Missile Toads

  You might be asking yourself what is Missile Toads, well it’s a game I designed this year after returning from Adepticon.

First Toad Tank Boggart

This whole game originated from a kit bash. I started at the Grim Dark Alley on top of a nearby trashcan. People were leaving bits for others to trade and take. I was sitting with my fellowArt Goblins and I wanted to start a new project.  In that pile of bits, I found a 3-D printed toad. At the time. I didn’t know who made it, but it was printed by my friend Ben. While sitting at a table with my friends, I began adding mechanical parts to it. Quickly adding cannons and other weapons to the top of the model. I happen to be carrying the Toad Tank around when my friend’s kid mentioned it was a Missile Toad. I was like wow this kid is way smarter than me and has better ideas than I do. I decided to design a game specifically around toad tanks.

Franklin The Tanklin

When I got home from a Adepticon, I was exhausted but excited. I knew I wanted to design a game that focused on a large number of players being able to play at once and a low model count. Often at conventions, you never get a chance to play a game with everyone that you want, but what if you could have everyone or almost everyone play in one game. This is what I thought about all the time at work, washing dishes, trying to fall asleep at night, I kept thinking about toad tanks. I explained my concept of a game to my friend Dellon of White Tiger table craft during one of our hobby hangouts. Quickly, we were able to lay down the foundation for the game. My general concept was to add Mario kart elements to a tabletop war game that was easy to play easy to teach and has freedom for kit bashing. After talking with Dellon, that night I wrote down as much of the rules as I could remember and figure out. Within a week I had a game ready to play test.

I am fortunate to have a local game group to test my game out with and we met up at my friend Mike’s house to play. Mike had a great board for us to use which was his previous turnip 28 table. It had the perfect amount of muddiness for a natural toad habitat. My friends kit bashed unique toads that were much different from what I made. Which showed me that the game had enough room for people to have their own creative spin. After a few matches, I saw where some holes were and where to add additional clarifications to the rules. From there a playtesting document and drafted and posted it online.

People begin creating their own toad tanks and let me know their plans to play. I continued to run some play testing including a game at Under The Dice Fest. I was able to share the rules with new people and show others how the game works. I had a great time walking my friends new and old through my game.

Banjo

The next step is for me to finish up some editing, create some drawings, and finish the layout for my zine. My goal is to bring the zine with me next year to Adepticon where the game originated. If you play or make a toad tank, please share with me as I would love to see it. While the base rule games are done, I do plan on making some additional material including the alternative play style called Titan Toad. It still needs to be play tested but that should start soon! 

Download the rules for Free! 

Painting my Necropolis Warband

 With October, almost over and Halloween almost a week away. It’s time to get back to painting some skeletons.

After all of my skeletons were kept bashed it was time to start painting. At first, I was not sure which direction to go in. I knew I wanted to go with a color palette that I don’t instinctually select. I tend to be drawn to cool colors with a contrast highlight of a warm color. After some thought, I decided to go with a primarily warm color palette. I also decided to take a bit more care in the painting process than I would normally. My usual process consists of stabbing the model with my dry brush, but this time I wanted to paint with intent.

To begin painting, I base coated all the models in black. I find that a black base coat allows me to build up better contrast than using white or a different color. The first layer of colors was a burgundy red. This is the same color I based all of my S in. I do really like this red. The only problem is that semi glossy and I really really don’t like glossy paint.

Next, I did a layer of bright red this helped me figure out where I would ultimately highlight in which areas I would lead the black and deep burgundy to create a nice shadow

Then I did another layer of the bright red this time using a smaller paintbrush and increasing the saturation of the red in select areas.Over the course of many layers, I began to build up multiple layers of this bright red, focusing more on the peaks of important details to slowly build saturation. It was difficult to see if I was actually making any changes to the model or if I was just hyper fixating for no reason. But overtime I could see a difference with the red. After about four layers, there was not much more contrast I could create and I began to introduce two new colors. 

