before priming and painting. Since he is in a tight bodysuit, it was pretty easy to trim the fabric lines to get near-nekkid figures. The sumo costuming was also pretty easy, done with Kneadatite. What really sells this figure as a sumo, IMHO, is going ahead and putting the topknot on him.
These guys won't stand up to much close-in scrutiny, but at arm's length, they makea nice flavor piece for your collection. And given thier size in comaprison to the other minis, it is best to keep them at arm's length! They are visibly, but not unreasonably, larger than the Pulp Figures minis, but not bigger than the wolfen from Confrontation that is lurking in the back (with a sinister black/violet repaint). Pretty decent for sumo size.
I'm not sure if the below conversions are more or less exotic than sumos are.
For the gentlemen, the top is fine, but you really need to add pants over the unitard. Now, I'm the king of quick and easy, but you really, really can't just paint pants over the blobby fat legs. Just a little putty will do it. The armbands on the blob figure make nice watches for the one hand. I carved the bands down on the other.
The ladies require a little more effort, but then again, ladies always do! The large formless dress is just a sheet of putty wrapped around the body. One has sleeves, the other is in a tube dress (held up by the collective will of everyone looking at her!). Hair is also important, just like on the sumos. It makes a big difference, since it is an iconic element. Braids for blondy and a bun for our brunette move them far enough away from the standard blob figure. The piece of resistance for the lady in the pink polka-dot dress is black socks and white tennis shoes. Very Wal-Mart chic!
Again, they are larger than most 28mm figures (The one in the center is some type of GW orc painted up to be a Molly Hatchet-esque barbarian.), but not unreasonably large for a person of stature.

See How This Grabs Ya!

It is amazing how much detail you can get for very little effort. Especially when you are not exactly reproducing something from real life. There are tentacles in real life, but those are not what we are doing, so we have the latitude to go for effect. This is not to say we're not going to have detail, just not a pre-ordained set of details. We'll work with what comes easy for the medium and the tools at hand.
While we will be using clay for the tentacles, we want to start with a frame. The clay we are using is Crayola Model Magic. It is easy to work with, air dries, and is non-toxic. The drawback is it isn't very firm. So we need a frame. Fortunately, the frame doesn't need to support the details. So, I rolled up a bunch of aluminum foil into tentacle and snake shapes. I even use this technique as a frame for more "traditional" or "artsy" sculpting with Fimo or Sculpey.
Some of the figures there have "teeth". You can model teeth and details yourself (I do for the ftagn ), but these are big models with big teeth, so I am using hair clips instead. They are about the right size for teeth in a mouth that can swallow a 28mm figure, and come in all sorts of shapes. NOTE: INLGames is not legally responsible for legal action resulting from your hanging around teen girl hair accessory stores in the mall. My wife picks mine up for me.
Next, we just wrap up the frames in the clay. You may not want thumb prints in your final figures, so you will need to remove them from the clay. This is pretty easy with the smooth part of the handle of a craft knife. You can also use the gnurled part of the handle to make a pattern in the clay. With clay on, you can see several of the different textures that are possible - smooth, lumpy, hashed, segmented. Have some fun making patterns in the clay with things lying around the room!
Besides lots of different textures, you are likely to want some of your tentacles to have suckers on them. These are pretty easy. Just dig a pointed tool (or toothpick) into the clay, then drag it out. Pushing in will make the succer depression, and dragging (instead of pulling directly out) will raise up a little lump around the depression. Now, rinse and repeat!

So, here we have a set of guys, ready to go. The Model Magic clay takes a couple hours to firm up, so now is a good time to go read an H. P. Lovecraft book. Once they are done, it is time to prime and paint. As always, I am a big fan of Krylon primer. Krylon sticks to multiple types of surface and presents a uniform painting surface no matter what is under it. You can get cheaper primers, but you can't get better. This is especially important for my guys since I left some tin foil showing on a few. I want a surface texture difference, but I don't want the paint to look a different color on the different surfaces.

Here are some close ups of the pieces after painting. The standard Mk1Mod0 Space Marine is provided for size reference. These are big tentacles. Some other details I haven't mentioned yet:

• A number of them were shaped to hold 28mm figures
• Spines. I just stuck in bits of old 28mm spear I had lying around
• The Sarlac-esque one has floral wire and small plastic tentacles around the mouth
• The chupacabra's arms and legs are left over from making haemonculi for my son
And last but not least, Ol'Jeb and Jethro have their hands full...

at of Human Flesh Goo

at of Human Flesh Goo

Yep, you read the title right. Pretty simple and straightforward. Just like this "found project".

That's it, up there. So how do you make it? Well ... you don't. I use various beverage and other bottle plastic caps to hold my paint while painting. After a while, it builds up. Every once in a while, I end up with a set of consistent colors swirled on the top, and I say to myself, "Self ... you should use that." Then I go on an put some more paint on it instead of setting it aside.
So this time I am setting it aside. I really like the swirling of flesh and red tones. It will work well as an opening on top of an industrial storage container for my Soylent Green factory.
Maybe now I will have the presence of mind to save the next one that is swirling yellow and metallic green, like glowing radioactive waste ... well ... what we always picture radioactive waste as looking like.

