Crafting a Dragon

Crafting a Dragon Dice Holder

For a while I have been making cute little Dice Holder Beholders. They were a hit at on Etsy and at conventions where I have vended. They have been fun to make and I have enjoyed making everyone of of them.Since my blog talking about about the cute dice holders, I have begun calling them Dice Buddies. Additionally, I send them with a little adoption certificates and name tags. A big thank you to one of my customers for this idea. Since I started making the dice beholders I now feel that I am ready for crafting something more complex. Something like a cute cuddly awesome dragon dice holder companion! Trust me, if you take a walk through the internet you will find there are a ton of these magnificent creations out there. I am going to join the ranks of my fellow creators bringing them to life as also.

Dragon Dice Holder Research

With the day of the convention rapidly approaching. I decided it is the perfect time to try my hand at making one of these adorable, fun, and intimidating creations. Let’s talk about the way it came together! The fist steps was to build out body shape. After taking some time and looking carefully at the steps of crafting Sculpey Dragon figures. I realized I would need to watch a few Sculpey tutorials. After viewing several I rapidly became less intimidated by the process.

The Build

I used some tinfoil to build a skeleton to wrap my Sculpey around. The reason for this:

Keeps the Sculpey thickness consistent for baking times.
Provides you with considerably more product to work with.
It provides strength to your craft.

After rolling the first bit of Sculpey out and applying it to the skeleton this is the result was a nice Nessie looking body. The rest came together in short order. I surprised myself that the more that I began to work on my Dragon it began to understand how simple its complexity actually was. The things that were intimidating became easier and less stressful to work on as time past. When you look at the finished dragon figures they have much detail to take in. Because of this they look more complex then they are. In reality the Dragons are simply a collection of cones and cylinders. With a few additional pieces added for extra flare.

The Result

Pictured is the finished version of my first Dragon Dice Holder. Overall for the first one that I did I am very proud of the results. As the person that has crafted it I see several errors and mistakes that I need to work on. In future dragons, but I am confident that I will nail them as time goes by. With each one I will get better. Have you seen any other fun looking Sculpey dice holders that you think would be fun to try? Feel free to let me know, I have discovered I enjoy making these things. If you would like one of these creations check out my Etsy store!

Figure of the Week: Alain, Iconic Cavalier

February 25, 2019February 24, 2019Leave a comment

Alain, Iconic Cavalier

Today’s figure is Reaper Pathfinder Alain, iconic cavalier. He is wearing full plate, wielding a sword, carrying another sword, dagger, shield and a standard.

I painted him for a friend on commission, for a character that he is playing currently. I think that he turned out alright.

It took me forever to find out who he was because I was looking for a fighter not a cavalier. Once I searched under cavalier, I found him right off.

To Buy:

Walmart

Amazon

Reaper

Figure of the Week: Anhurian Elite Guard

Figure of the Week: Tasanee, Venomspitter Hero

Figure of the Week: Doom Demon

February 18, 2019February 17, 20191 Comment

Doom Demon

Today’s figure is the pink demon from Doom. I painted it to look like an undead version of the original game monster. It appears to be a medium-sized Minotaur, with a hunched back (with protruding spine), overlarge head and three-toed feet.

The closest Pathfinder creature that I could find to this is the classic Minotaur. Below are similar links:

Zombie (3.5 ed)

Minotaur Race

Half-Fiend

I will work on creating my own version of this iconic monster from Doom. It will be medium sized, primitive and undead. They only use natural weapons: bite (mostly), gore and maybe claw. They are of limited intelligence, demonic, killing machines.

Figure of the Week: Human Mage

January 14, 2019Leave a comment

Human Mage

Today’s Figure is a Human mage/sorcerer (could also be a thief or ranger). I decided to paint him like a flamboyant thief under his cloak. He is holding a bottle or tube, perhaps its a potion. He is wearing a medallion, cloak and dagger or wand at his belt. It appears that he drank a potion and is casting a spell.

I couldn’t find out who the manufacturer is, but I’ll keep researching.