Slowly, orange was added to select high points on the model. The first layer was a mixture of the bright red and orange to create a smoother transition. The orange paint I was using it didn’t have good coverage or saturation. This resulted in multiple layers being needed to slowly build up the contrast and not have paint caked on the model.

After a few layers of orange, I pulled out a bright yellow to do my final highlights. Here I focused on which points in the model I wanted to draw the eye to. Primarily the face, breast plate and crown behind the skull were what I wanted to focus on. Similarly to the orange, the yellow does not have good coverage. I am still on the hunt for the perfect yellow that is saturated and has good coverage. If you have any recommendations, please let me know because I bought so many yellows. With the final highlight completed my War band was done!

While I don’t think I’ll be winning any sort of painting competition anytime soon. I do enjoy painting my models in a fashion that feels like myself. I never felt comfortable painting models like the box art or super neat and clean, but painting my models like I would color an illustration has made me enjoy the painting process a whole lot more. Now it’s time to get in a few games of necropolis and see how my skeleton Knights do. In a future post, I’ll be sharing the lore of this war band and a few of my other ones to show how adding narrative story to your models really increases the enjoyment of model making.

My Hobby Journal

  As an illustrator, I am used to carrying around a sketchbook to record my ideas and concepts while on the go. I use my sketchbook to plan out projects, big and small and really use it as a way to record my ideas at any given moment. While I’ve been getting more into sculpting, kitbashing and playing miniature war games, I wanted to find a way to record all my ideas in one place. I had friends who had notebooks that recorded their war bands or armies or clipboards with all the papers neatly stacked together, but I wanted a way to record all aspects of this craft. This led me to creating my own hobby journal.

To get started to get started. I went to the craft store and found a cheap notebook. I prefer to use cheaper materials as it keeps me from being too precious and self-conscious. this is really supposed to be a place to record ideas and not be a precious art object. On the front. I added some of my friend’s stickers and used my LabelMaker to add my name.

 In the front of the book, I log all the games I’ve played. This helped me see which games I was playing most often and which systems I wasn’t playing very much. A lot of of these games took place at conventions, which had me playing multiple games in a small amount of time. They do try to play games with my friends at least twice a month and I am always constantly working on something.

 I started this journal shortly after returning from a Adepticon. Right after returning home, I began work on my first miniature war game Missile Toads. Here I have the stats for play testing as well as photos of my toad tanks. For the photos throughout my journal, I use two key tools. The first option I use is a toddler camera that prints out the photos on receipt paper. The second option I use is a small thermal printer in case I forget to bring my camera with me.

 I also like to include my war bands, as well as the war band lore in my journal. The heretics of Saint Agatha was my first Forbidden Psalm war band and I use them during garage con 2024. Some of the photos under the wicker woman lore are photos from the event. I like to take photos during the game because the terrain and opponents miniatures add a lot of narrative. You’ll also see through throughout the book. I use washi tape to help fill in weird gaps and add some color. 

Since I’ve been drawing for most of my life, I do like to include some drawings in my hobby journal when I can. Here I have some banner designs to use for a chaos army or war band. Even though I’m a professional illustrator, banners still freak me out mostly because I lack brush control and mostly just stab my Miniatures with paint.

 Here we have some photos of my friend Mike’s game ballad of blades. I think this was the first play test we did as a group. I took some photos using my toddler camera to see how natural light would work within the limited options. I created an orc character to fight in the duels. Included is a photo of the miniature as well as the stat blocks.

 I also like to use my journal Record events I’ve attended. This year I went to Under The Dice Fest for the first time. I got to see many of friends I met at Adepticon and met lots of cool new people. While Connecticut doesn’t have the best pizza, it does have some of the best people in miniature war gaming.

 Since the Jersey girls were planning a Warhammer fantasy campaign, I decided to dedicate a number of spreads to my Warhammer army. The first page is a collage using photocopies for Warhammer fantasy third edition, as well as some sketched out sigils and a photo of one of my favorite models. Since I didn’t want to worry about carrying around the rulebook, I added all the Skaven stat blocks to my journal. We also rolled some custom characters using the realm of chaos books and the regular rule book. To make sure I didn’t lose any of those scraps of paper I rewrote their stat blocks to include in the book.

