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Mara999

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I've made a digital landscape, consisting of various miniatures I've crafted. The forest is made up of just half-a-dozen trees, copied multiple times. The same applies to the buildings, as there is just the one red cottage.

The landscape was originally made for another video. The Longbox of the Damned bumper contest made a return in 2023, and the following 15-second horror movie was my entry for this year:

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Decided to try out something new. I haven't been able to make any video-projects in over a year, but I felt like trying my hand at a crafting video, after I recently built my Undead Bone Horror from old sprues and assorted bits. I don't think I'll ever try to become a crafting Youtuber, but this was a fun detour from my usual fare.


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Once again I've taken part in Linkara's annual contest for the review segment "Longbox of the Damned". Now I have a yard of my own and I finally got a chance to use it for a film-project, with a viking and some trolls.


Shown with the review of The Dollhouse Family:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bar0nkU-Gtk

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I made a short video showcasing how even natural greenery can be used as a basic green screen, if nothing else is available. It's not perfect, especially if the outdoor lighting causes strong shadows and extreme light patches, or if the grass isn't uniformly green. These things can be tweaked to a point, but it's best to do this for distant shots. I got the idea originally from the Lone Animator and decided to try the technique with my own video footage.

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Warcraft II is still my favourite game ever, so much that due to its aesthetics it's also the biggest influence for how I picture fantasy-stories in my head. Even before Blizzard had its brief foray into miniatures, I tried to convert my own minis to look like characters and units from the game series. I would very much like to give it a new shot and I've long been on a quest to find miniatures that resemble the aesthetics and proportions of characters in the Warcraft game-series, while still being on the cheaper side.


I have been browsing among brands such as Reaper Bones, because they have many individual figures with a suitably cartoony look that resembles WoW and the prior RTS-games. But what I really want are boxes that have loads of plastic bits for customization and easy conversion, which is why I've been looking over things like North Star's minis for Frostgrave, that have a very nice OldHammer look, which also reminds me of Warcraft in the early days. They look a bit like humans did in WC2 and Lord of the Clans, so they'd need only a little green-stuff added on them. Mantic's fantasy-minis are also a nice cheap alternative to Games Workshop, but some of their miniatures are a tad small, especially their skeletons. However, I discovered recently by accident a new alternative, maybe the most Warcraft-y miniatures I've ever seen. Unfortunately they are for a game that has already been cancelled, so I need to strike while the iron is hot.

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I really like the minis for RuneWars by Fantasy Flight Games, because the models look very close to a direct adaptation of the units in Warcraft III. Quite honestly, the line-up looks even more like classic Warcraft than the official minis for the (also cancelled) WoW miniatures game. The proportions are the right amount of cartoony, very reminiscent of Samwise Didier's art-style, with blocky physiques and huge shoulder-pads galore. These human spearmen look almost exactly like the classic Footman unit, needing just a crest on the helmet and a sword. The elves look they could play triple-duty as Night Elves, High Elves and Blood Elves, with minimal converting necessary. Lastly, the skeletons look like they belong in the Scourge and Lord Hawthorne looks just like the antagonistic Garithos does in The Frozen Throne. In short, these are some excellent minis for recreating the Warcraft franchise in miniature form.


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Because the game is discontinued, I can right now get these for cheap while they are still available. My nearest gaming store also has a sale going on right now, so I'm very tempted to buy a few more boxes before they are gone forever. But I need to remind myself that I already have plenty of bits, plus that my "pile of shame" with unfinished miniatures isn't getting any smaller this way. Right now I have a big enough addition of bits for elves, undead and Medieval fantasy humans to last me a few years.


Another thing that made me start to think about Warcraft again is that Goobertown Hobbies had recently a nice video on trying to paint Medieval buildings to be more colourful than usual, specifically to match the aesthetics of WoW. All of this makes me really want to try again to make Warcraft-inspired conversions of minis, as well as craft some of the buildings in WoW and the RTS-games.

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