Category Archives: Mini Monday

Toys as Minis, a Boost for Your Table — MM 39

22 March 2021 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week I’m going to tell you why you should use more toys as minis.

I figure that tabletop gamers fall into two groups; those who supplement their mini collection with toys, and those who hate the idea. If you’re in that second camp, it’s probably because you think that toys just don’t look right on the gaming table. I was one of the haters too, but I changed my mind. Here’s why!

Toys as Minis — Most of these are from Japan, but I found the bear locally.

Hidden Treasures

There’s a lot of junk out there, but search hard enough, and you just might find the perfect additions to your collection. I found that toys from Japan can be particularly good, and tend to be on the smaller side, but keeping an eye on your local cheap or second-hand toy shop will pay off eventually, especially if you’re in a biggish city.

Lots of folks online have shown off their dollar store hauls, so that’s an awesome option if you have cheap shops like that in your area. You’re most likely to find animals and mythical creatures such as dragons, but you never know what might turn up.

Two other great sources for toys for minis are your own toy collection and second-hand sales. Such sources usually have a varied collection of toys to choose from, are dirt cheap, and might surprise you with what you’ll find.

Kitbashing and Converting

If you’re ready to do some converting and kitbashing, then toys offer a veritable gold mine of options. Some hobbyists on YouTube recently did a toy monster mashup, go search it out if you’re looking for more inspiration.

Price

With some exceptions, toys are generally a lot cheaper than specifically-produced miniatures, and printing takes time. It’ll take time to find the right toys, but you can usually search while looking out for other things.

The Buying Strategy

Patience and a will to shop around are the keys to success if you’re going to use toys as minis. Buying a couple of odd-looking horses because you need horses for Friday’s game might be fine, but you’ll quickly collect a lot of ugly minis that way.

Rather, keep a list of what you want minis for and play the long game, buying only the best of the best.

Toy Traps to Avoid

Avoid buying online, unless you can find a good size comparison for the toy. Also, avoid cheap-looking plastic, as this can become brittle over time and break easily. Thin plastic is usually the biggest clue, but strange colour changes in the plastic can also give you a hint that the toy will be more hassle than it’s worth in the long run.

I hope this inspires you to start adding some toys to your mini collection. If you have more collecting tips to share, then throw them in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!

Rodney

Hey there, I’m Rodney!
I’m a writer and editor of tabletop RPGs and a painter of Orks. Welcome to Rising Phoenix Games!
Dwarves Rule! By the Power of Greyskull! Jesus Saves! Turtle Power! Bionics On! Waaagh Ork! For the Golgari, for the Swarm! ThunderCats Ho! Skate the Apocalypse!

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Scratch Build Tank Tracks — Mini Monday 37

22 February 2021 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week we’ll look at how to scratch build tank tracks for your Orks, Adeptus Mechanicus, or that home-made Baneblade you always wanted to make.

Why Scratch Build Tank Tracks?

There are a lot of options when putting together a mini, especially these days. I’m making a Mek Gun, so I could buy Games Workshop’s official Warhammer 40K miniature kit, buy parts from a custom parts store, find a model to 3D print, modify a WWII field gun kit, or scratch-build it. So why choose scratch building?

It takes more time to get the same sort of end result you’d expect from anything made professionally, but it’s very rewarding when you do.
Scratch building will teach you so much more about kitbashing, miniature conversion, and model making because it forces you to use that squishy organ between your ears in new ways.
It’s a great way to create miniatures that just don’t exist, or that are too expensive.

For me, I simply wanted to know that I could do it. I love the Grot Tanks I’ve seen the community creating, so making a tracked Big Gun seemed like a good challenge.

Let’s Build It!

Scratch Build Tank Tracks 1 — Read-side view of the wheels, track base, and track plates.

Here’s my process:

Use pipes to form the basic shape of the treads and hull. Use thicker pipes as the main wheels, with small wheels as the guide wheels. Glue them together with supports (that black bar in the picture above connects the top three pipes).
Glue sections of pipes over and inside these pipes to build up the wheel hub’s shape. I used lots of dead pen and marker tubes for this part.
Add extra detail, such as shock absorbers. See Adding Springs below.
Glue strips of thick craft foam around the wheels. You can find adhesive craft foam to make this a little easier.
Cut rectangles of cardboard and glue them onto the foam. My strips were about 8 mm by 5 mm, bent two-thirds of their length to hide the craft foam. Glue a few of these on, then let them dry, otherwise it gets tricky trying to stop everything moving around as you work.

Scratch Build Tank Tracks 2 — View of the left side of the scratch built tank tracks.