 There are a few pages dedicated to color recipes. Mostly because I’ll forget which specific colors I’ve used and which specific brands. This will help me in the future in case I ever need to repaint a model or if I wanna add a new model to a war band or army. There are also pages dedicated to specific projects here. I have my plans for my fourth edition Warhammer 40 K Tyranid army, which I call high fleet Cyclops. My plan is to have all of the monsters have a giant single eye and that will require lots of conversions, kibashing and sculpting.  Don’t get too excited because I plan to build this army very slowly.

 Throughout my journal, I include lore and stories about my Miniatures. Creating stories around my Miniatures is one of my favorite parts of creation. I definitely prefer to play narrative driven games that allow me to express myself in miniature Form. Here we have my entry for festival rumpus that includes the fairy Miniatures. I kit bashed using sticks and other materials. While building the models, I spent a good amount of time thinking about the story. This resulted with writing my own little fairy tale about them. These are some of my favorite Miniatures I created this year.

Here I am chronicling our Warhammer fantasy campaign. I wrote quick notes on what happened in each session so I could write a blog post about it later on. On the other half of the spread, I printed out some of the memorable moments from the game to highlight events in the synopsis.

The Jersey Girls  have been playing a lot of Cauldron, I created a spread of photos from two of our game nights. We played a world championship game where I lost terribly coming in forth and losing half of my war band due to cannons. It was a great time hanging out with my friends and  showcasing our war bands to each other.  There is also a spread for my cauldron war bands stats. Originally the war band was called the trolls of Jimbus, but due to Beep’s clutch gameplay, the group was renamed to include her name.

 

A new addition to my journal, was adding a pocket to the back of the book. I usually write my army list on a separate piece of paper to help reduce clutter on the table. The sheets kept falling out of my notebook, and I cut up an envelope to tape in as a little pocket. Now I have a safe place to store sheets of paper, sticky notes, and tiny zines. On the top and side of the back cover, I have these loops to include a pencil and pen. Otherwise, I would always be looking for a writing utensil, and that can always be rather annoying.

I hope displaying some spreads from my journal will inspire you to create your own. Having this journal has been a great way of recording many aspects of my Miniatures journey much like my sketchbooks. I don’t see myself stopping this log anytime soon.

Skaven Monolith

Since painting all my Skaven and playing some games, I have been going back and looking at old White Dwarfs and manuals. Looking over the Warhammer skirmish I saw this awesome guide on building a monolith. Then Mike over at Kitbash Chaos released a video of him crafting different Chaos monoliths and I was like now I have to make one. 

Since my Skaven have been wandering the Chaos wastes, what better time than to make a monolith to match. The stone of the monolith was made using some foam cut with a hot wire cutter. In the top corner, a Skaven sigil was added to break up the flat plane. To add more texture to the foam, I mixed sand with glue and covered the foam. This add more rigidity to the foam which is good since I tend to drop all my miniatures. On the plastic card base, the surface was covered in a mixture of coffee and tea leaves. 

After adding all the textures, I searched my bits bin to find some bits to add to the monolith. The bits specifically needed to reference the three games my army has played. 

Next step was to paint the model. Unlike my Skaven models, the colors are muted and more realistic. This is to contrast against the models. First the monolith was spray painted black as a base coat. This way if I missed any spots, it would be a shadow. Next the rock was dry brushed with three different saturations of gray with a final highlight with white. The ground was then painted with a few layers of different browns. The last step was to paint all the details. 

As I was building this model, I thought about how the details would build the armies lore. When the Skaven found this giant rock in the wastes, they hoped it would be a giant piece of warp stone. They sent the most agile rat to the top with a chisel and he carved into the rock. To the surprise of the rats, it glowed the greenish glow of the warp stone. The skaven took this as a sign to venture further in search for more! As they wandered the wastes, they started to collect relics. First they added the broken blades of enemies they swarmed. Then added the orc skulls of those they had slain. 

