Real Animals -- Forum Hoard #166 ( June, 2018)

[Vermin King]

The theme for this month's HOARD is

Real Animals

This can be any sort of miniature figure or model on the above theme or feel free to submit miniatures off theme.

If you submit a figure, they must include both front and rear art, have a proper trimming outline, and include instructions for multi-part models. Recolors and figure mods are encouraged, and even uncolored designs are welcome.

No nudity or sexuality, but bloody gory and horrifying is encouraged.

If you have questions about how to design your entries, like formats, resolution, and stuff like that, see the HOARD GUIDELINES in this forum category.

Entries for the Hoard will be accepted until the last day of June, 2018.

Oddly enough, I think I know something to include in this already. On Science Channel today I watched a couple episodes of Unearthed, one of which was on Stonehenge. Auroch skulls were mentioned repeatedly, so after finding the correct spelling, I started researching these beasts.

Needless to say we are always looking for steeds, familiars, holy representatives, and food. Have fun with this

[nullpointer]

[Vermin King]

Oops, while researching the beasties for my submission, 'Aurochs' is both the singular and plural form of Aurochs. I mistakenly typed it wrong above.

I wish those guys were still around, and they are working on trying to bring them back genetically. The Aurochs was a form of cattle that stood 6-foot tall at the shoulder, and was cross-bred with other cattle giving rise to many of today's breeds. I don't know of any other species that went extinct because of cross-breeding.

[squirmydad]

I'm working on black bears, adults and cubs.

[Punkrabbitt]

How about Dire real animals?

[cowboyleland]

I think dire animals are cool. Here is my undire horse in progress:

[Punkrabbitt]

DIRE KIWI!!!!!




Tremble in fear!

EDIT: yes, it is scaled for 28mm/30mm at 300dpi... Dire critters are BIG

[Punkrabbitt]

Any requests? I think I've got a half-finished pack yak in a Projects folder somewhere, I will try to find it and get it finished before the end of the month.

[Punkrabbitt]

Not nearly as fearsome as the FEROCIOUS DIRE KIWI, but I present...



...the Pack Yak!

[nullpointer]

Pack Yak Attack!

[Punkrabbitt]

Jun 8, 2018 5:41:40 GMT -9 nullpointer said:

Pack Yak Attack!

He (she?) does have the head low enough for a charge...

[cowboyleland]

Here is the first test build of the horse. I think it is too tall, on the other hand making it shorter might make it look too long and wide. What do you all think?

insert quote here

I want to mention that this is based off of cowboycentaur's design that can be found here cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/thread/6958/kitbash-prototyping-rideable-horse-challenge?page=2 I am making a standing version which should be faster to build and I have also tweaked it wider so it does not need a base.

[Vermin King]

Just guessing, but I think doing this at 90% of the current size, and raising the base slot would have a huge positive effect

[cowboyleland]

I think you are right Vermin King. I do want to leave it 7/8" wide (I forget how/why I ended up here, but here I am.) but I could reduce height and length by 10%. Of course that changes (almost) everything else. 10% reduction = 90% redo The slot for the rider is mostly what I borrowed from @cowyboycentaur and it can't change. You need that thickness of slot to accommodate the base and you need the 1/4" wiggle room to allow for variance in the figure's pose. Scaled down a little bit there might be a few more curves I could convert to straight lines, and that would make it better. Also, maybe you could get two per page.

Thanks VK!

More suggestions welcome.

[Vermin King]

I was really thinking of reducing the whole thing and then overlaying the current openings onto that, only slightly higher on the horse

[Vermin King]

It's amazing how many European species that formerly ranged Eurasia have disappeared since the time of Julius Caesar, many since the Middle Ages. For an interesting read, check out rewildingeurope.com/. In particular, www.rewildingeurope.com/app/uploads/publications/the-aurochs-born-to-be-wild/index.html .

Aurochs, wisent, exmoor horses, European black bear and wolves. All these things would make great topics. I have been reading about these tonight when I should have been working on my project of turning the vintage Bledine animal papercraft into scale animals

EDIT--

Haven't lined up, or really checked scale, or worked on color, but...