Adding Springs

You can add shock absorbers by putting a spring over a pipe that runs between two of the pipes that form the wheels. Details like these really bring the mini together.

Here’s the final mini, bar some extra details and the gun crew.

I hope that inspires you to scratch build some of your own machines for the tabletop.

Hello, My Name is Death

Our new, poker-based tabletop RPG, Hello, My Name is Death is out now! Outdo your friends, reap souls, and become the next #OffiialGrimReaper in this zine RPG.

Get Reaping Here

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

How to Pick Colours for Mini Painting — MM 36

8 February 2021 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week we’ll talk about how to pick colours for mini painting with colour theory.

Pick colours for your mini painting projects thoughtfully, because it’ll give you a better end result, and, like painting, it’s a skill you can improve on. Build some understanding of the theory, then use that to inform your choices and achieve the results you’re looking for.

Colour Theory

Colour theory might seem like a deep rabbit hole, which may seem intimidating, but I highly recommend you dive in. Colour theory opens up the language of colour, an understanding of how colours work together, and an understanding of the emotional responses that colours can create.

Here’s a quick look:

The colour wheel below shows the primary colours (red, blue, and yellow) and the secondary colours (orange, purple, and green). You can make the secondary colours by mixing the two primary colours nearest to the secondary colour you want to make (and that’ll cost GW some sales).

Analogous colours sit side-by-side on the colour wheel. They give you a simple range of colours for creating rich monochromatic (single colour) colour schemes.

Complementary colours sit opposite each other on the colour wheel, but still work well when paired together. As you can see, there’s more to the “red wunz go fasta” thing when painting Orks.

This is just scratching the surface of colour theory, and I encourage you to seek out more information.

3 Tips to Using Colour Theory

Like any theory, you need to put colour theory into practice to get a real understanding of it and make it stick. Here are three ways to help yourself implement colour theory in your miniature painting.

Limited Your Colour Scheme

I painted the mini below with two reds, two browns, black, white (mixed to make grey), and metallic paint. It is a simple mini, but restricting your range of colours forces you to get more creative. Using analogous colours for this type of painting will also give you a base colour, shading colour, and a highlight that compliments each other.

Another way to think of it is to drop a primary colour or two. Forbid yourself from using it, and see how your colour scheme becomes much tighter.

Clash Your Colours with Purpose

If colours are not analogous or complimentary, then there’s no colour harmony; they are contrasting colours. That doesn’t mean you can’t use purple and green together, you just have to know why you’re pairing them. Think of the green Hulk with his purple shorts, or Superman with his red and blue spandex, they stand out. And sometimes standing out is exactly what you want.

A World in Black and White

Of course, real life is full of colour, but to really understand and successfully pick colours for your minis you could do worse than follow Frank Miller’s example in Sin City. Frank’s masterpiece is a master class in light and shadow, with pages in black and white and only occasional splashes of colour. You can explore this with nothing more than paper and a black pen.

As an example, here’s the cover of The Grimdark Pamphlet, which I thought was a good colour choice for a book of game options that challenges the often black and white world of most adventurers, where the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. Or was it that I didn’t want colour so I could push the idea of the colourless, grim aesthetic most associated with grimdark settings?

Now, I’m not saying you need to paint a mini only black and white, but there are plenty of great paint schemes that focus on black and white, such as drow with their white hair and black armour, the Black Templars, the Blood Angels Death Company, and Goff Orks. Notice how these schemes often use a third colour to accentuate items such as weapons.

You can take this idea further to explore light, as Miniac did in his Color is for CHUMPS video. Check it out and tell him I sent you.

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Building Ork barricades from Trash — MM 35

25 January 2021 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week we’re building Ork barricades from Christmas trash.

Ah yes, the dust has settled after the strangest Christmas and New Years’ Eve in living history, and 2021 is picking up steam. Time to make something, and what’s better than recycling that Christmas trash to make something Orky. Of course, you might already have recycled/trashed/incinerated/buried the last signs of the festive season, but you’ll always generate more waste, so let’s go!

Ork Barricades

These Ork barricades are similar to the ones you can get in the Mekboy Workshop, or the barricades Games Workshop used to sell as a terrain pack, but they’re very easy to build yourself using nothing but bits of scrap cardboard and plastic.

I cut out 6-inch strips of cardboard, then glued bits of cardboard and plastic onto them. That’s basically it. We’re done.

Okay, but seriously, there are a few tricks to making this look good:

Cut the cardboard and plastic sheets at angles. Bend them and add damage like cuts or bullet holes to make them look even more Orky.
Stick the sheets down at angles, leaning on each other. This gives a sense of three-dimensionality to the terrain and makes it stronger. Orky things are always off-kilter.
Cut out “teef” of card to decorate the terrain.
Cut tiny squares of plastic to make Orky rivets. I use those little plastic tabs that hold bread bags closed. Cut them into strips, then squares, then superglue them onto your model.

