Ok, still in the Grim’s Dungeons of Doom series, I’ve got a new sub series of articles, still dealing with my dungeon build, but focusing on making custom monsters to flesh out the denziens of the dungeon. I’ll be also popping up another sub series to fit them into the system, in an ode to Out of the Pit with: Dwellers of the Pit. Also I’ll be indexing them via the Grim’s Dungeons of Doom page up in the menu if you want to read all progress so far with the build.
Right, into the build. As you might be aware, I’m trying to stick as faithfully to the Old fighting fantasy system with as little deviation as possible, so therefore the same goes with my various monsters. One of the things I really wanted to capture is some of the creatures that were so striking art (unintentional pun, sorry) in the original books, and that reminded me so much of the original nostalgia from back in the day.
So, I’m starting with an old fave, the Giant Scorpion.
Lets get into how I made this giant scorpion mini for less than £1.
Firstly, I got hold of some motorised pull back scorpion toys from my local poundshop. Each pack contains 2 of them so it worked out a good deal.
Once they are out of the packet, you’ll notice the motors underneath them will need to be removed by unscrewing two tiny screws.
When that’s done, they need a quick wash in soapy water to remove any release agent left over from the initial mould making process of their manufacture. They will now be easy to paint. I’ll note that these are quite similar to the plastic that the d&d pre-paint minis are made from.
I’ll only be using one (even so you’ll see me sorting both of them out, it’s good to have a spare!), so I want to address the tail position, just in case I eventually need the other at some point. So with a craft/exacto knife I chopped off the tail at the joint of the segment at the base of the tail, that way when I attach it back, no one will see the join.
Next it’s going to need a suitable base, so I got some medium thickness cardstock and cut it to a rough size to fit the model on. Then I got some thin EVA fun foam and began to create a pattern similar to the process I used on my wall sections.
The fun foam is a good thing to have have in your materials for crafting, it takes all sorts of glue without melting, can be sprayed or painted with no hassle, cuts easy with scissors and at £1 for ten A5 size sheets, it’s a great deal. I’ll be using it again in other builds, but seriously get yourself some, it’s really handy stuff to have.
Build up the base to look like a flagstone floor for the base of the creature, just use PVA to stick them down, it doesn’t take long to dry.
Then, stick the scorpion down centrally with superglue. Once that dries, go around each leg and stick them down in a position that you prefer to create a more animated look.
Next, reattach the tail. I used contact adhesive for this as superglue wasn’t doing the job, but you know contact adhesive is pretty good at sticking any materials together, so after applying glue to each side I wanted to join and let it almost dry, then stuck it back on more upright. (I was going to curl it up as per the norm, but I didn’t want to have to chop up the tail into smaller bits to get the shape, I’m far too lazy for that!!)
After this stage, I trimmed the bases and then they are ready to paint. I just used cheap black matt spraypaint (also bought from ye local poundshoppe!) Acrylic would be good too, just use your usual undercoating method.
After this stage, I just went on to give one of them (I know there’s two, but I really only need one at the moment, so I’ll save that one till another day, I really left it in shot to show a comparison) a terracotta base colour, graduating up to a mid salmon tone, then washed with sepia and chestnut ink shades. The base was painted exactly the same tone as the rest of my dungeon so it’d fit in.
So here’s the finished article. Not bad for less than £2 for two of the beasties. I’ll be following this with a Dwellers of the pit article featuring the giant scorpion and how it’ll be used in my fighting fantasy game. this is of course, just a simple make, you could easily position the tail in a more scorpion position, or add more plates by sticking card or EVA foam, even sculpting on to it. Mine was just a quick toy hack just to show you how to save time and effort (and a few pennies..) to create a usable miniature in any game you need it for.
As ever, feel free to comment, share etc. I’ll be back with more Dungeons of Doom stuff later….
The Grinning Skull 
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