Hopefully these will be buildable, but they were designed pour les enfantes, so hopefully I can figure them out

[jeffgeorge]

Jun 10, 2018 16:30:26 GMT -9 Vermin King said:

It's amazing how many European species that formerly ranged Eurasia have disappeared since the time of Julius Caesar, many since the Middle Ages. For an interesting read, check out rewildingeurope.com/. In particular, www.rewildingeurope.com/app/uploads/publications/the-aurochs-born-to-be-wild/index.html .

Aurochs, wisent, exmoor horses, European black bear and wolves. All these things would make great topics. I have been reading about these tonight when I should have been working on my project of turning the vintage Bledine animal papercraft into scale animals

The one that blows my mind to think about is that there were lions all across Europe, Asia and North America not that long ago. The sabertooth gets all the press, but the American Lion lived at the same time (up to about 11,000 years ago), and was bigger than both its contemporary sabertooth (Smilodon sp.) and the modern African Lion. Apparently, some scientists think that the relative paucity of American lion fossils in the La Brea tar pits, compared to the abundant sabertooth and dire wolf fossils there, may be due to the fact that lions more lions were enough smarter than the other two species to avoid getting caught in the tar!

The European Lion, aka the Cave Lion, died out slightly earlier, about 13,000 years ago, but its range extended from Spain, all the way across Eurasia, and into Alaska and northwestern Canada! Thus, the cave lion was the lion species/subspecies with the widest distribution of all.

I've always found it fascinating that the iconic apex predator of the African savannah used to live where I grew up (sort of...).

[jeffgeorge]

Jun 10, 2018 10:55:42 GMT -9 cowboyleland said:

Here is the first test build of the horse. I think it is too tall, on the other hand making it shorter might make it look too long and wide. What do you all think?

I'm glad you posted this pic. I totally didn't get what you were going for when you posted the line art a few days back.

I agree with your sense that it's a VERY big horse, compared to the scale of the figure. Not sure how much smaller you can make it and still have it be strong enough to support a figure, though. Vermin King's estimate of 90% seems and dropping the figure slot slightly sounds about right, but again, I'm not sure what that would do to the structural integrity of the model.

[cowboyleland]

Those Bledine animals look cool Vermin King. I will be interested to see how they build up. I guess the fold over tabs means you don't need glue but I wonder if doing them as separate pieces would be better?

I have been looking for a good caribou for Christmas projects for years, maybe this is a good start. I am tempted to give them more back to curve rather than be so "fold-overish" and maybe do the same with the muzzle. I might find out around Christmas time.

I think they got carried away with the amount of black in the lion's a mane, but that should be an easy fix.

It took me a while to realise the rhino horns are supposed to fold back into the mouth and be pushed up through the holes in the snout. Again, it might be easier to make them a separate piece. They could be two sided that way as well.

Nice find!

I did scale down my horse btw. I have some other tweaks to do before I test build again.

[Vermin King]

I saw these first at Patricia's Agence Eureka site and was curious how they would build. When the Raspera models became 'free', I tried turning them into RPG scale, but it didn't go well. This month's hoard gives me a good reason to see how these would do. Also the elephant tusks get folded around. I also believe that glue would be helpful.

If they don't work well, I'd planned on turning them into regular minis. I know that should work fine

[cowboyleland]

So I am a bit under the weather today so I had lots of time to sit on the couch and google things. Eventually I got to the heart of the matter and realised that at 1:60 scale a 1.25" slot is just plain too long to fit in a 62" long horse. D&D/Pathfinder says horses occupy 10' on the table, but a horse that big looks huge beside 30mm figures. This is why Cowboycentaur used his dust-cloud trick and now I don't know what I should do for this hoard.