The Skaven dragged an alter they stole from another monolith to their rock. The glowing green eyes told them it was more warp stone. Atop the alter, they added the skulls of orcs, demon and dwarves. They also added the looted shield from an orc as a warning to others. 

On the back of the Monolith, the Skaven hung a tattered banner they carried into battle. The blood red banner marked with the sigil of the The Scourge of the 13 Plagues. I honestly spent the longest amount of time painting the banner. Multiple layers of red to build up the highlights. The sigil on the banner was puposly painted loosely to make it look a rat did it. The Skaven do not care to spend time crafting a banner when they can make some other weird warp stone machine. 

At the base, a small cavity was cut into the stone. Its left open to add future trophies. A large strange glowing skull sits in the dirt. A strange relic the Skaven won during their last battle with the Orcs and Dwarves. But the story of this skull is for the next Cool Dudes Chilling: Warhammer Fantasy session

Kitbashing for Necropolis

With October right around the corner, it is time to make some spooky miniatures to match the season. My local group decided to give Necropolis a go! I knew from the start I wanted to make some skeletons. One because skeletons are cool and two I already had some skeletons to use. Before I started kitbashing, I spent some time thinking of a concept for my skeletons. I wanted them to be more than just bones. Luckily, when my friend Anthony was visiting some game shops, he found a sick Skeleton King and that sparked my idea. My Skeletons are led by a Witch King, who resurrected his dead knights from the grave. This also gave me the idea to include dirt and sticks on the model to make them look like they recently emerged. 

To get started, I clipped out some skeleton bodies from the sprue. One pose was more static while the other is shambling forward. Since I had the concept of knights, dirt and branches. I knew I wouldn't be using skeleton arms for all the models. Some would be more armored then others. Like it was showing the ranks of the knights. 

Since I needed natural looking bits. I combed through my bits box and pulled out all the syveneith bits that I had. Most of these were bought off of ebay for 20 bucks! This resulted in a bunch of random parts that I wasn't totally sure how to use. But that is just an excuse to experiment. 

Looking though the bits, I quickly found some dryad arms as an alternative. I like how wicked the fingers are and how the texture on the arms added a different look. The arms also added a nice amount of movement. There were some awkward gaps in the shoulders, but that will be fixed later. Adding asymmetry to a model is one of my favorite ways to add visual interest. Using the spindly branches from a bunch of kits, I added branches sticking out from the tops of the shoulders. I even used some to create halos around the skulls that are inspired by medieval artworks. 

To fix the awkward gapes on the shoulder, I super glued coffee grounds on the shoulder. I wanted the branches to feel like they are growing out of the skeleton. The model started out with the dryad arms then I added the halo of branches. While searching my bits pile, I found these vines. I wasn't sure how to use it at first but then shoved it under the ribs and liked how it looked like organs falling out. One the vines were glued in, I threw some dirt on top. For good measure, I shoved a branch in the eye socket. 

Soon enough, I had a bunch of skeletons kitbashed! Here are 3 from the warband. The metal bodies are metal casts of sculpts by Garden of Hecate which fit this warband perfectly! I'm glad I found the right project to use them for. 

Where this skeleton came from, I have no idea. It showed up in my bits box one day. I think some one threw it in there during Under The Dice Fest. I imagine this character to be the first knight of the Witch King. I swapped out the sword for a larger blade and added a dryad arm to the other side. 

This model needed very little kitbashing! All It needed was a new pauldron, sticks added to the shoulder and a staff fit for a necromancer.  

An old Warhammer Fantasy skeleton I painted years ago. Added some branches and a new axe and he was all set to go. I really love the shield on this guy and had fun painting it but thats for another post.

With all my skeletons kitbashed, it was time to paint them up! Next post will go into the process of how I painted the skeletons. The technique and look of the models are a bit different from what I normally do. 

Now go paint some spooky models for Halloween!