Ork barricades — A wall with “teef” to show that the boyz own it.

Painting

I used a heavy-duty red primer to make the models more resistant to wear and tear. I then painted the “metal” sections black or stippled orange onto them. I also left some unpainted. I then dabbed brown onto the orange sections with a sponge to make them look rusted. I then dry brushed the edges of the models with silver paint and put a black wash over the whole thing to finish it off. The ground was painted dark gray and dry brushed light gray.

Just be sure to let your Ork barricades dry between coats. I had to redo a bunch of dry brushing because I was getting too happy with the brush, which just blended everything together. Patience, young grasshopper, patience.

And that’s it.

Ork barricade doorways — You can even make doorways to take little junk doors.

Ork barricade doors closed — And here they are again, with the doors closed.

The best advice I can give is to give it a try. I was skeptical about how good the cardboard would look, but in the end, I was very pleased with how they turned out. The only thing I’d change is that I’d base them on tongue depressors or hardboard instead of cardboard.

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Hobby Momentum — Mini Monday 32

7 December 2020 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week let’s look at hobby momentum and why it’s important for your hobby, and maybe life.

This weekend I banged out three new bits of scenery. What’s more, I was only home for half of the weekend, so I surprised myself with just how quickly it all came together. The magic ingredient was momentum.

What’s Hobby Momentum?

Hobby momentum is progress that rolls onwards, lends motivation, and helps you get bigger projects done. It builds up from working consistently and frequently at your hobby.

I’d been banging away on my scenery for over a year now, but in the week leading up to the last, I finally painted five of the buildings I’d been working on. I’ve also managed to complete a heap of other small projects, including making decals, custom Space Marine banners, a new Ork Weirdboy, painting some spiders, and finishing off the first of my Angels Encarmine heroes. Seeing these completed must have motivated me, because I got cracking on the three new terrain bits on Friday night. By Sunday all I needed to do was paint them.

It felt like the whole thing took little effort, and that’s all because of hobby momentum.

Life Without Forward Momentum

On the flip side, I recently finished a project that seemed to have stalled for ages. Things only progressed when I managed to break the project down into small enough pieces to get some momentum back.

The Terrain

All of these terrain projects incorporated older terrain projects that I’d not been very happy with, two or so years of collecting bits, and lots of browsing Pinterest. That certainly made these projects quicker, but the push came from hobby momentum. Having finished a bunch of terrain provided clearer inspiration for this build.

Barrel Pile

Luke tries to force push, but the hot glue is strong with this one.

This model terrain consists of a styrofoam base, milk box lids, some wire wrapped around a small thread spindle, and some silica gel containers from medicine bottles. I made cardboard toppers for the green containers to hide the logo on them. I hot glued this onto the base and then added more sand and dirt with wood glue.

The red fits my colour scheme, which is red and grey.

Water Tower and Barrel Dump

Another styrofoam base, onto which I hot glued more of the barrels I cast for my Grot Oiler. I built the tower from a toy army barrel, some thin dowel sticks, bits of plastic, and wire mesh.

I originally built the base as a hill for my Old Egyptian DBA army, which means it has sat in a box for twenty years or so. Turning it into a dump made so much sense and fits with the factory terrain I’ve built so far.

Broken Wall

This was one of the first bits of terrain I built for Warhammer 40,000. Like so many of my terrain projects from years ago, it was a single piece that didn’t match anything else on the table. I figured a little effort could update this and help it fit with the set.

Broken wall updated — Nothing like rebar to bring your construction together.

I added rebar with bits of bent wire poked into the styrofoam, then added more gravel around the base. Done.

I really am getting too happy with this spray can.

You’ll have to come back to see these painted up, which is a project for another Mini Monday.

RPG Blog Carnival @ Phoenix HQ

Why not check out the RPG Blog Carnival, which is happening here, at Rising Phoenix Games, this month. Our topic is “When the Bad Guys Win.”

You’ll find new articles on the topic in the comments, as they come in. If you’re a blogger, you can also submit articles of your own. Details on the page.

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Get Started Painting 40K Vehicles — MM 31

23 November 2020 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week we’ll get started painting 40K vehicles.

I’ve learned loads since getting back into miniature painting, but painting vehicles, especially pretty Space Marine vehicles, has always been intimidating to me.

Until now.

Here’s a very easy way to get started with painting your Warhammer 40,000 vehicles, and you won’t need an airbrush.