Figure of the Week: Troll Smasher

November 27, 2018Leave a comment

Troll Smasher

Today’s figure is a Mage Knight troll smasher. He is wearing a loincloth, pauldrons and wielding a tree. I didn’t change his paint job much, just some details. He is perfect to be used in almost any fantasy game.

Mace “Chopped” Terrain Contest

November 21, 2018Leave a comment

This year at Mace I competed in the “Chopped” terrain contest. This was the second terrain contest that the convention has held in as many years. In 2017 the contest was a build it and bring event. DM Scotty was the Judge, and it was a fun event that they decided to grow. In 2018 they decided to change it up and introduced the “Chopped” contest theme. Myself I hope that they continue to run this in the coming years. This year the competition had a chance to bring home a 3D printer for winning first place.

For us, the “Chopped” contest was going to be a special challenge. I decided that it would be a great way to still do something other than vending while at the con. Better yet it would also be something that Missy and I could do together since she had not signed up to play any games this year as well.

The Chopped Contest Details

The contest was a blind box 22-hour timed event. With only a single rule, you must use most of what was in the given “mystery” box. The boxes were passed out at 8pm on Friday, and the event ended at 7pm Saturday. I will be the first person to tell you that this ensured everyone that competed was pressed for time. I will say that the vast number of us that were in the competition were lucky to manage to put a solid 6-8 hours in on the projects.

The box that we received contained a ton of raw materials. That proved to be the first challenge as we needed to sort through everything and decide what we were going to build from it. The second challenge that we faced was that we had entered into a terrain building contest and had never built a single piece of terrain EVER!

Regrettably, we were so overwhelmed with the contents of the box no one thought to take a picture of what all was it. On the 10th floor, there was a paint area and some items like proxxon cutters provided. But what follows is a little list to give you an idea.

1 Roll of toilet paper
2 solid cardstock tubes
1 Foam core board
styrofoam
pink insulation foam
polymer clay
several sizes of popsicle sticks
string
bendy straws
Aluminum foil
1 Tea Light
A plastic skull
some random plastic items
Army painter tufts of grass & flock.
A sheet of cardboard
1 Glue Gun with Glue sticks
Utility knife
a few clay tools
several types of glue

The Resut

After some thought, we dove in and I was determined to want to build terrain that served more than one purpose. We settled on a working dice tower that would roll into a dice tray. The tower would look like a creepy lighthouse type tower. The dice would then roll into what was intended to look like a sewer well with pipes and bodies inside.

We pulled it off, with some effort a little bit of burnt flesh and a whole lot of panic that we would not ever finish it in time we got the whole thing together painted and turned in. Better yet for our first piece of terrain that we built during a timed competition, we even pulled off a working dice tower!

Much of the material we had an easy time working with. The only exception was that GOD DAMN pink foam.. It is an hateful unforgiving medium to first time crafters in my opinion. Mind you we were working with it at a 4 foot table behind a vendor booth so my feelings about it might be a bit jaded.

Honestly, were pretty proud of the ugly beast but it did not place. That’s alright though we finished and we had fun doing it! And not only did we use most of the items listed above but we even cut the box up and used it as well!

We were only given green brown and grey for colors, and honestly, we were so far behind at the time we got to the paint stage we just were hoping to get full coverage on the blasted thing lol. Maybe we will make some more terrain between now and next MACE and we will see how we do next year.

If you would like to see a craft that we were able to take our time on. Use the following link and enjoy!

https://runkleplaysgames.com/2018/08/09/crafting-thursday-making-d12-containers/

Figure of the Week: Troglodyte

November 19, 2018Leave a comment

Troglodyte

Today’s figure is a Wiz kids (Mage Knight) Trog figure. He is wearing a loincloth, a bone necklace and wielding a stone axe.

I rebased this figure to be used for Pathfinder as a Troglodyte, because its original base would be considered large. I also slightly repainted him so it looks like he has algae on his skin.

To Buy:

Noble Knight Games

Category: Crafting Corner