Here There Be Giants

And unlike many miniatures giants, these won't take a giant bite out of your budget. What we will work with are some pretty commonly available - and pretty cheap - figures and bits.

So here are the basics. The Games Workshop ogre bull heads are available from lots of places where you get bits, and you can get a couple dozen of them for a couple of bucks, so they are only a few pennies a piece. And they're pretty nice. Ugly without being grotesque and gory, plus, a decent number of variants, which helps mix it up a bit.
So here is a basic start. I've used Andy's body and added five different types of head on them. Using the D&D good ol' standard of classification, I am going to make them Hill, Fire, Frost, Stone, and Storm giants, from left to right. I will make a few of each, and work on a uniting color scheme for each group
Here you can see my whole troupe. I did a different color wash on each group to give them a little unique character (beyond the hair color). The hillies got a brown wash; fire giants, red; frosters, dark blue; stonies grey, and the storm giant, white (which creates an inverse shadow, kind of like a glowing or effervescent figure). Everyone but the stonies got some clothes other than Andy's Speedoes. Since these are all meant to be simple garments, for the hill, fire, and frost, I used carpet sample swatches. For the storm giant, I added a papier-mâché toga. Industrial tile glue holds them in place - acrylic seal keeps it all together and solid.
Now for a little more exotic go, I am also adding another bit, the HorrorClix Devil Imp. Again, cheap and plentiful. And that big head will look nice up on some 3" tall figures' shoulders.
Here you can see some in progress. I added a couple of GW demon-something arms. One figure gets a left, another a right, and the boss, both. I've also added a couple MechWarrior bodies under the giant heads, complete with leftover car door shields. (Let's see how that works...) Down in front, I have added the GW ogre heads to some of the bulkier HeroClix ... Incredible Hulks, the Blob, etc. And I put a couple snake heads on the Devil Imp bodies. No sense wasting those when I can get a bag of a dozen snakes for a dollar (and the bodies will make nice tentacles for something else, later on).
Here are the Efreet giants. I got the translucent fire head off of another giant Heroclix figure. (You might have noticed it in the last pic ... also it's hands.) All in all, I think the head goes well on this figure and the spandex armour bronzes up fairly decently.
And the more traditional giants. This guy got the burning hands. I attach transulcent pieces after sealing by scraping the joint down to bare plastic and using industrial adhesive. In this case, the joint is so large (almost 1/4" diameter), that it is very easy to do.
The mechabodies don't look too bad, either. There are a couple of places where the joints are too thin to realistically be a giant dude in some type of armour. But overall, it's a nice effect. If I want, I can go back an putty in some bulk and then cover it with some additional armour plates. That is, little pieces of cereal box.

And here are the last guys. More like classical Northern European trolls than giants, but the heads go with the bodies nicely since the bodies are already disproprortionate for their height.

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Shoggoth

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Shoggoth

Since a thousand miles, even at 1:56, won't fit on my dinner table, I decided to make a shoggoth segment. But since they are supposed to be big, I though I would try to make as many different view of the shogggoth as I could get without it looking hinky. The goal is to allow you to photograph it with other minis from several angles to make it look like it is a lot bigger than it is.

All things must start somewhere, shoggoths ... shoggi ... shoggothen? Well, whatever the plural is, this one starts as a tin foil armature. This is a basic starter for slugs, snakes, tentacles, etc. It lets you get a basic form easily. And this one is all about form. It is important to get all those curves in all three dimensions. F'r'ex, the downlooking head will look very different when shot from the front than when shot from the top. Even the positioning of the pseudopod (with foral wire armature) in the front lets it be seen from some angles, and not from others.
After the armature comes the clay. In this case, I am using Crayola Model Magic clay. It is pretty east to work, air drys pretty firm, and is non-toxic. The trifecta for working inside the living room.

Next comes the odds and ends. The giant pseudopod in front is nice, but it really needs lots of little mouths, eyes, and various types of appendage to be a good shoggoth.
The teeth are spines cut from hair clips. So far, this is pretty much like the tentacle project. So, we are going to add a little variation now. The back end (does something like this really have a "front" or "back"?) gets an insect torso (LSH Changeling from HeroClix, actually), and a few Defiance Games bug legs are good, creepy additions. As are a few manually made clay tentacles and lumps, etc. The crowning piece, though, is the eyes. These are glass beads that I have embedded into the clay. I will prime and paint around them, so they stay clear and shiny. It is also important that the clay behind them is white. I have embedded clear beads into dark colored clay and not ended up with the effect I wanted because the backing wasn't light and reflective.
Since it is a space slug, it has to be shiny. Also, Howard says so. And I really like making this mucous project. Just take a piece of parchment paper (or wax paper) and make a few runs of fabric glue on it. Now go have a couple beers and watch some sports on TV while it drys. When dry, the glue strips will peel right off as long, shiny strips of transparent goo. These are great to add on to project AFTER you seal them. If you cover the glue with sealant, it tends to go foggy. Of course, that is also a nice effect, but not the one we want for a slavering monster.
Space slugs and Lovecraft monsters do well with putrid, sickly colors. So I went with an ochre and brown motif, and used a dark green wash. All in all, not a bad look. The eyes and slime add just the right je ne sais quoi to the monster, which is a good quality for things that come from a dimension beyond understanding.

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