Get Started Painting 40K Vehicles — Get started right with a few coats of spray paint. All this guy needs is some detail work with a brush.

1. Prep

Clean your mould lines, like you would with any other mini. You can assemble as much of the vehicle as makes sense. This Land Speeder came to me fully built, so I prepped it for painting as a whole. You could also paint the vehicle on the sprue or paint each piece, bit by bit. Whatever makes the most sense to you.

One of the cool things about mini painting is that they’re your models, you can paint them however you want.

2. Undercoat

Now undercoat/basecoat the whole vehicle with a spray can. White, black, grey, whichever makes the most sense for your colour scheme.

Zenithal Land Speeder underside (in black) — Death from below.

Zenithal Land Speeder top, in white — Death from above.

This guy will be sporting Angels Encarmine colours, which I interpret as a darker take on the Blood Angels paint scheme. For this project, I wanted to try a zenithal undercoat, so I hit it with black on the bottom and white on the top. It seems to have blended well enough in the middle, but some people hit it with a grey coat in the centre of the vehicle for a more gradual blend.

3. Primary Coat

Lastly, I hit it with two coats of the primary colour. Let the mini dry properly between coats, and you’ll end up with a decent looking vehicle that only needs detail work.

Angels Encarmine Land Speeder — Now to pimp my ride.

It’s really that simple, and you don’t need to get fancy with an airbrush. Two thin coats, with a brush, will get you where you need to be from here.

We’ll be back to help you get started painting 40K vehicles in a bit, so see you again in a few weeks.

Aurora’s Black Friday Sale

It’s Black Friday week at Aurora’s Whole Realms Emporium. Be sure to check out the mountain of gear on sale now, perfect for your Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition adventures.

Get Aurora’s Awesome Bundle Here

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Ork Runtherd Black Orc Kitbash — MM 30

26 October 2020 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week I’m kitbashing an Ork Runtherd from a Black Orc.

#Orktober Progress Report

Only a few days left of #Orktober, and I’ve finished 9 models out of 31, buuut I’ve built another weirdboy aaand started on an Ork Biker/Gaslands kitbash I think you’ll like (inspired by 5header on YouTube). That second project is probably going to get sidelines until I can unstick my fingers and finish off those Ork Kommandos I promised.

Orktober has been great though. My Orks got a lot of love that they hadn’t gotten since the start of lockdown. Things are actually done. Progress has been made. It was awesome.

Black Orc Ork Runtherd

My brother gave me this little guy when he got him in the Warhammer, Shadow of the Horned Rat box. Remember that game? I think it might just be the toughest game I’ve ever played.

The mini has been sitting around in a box for years, and my plan was to turn him into a banner bearer. Remember those?

Choosing to turn him into an Ork Runtherd was a much better plan.

Grabba Stick and Grot Lash

I removed his swords, then drilled through his right hand to fit some wire. The top of his grabba stick is a bit of plastic from a nose spray. You know, that bit that stops you from accidentally spraying it. I wrapped some fine jeweller’s chain around it for detail.

The whip was made with modelling epoxy, which is very brittle. If I remake it, I’ll use wire with only a little modelling epoxy on the end.

Pistol

His sidearm is a pistol from a Dark Eldar mini. I stuck bits of plastic card to it to bulk up the holster and added a single link of chain for decoration.

Painting

Meh, probably not one of my best paint jobs. But, you know what, he’s done and I can move on. I’m very happy with how he turned out, I learned a bunch, and I had fun. That’s all that matters.

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Orktober, and why Grots Matter Too. MM #28

12 October 2020 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. It’s also Orktober, so it’s time to Waaagh! This week I’ll share what I’ll be painting for the rest of October.

The Goal

Paint 31 Orks by the end of Orktober. Simple.

Oh, and run a company, do adulting well, get enough sleep, and don’t burn out. Hey, if you don’t challenge yourself you don’t get anywhere. Let’s paint some Orks!

The Boyz (and Grots)

These are the models I’m aiming to finish by the end of the month. All are primed and ready to go, some are almost done.

The list includes:

1 Wierdboy
1 Mek
2 Runtherds (1 Kitbashed from an old Black Orc)
2 Nobz
6 Kommandos
1 Ork Boy with Big Shoota (AKA Lascannon, from back in the day)
6 Ork Boys (Kitbashed from old Warhammer Fantasy Orcs)
1 Ork Boy with kitbashed shoota and choppa stabby thing
1 Warboss
10 Gretchin (2 from the latest kit)

You’ll get a better look at all of them in the weeks to come. Some of them already made an appearance in our article on kitbashing Ork weapons.
And Gretchin count, so sod off.

