Creating Flat Miniatures

I start making my flat miniatures by making sketches in a book. These are a combination of ideas from my own head, or ideas from other miniature manufacturers, see the list later. These are all ideas  for my DnD campaign set in Ghastminster which I may be revisiting next year.

Some of my drawings never get past this stage because I lose interest or because I don't like them, but others get to be developed into physical miniatures eventually. 

This is not a quick process and takes me ages to complete. I often get stuck at a point and have to revisit at a later date.

At this stage I  am  not always drawing to scale, although most medium size creatures /monsters are, as I have  a 30 mm template I use to get the proportions right.

Some ideas are huge.

I mostly try to create pages of flats that have many of useful figures, as opposed to just one or two, although that is unavoidable at times. I started trying to draw them at 15 mm scale but I found that I got far more detail at 30 mm and I could use them in a variety of different games.

So after the initial sketches are done, I progress onto organising my drawings onto an A4 sheet of paper.

Here is a sheet I worked on recently to create Roman troops, with their allies that I could use for two separate uses. Primarily these are going to be printed up at 33% and used as 10 mm flats.

However I also use  them as random models at 30 mm for use in roleplay, they'll make some lovely guards or barbarian adversaries. 

After drawing them in pencil, at the right size, I fold the page in two and use a light board to trace the outer image, which I can later fill in with pencil. Then I work over the lot in ink, using Pilot or Uni-ball pens or something similar. Finally I thicken all the outer lines and emphasize some others as I see fit. 

Finally I photocopy the black and white version and colour it. I never colour the original just in case I cock it up or I don't like the colours I chose. Sometimes I use acrylics and paint them, but recently I bought some reasonably nice pens and used them instead, as with these below.

Here we have Legionaries, Spanish infantry, Numidian light infantry and Gallic infantry.

I tend to colour the reverse side at the same time so as not to get myself in a mess.

These can then be colour photocopied, cut, glued to black card and based, ready for use in a game.

Next post I will show some of these in 10 mm based up for Warmaster type games.

Influences include: Games Workshop, Foundry Miniatures, North Star Military Models, D&D Dungeon Masters Book, there will be many more ideas that have seeped into my head but can't recall them all.