When I introduced my participation in a new D&D campaign, I withheld one tiny bit of information. The game we're playing does occasionally use miniatures. Why would I withhold this information? Well, because I had a secret plan in the works, but wanted to make sure I could pull it off that's why!

^{And pull if off I did!}

Ya see that? That's a custom 35mm figure, all painted and ready to game with! Although it's no picture-perfect warforged scout, I think it's a pretty decent stand-in, and includes my character's choice in weapons, good 'ol sword and board! The rest of this post is dedicated to the process, where I sculpted my first cape, then painted the little bugger. I'm no pro painter, but I think it'll do fine for something that you see from a few feet away on a tabletop. I'll give what tips I can under each pic.

If you have trouble with broken image links, please refresh the page. Imgur has been fussy today.

^{It all starts here. The miniature is originally from the Warmachine line, with a shield torn from some other Cyriss guy, not sure which to be honest.}

^{Next up, the green stuff. A wonderful two-part sculpting putty.}

^{I generally try not to mix up too much at once. Here we can clearly see that I have selected an amount that might provide enough for a loincloth, but not the flowing cape I had imagined.}

^{After adding to the batch and rolling it out, things are looking a lot better. Now I have enough to work with.}

^{I have no idea what I'm doing, but I've cut it to length and made some shoulder straps to wrap around.}

^{With the leftovers I've rolled out some extra and made a hood piece just in case I want it.}

^{I let it cure for about 30 minutes before trying to put it on. This was just a matter of mushing it into about the right shape to provide a little action to the match the pose.}

^{I also smushed the two shoulder straps together to make a clasp around the neck.}

^{With a needle tool, I've pressed in some fold lines. For anyone who has never worked with green stuff, it's basically the same as sculpting day old pre-chewed gum. A little mineral oil on your tools keeps it from sticking though.}

^{Creative measures were taken to help it finish curing in the right pose.}

^{Another detail shot of the shoulders and back, to show the newly sculpted folds.}

^{A few hours later, and it's all cured and ready to be primed.}

^{A nice flat grey can work wonders to bringing it all together and figuring out where and how you want to apply color.}

^{I like to try to "dress" my models when I paint. Starting with the lowest surfaces means that mistakes generally tend to be on a higher level, where they can be covered later. Some light brown to give it a wooden under skeleton kinda feel.}

^{You wanted a small drop of green to see how it would look on the cape? How about half the bottle, to show you how poorly you mixed it?}

^{Not about to waste expensive model paints more than I had to, my decision had been made for me. I did my best to keep some of the swirls of color in to make it a bit of a camo look.}

^{However this meant putting the paint on THICK. There's no going back now. I've got to make this work.
It looks like slime, but I kinda like it.}

^{A bit has happened here. I've started to pick out some blue highlights, and I gave the cloak a nice black wash to give it some shadow and take that eye-piercing green down a notch. I've also glued on the shield now and added a wash to the wooden joints for shadow.}

^{The back of the cloak, you're no longer in danger of losing your retinas to it!}

^{As I go, I pick out fewer and fewer details. Here I've focused on some gold highlights.}

^{The back of the shield gets a splash of brown, silver, and gold.}

^{And there we have it! Good enough really. Far from my best work, but I think it'll work fine for a casual group!}

Wish me luck joining my new campaign!