There are two more Mondays left for Orktober, so I’ll post updates then and again on the 2nd of Normalvember. Next week it’ll probably be the Kommandos, unless they sneak off.

What Are You Painting?

We’d love to hear from you and see what you’re painting. I’ll be checking out the #Orktober and #HobbyStreak tags on Twitter for the rest of the month, so please connect with Rising Phoenix Games or myself there.

You can also drop a comment below.

Indie RPGs from South Africa

A bunch of South African indie RPG designers teamed up to create the South African Indie RPG bundle, which includes a bunch of great games from south of the Sahara.

The bundle includes Claustrophobia!, Bullet, Something Wicked, Children of the Fall, Might, and How to Plan a Murder, all at a massively reduced price.

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Zombie White Dragon — Mini Monday 27

14 September 2020 Rodney

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week we’re painting the zombie white dragon from the Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game.

The zombie white dragon was such a satisfying and quick model to paint. You could easily apply the main technique we’ll look at here to other frozen creatures, perfect for your adventures in Icewind Dale.

Basecoat and Drybrushing

I base coated the mini white, then painted the whole dragon blue. Two thin coats applied with a big brush will make quick work of this frozen fiend. After that, lightly dry brush pure white over the model. I recommend two goes of this, otherwise it’ll look more like a blue dragon with white highlights. You’re building up levels here.

Detailing

I then painted the exposed ribs, teeth, and the hooks on the leading edge of the wings with Flesh Wash (like I did for those skeletons a while back). I painted the tongue, exposed flesh, eye sockets, and nostrils purple (I mixed red and blue). Then I edge highlighted the tips of the teeth and ribs with a flesh tone.

I painted the base black. For this, I found that a thin first coat and a thicker final coat gave it a really solid finish.

The last thing I did was edge highlight the large scales on the tail and head, as well as clean up around the jaws. All of this was with pure white, which muted the blue undercoat some more. I sealed the model with matt varnish.

Using Photos to Paint Better

If you look carefully in the photo above you’ll notice spots I missed. The great thing about taking photos of your minis is that you’ll examine them through a different lens (literally) and notice things you didn’t spot while painting. Photos also give you a great way to compare your progress. I learned everything I know about mini photography from Tabletop Minions. Check out How To Shoot Good Photos of Your Minis with a Smartphone on YouTube.

Explore Icewind Dale

Icewind Dale Ultimate Pack — Venture deep into the cold north!

Great Icewind-Dale-shaped things are happening in the world of Dungeons & Dragons, and Rising Phoenix Games has teamed up with other DMs Guild creators to bring you the Icewind Dale Ultimate Pack bundle. The bundle is packed full of adventures, player options, items, and more for your adventures in the cold north.

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Mini Monday, Tips and Tricks

Mini Monday Recap, All the Projects, Ever!

5 August 2020 Rodney

Mini Monday is a bi-weekly blog series where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. The goal is to get through the mountain of grey metal and plastic we all have in our cupboards. Here you’ll find the complete list of articles, listed by project and project type. You can also find all the Mini Monday articles listed, from newest to oldest, by checking out the Mini Monday category.

If there’s anything else you’d like to see me tackle, leave it in the comments below.

Like What We Do?

If you like what we’re doing and want to support us, please consider sharing or purchasing something from our RPG games store.

Gargoyle Mini Monday Mug — Paintbrushes, water, or regular ol’ caffeine, whatever it holds, it holds it in style. You can grab the mug from our Teespring store.

Rodney

www.risingphoenixgames.com/

Hidden Treasures

Kitbashing and Converting

Price

The Buying Strategy

Toy Traps to Avoid

Why Scratch Build Tank Tracks?

Let’s Build It!

Adding Springs

Hello, My Name is Death

Colour Theory

3 Tips to Using Colour Theory

Limited Your Colour Scheme

Clash Your Colours with Purpose

A World in Black and White

Ork Barricades

Painting

What’s Hobby Momentum?

Life Without Forward Momentum

The Terrain

Barrel Pile

Water Tower and Barrel Dump

Broken Wall

RPG Blog Carnival @ Phoenix HQ

1. Prep

2. Undercoat

3. Primary Coat

Aurora’s Black Friday Sale

#Orktober Progress Report

Black Orc Ork Runtherd

Grabba Stick and Grot Lash

Pistol

Painting

The Goal

The Boyz (and Grots)

What Are You Painting?

Indie RPGs from South Africa

Basecoat and Drybrushing

Detailing

Using Photos to Paint Better

Explore Icewind Dale

Like What We Do?

Be the Hero