[Vermin King]

You came close on the first shot. There has to be a way

[Vermin King]

During a webinar today, I did a bit more with the Bledine Animaux. Cleaned up a bit more. Put them in order, and arranged so that there are three primary fold lines, to make them easier. I still have a feeling that leaving out the connecting fold pieces and separating the pieces to fold over and glue on would make more sense, but until I build them, that is only a feeling. Going to dive into them tonight on 67# stock. Other than cleaning up artifacts, I have done no adjusting of color. Not sure they will be worth the effort until I do a test build. Even for the test build, I'll mirror print on the back to get rid of some of the white. I hope this isn't a dead end like the Raspera beasties.




EDIT --

Printed from pdf with mirror print on back. When I try to mirror print png's, bmp's, or jpg's, I always have a lot of offset. Not really a lot, just to the point it is really noticeable. As I scored these and was getting them ready to cut out, I was very surprised at how good the color came out. Trying to look at the little diagrams leads me to believe that if these work well, I need to do a separate instruction pdf with enlarged instruction diagrams. If they work, I will also need to do fold lines. Some of the folds are difficult to see without comparing to the itsy-bitsy diagrams



Unfortunately, the lion's diagram is a muddy mess

[cowboyleland]

Jun 11, 2018 17:36:15 GMT -9 Vermin King said:

You came close on the first shot. There has to be a way

I think it would almost work with a 1" slot and that would work if you knew the rider was going to be 2D, but at that point you can just cut a slot in a 2D horse. What would be the point of a 3D horse and a 2D rider?

I don't see a way to improve on cowboycentaur's design, other than maybe offering a few re-colours.

[Vermin King]

With the lion looking this good makes me think this is worthwhile





Putting a black border around these would make these pretty stinking easy. Well, at least the ones without horns, tusks or antlers. I am considerably more confident, though

[Vermin King]

After doing my On This Date post, and checking the forums, I started work on #2, the brown bear.



A black border to smooth out the cutting will make these little buggers a breeze. I'm still going to build these and see if there are any that need additional prompts

EDIT-- addictive little buggers




EDIT #2 -- Just cut out and folded the last three, not glued or edged.

Maybe the Nature Conservancy or someone would be interested in a Wildlife Preserve rpg game...

[Vermin King]

Jun 11, 2018 8:24:42 GMT -9 cowboyleland said:

I have been looking for a good caribou for Christmas projects for years, maybe this is a good start. I am tempted to give them more back to curve rather than be so "fold-overish" and maybe do the same with the muzzle. I might find out around Christmas time.

Well, the caribou is spindly. Since you mentioned it, I took more care with it, and it is buildable, but the spindliness shows up the slight misalignment of the mirror print on the back. Note to self, cut the antlers out from the back side. If this wasn't scaled down so much, the misalignment probably wouldn't be that noticeable. Also, if I had a black border, it wouldn't be as noticeable. I'm more disappointed with this one than any of the others I've built so far

[cowboyleland]

Thanks for taking the extra care. I would be tempted to copy the legs to fold under to stiffen up the legs and get the alignment closer. Though they would take up a lot of paper that way.

BTW: Your Red Baron is showing.

[Vermin King]

Actually, the legs could be fold-overs, as well as the antlers without taking up too much space (if you lose some of the verbage).

I have yet to build the zebra and rhino, but I think the zebra should be handled that way, too. Since the elephant needs to be larger, and I left out the black bear (since squirmydad is doing black bears), I could add the black bear into the mix and move the elephant to a separate page. That would leave room for the Aurochs and Wisent on that page.

I've really enjoyed the Rewilding Europe site. For the project of back-breeding an Aurochs-like bovine, they have been working with the Tauros Project. There is also a German project that was working from the Heck cattle of Hitler as the starting point. Both those projects are now working in cooperation, basically sharing DNA info and allowing some of their animals to be bred with the other group's animals. I am a bit surprised that on the wild horse side of things, they opted for the Exmoor pony instead of the Kerry bog pony, along with five other primitive breeds

Yes, that is the Red Baron sitting in limbo

EDIT-- Though visually similar, the Exmoor and Kerry Bog ponies are quite different. The Irish ponies have way too much 'modern' breed dna in their systems. The Exmoor is part of a larger group with dna closer to the Tarpan

[ignatious]

those look pretty cool.