Question related to DnD miniature size

Hello everyone, I hope everyone is doing great since we last spoke. I have been making my own miniatures for some time now, and I would like to ask around regarding their size.
The point is to try and make them as game "compatible" as possible with the normal DnD minis. The reason I did this was that in DnD miniatures, the weapons and armor were not removable, whereas in these hand made ones, they are.
Taking into account the fact that 1 inch is approximately 5 feet, I have some questions regarding miniature height:


The hand-made human fighter seems to be the same height as Josan, given that Josan is bending his knees in the posture. In his full height, he would be the same size as the fighter. However, the fighter is just under 1.5 inches tall, which would make him about 7.5 feet.

Here is another photograph of some of my most recent miniatures:


These are supposed to be two orcs, but with their headgear on, they are just under 2 inches tall, which makes them way too tall, even for orcs. Can they pass for Orgillions?

I am thinking of making a Grey Render, however the size poses some questions. The creature is supposed to weigh some 4000 pounds, and it is supposed to me 4 feet wide. 4 feet wide would allow for a creature that would definitely not look like 4000 pounds. Any ideas on that?
Thank you in advance for any answers.

 

Hm, Grey Render is finished, I hope it has the appropriate size:

 

Outstanding!

 

Yedda nice ioannis76. Thanks for sharing.

 

Thank you for your kind words.
There is more stuff that I've made, but I am not sure about the scale, I would really hate to see them completely out of scale with actual dnd minis.
For example here is the previous orc:



1 inch and 6/8 ths of an inch tall (if you remove the "helm". I guess this size would make him an ogrillion, rather than an orc.

Here are some more minis, in fact:
Inspired by WoW (I don't play WoW, but someone who does asked me to make one mini of his character)


And here is a group shot of a party:


No wizards yet I'll try to work on a cleric.

Again, thank you for your comments.

 

How do you go about making your models?
When I was 15 a friend and I used to make models (of the baddies from quake) out of cardboard, glues, "bog" filling compound, bits of plastic, spent bullet casings, pieces of wire.
It wasn't the easiest task, and I think you've done a good job.

 

Hello Cujo, thank you for your answer. The method I am using is by making a soft wire skeleton of the miniature. After that, I use modelling clay (it's white, you don't achieve the same detail as you can by using green stuff etc (another type of more "professional" modelling clay) but it's much cheaper than green stuff, so you don't have to worry about making mistakes.
So, once we have our skeleton, we put modelling clay on the "bones", first without any real detail, just to make a general "fleshed out" figure. After we've done this, we add generally oblong-shaped pieces of clay to "define" the musculature (I believe that all or most muscles are of that shape, more or less). About the head (the most difficult part) it's best (IMHO) to put the general shape of a head on a toothpick, the other end of which we can fix (eg by sticking it in some styfoam or something like that) and try to work the details from there, using another toothpick (it's best to work with wooden "tools" when the clay is still soft and fresh, I believe).
About the armor: I take aluminum foil paper, cut it into shape (or fold it) and paint it (usually black). After that, if we want chainmail, there are three options:
1. make small chains from very thin wire. This takes some time, and the result is more like the two "Ogrillons"
2. Twist very thin wire around somewhat thicker wire (just coil it around the thicker wire) Once there, carefully remove the coiled wire (by twisting and pulling it gently off the thicker wire). Now you have something that looks like a spring. Take some pincers, and carefully apply pressure to the coils of the spring, so that they twist in one direction.
The result looks like this:

You then glue each of the wires (you can paint them first, of course) vertically on the aluminum foil paper). The drawback here is that this type of chainmail tends to be somewhat inflexible, which can be a real pain if you are trying to put it on a miniature (now I know why you can't change armor during combat )

3. Third method, again you need your aluminum foil "fabric" (as in all three cases). This tyime, you need a type of material which we call "tuli". You find this in Greek weddings they use it to put some candies called "koufeta" (wedding candies of sorts) inside.It's reminiscent of a tiny net or mesh. You paint it some metallic color, and you have your chainmail, which you then stick on the aluminum foil paper. Drawback(s) here:
a) you need very very thin coloring, because otherwise the paint will cover all the gaps and it won't look so good.
b) you need to apply very little glue for the same reason.
c) after tuli is painted, it somewhat hardens, so it is somewhat inflexible. This can be ammended to an extent, by making the aluminum foil base double.

Scale mail.
Again, aluminum foil is used as a "base" on which you stick small bits of thin cardboard, plastic or whatever material you choose to make the scales from. Cut, paint, and stick, starting from the bottom (with horizontal lines).

You can of course make garments like that. Just put cotton (or cotton hankies) on freshly painted aluminum foil and paint the hankie, too. It will glue over the aluminum foil (I think). If you want a better fit, you can apply some glue on the freshly painted foil, and then place and paint the hankie. Garments made like that are highly flexible, too.

Shields.
I cut some cardboard, paint it, and then glue modelling clay pieces on it, to make the desired image. After that, I paint it.

I have to give credit to epicfantasy from youtube, here.

I watched this video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-bor7koo_Q

and then started off.

 

By the way, I forgot to add about the hands (hard part).
Twist small pieces of wire around the arm, one piece of wire for each finger. In this way, you will have five pieces of wire "attached" to the arm, from one end, the other end being straight and forming each finger. You can make the four fingers into a "fist in the process of being clenched" stance, but I would suggest leaving the thumb free (ie wrap some aluminum foil paper around it, or some dried glue, generally something flexible, (I don't know if silicone is the answer because it may be toxic) so that you can have a "thumb up" "thumb down" movement for changing weapons.
You can see an "extreme" version of this in the "double wielding" ogrillon (all fingers have been left as wire, I know it makes it look bad, though).

 

Hello, some more pics, this time it's a full plate mail for an evil cleric (probably cleric of Talos)

Here is one image:


and here is the same image without too much flash (the upper part "sits" better, too)

 

You must have very steady hands.

Nice job!

 

Thank you, Sirchet.
I don't think that they are too steady, though I've noticed that they tend to get steadier after one beer (but no more) . If you like the work, I'll keep posting pics.

 

By all means, I just love the mini armors.

It's best when you show something close to them for size comparison.

 

Here are some more pictures of the armor (and the cleric )

Here is the first, I've made a helmet and a sword with its scabbard.


And here are two more, the cleric is now wearing his armor (he is now decent )
The sword is sheathed:



and the sword is now unsheathed:



I've also added a ruler, the scale is in inches (we use centimeters here, but I thought I would make it foreigner-friendly )

 

Very TINY!

I knew these were small, but maybe an inch and a half?

Outstanding!

 

Thank you again, Sirchet.
About the size, I was aiming at making them "DnD miniature compatible". It seems that 1 inch=5 feet on that scale, so, even this guy is about 7 feet tall for dnd standards. Of course, this is true when he is in full armor (the helmet is responsible for about half a foot), yet he is still too tall. The funny thing, though, was that when I compared another human warrior miniature (the one wearing copper scale armor and holding a "lion" shield and a sword with a DnD miniature of Josan, I found out that they were about the same height. Now Josan is bending his knee about 90 degrees there, and he is about a head shorter that the human warrior (who is a bit taller than the unhelmeted cleric shown above). Therefore, Josan should be the same height as the human warrior if he were to stand up straight.
It's quite a peculiar situation.
Anyways, it seems the armor made of aluminum foil worked. It is a flexible material, and this property should make it wearable by other miniatures, as well. :yes: