A couple of months ago I had the chance to attend Under the Dice Fest, a small convention in Connecticut about an hour from my home. I didn’t realize until after I made the plans how incredible the event would be! Around 200 artists and tabletop punks from all over the world crammed into an elks lodge in Enfield to celebrate each other and their passion. I’ve never been to a convention that felt so personal and yet so full of action and art. My hat’s off to the Hive Scum crew for organizing such an amazing weekend, and I’ll definitely be there for all three days next year!
The highlight for everyone who made it out to the show seems to be all of the lovely people that they got the chance to meet, and that’s definitely true in my case. Around a dozen artists that I’d been following for years were there creating things and greeting good friends, and one of the ones I was most excited to meet was Martin McCoy. Although he’s also a talented miniature artist and tattooist, Martin has made a name for himself in the past few years as a prolific illustrator for projects like 28 Magazine, Necropolis, and Trench Crusade.
The project of Martin’s that stands out the most to me, however, is his ongoing illustration and worldbuilding project of Mossweave. The setting is a dark, deeply spiritual world of endless wild forest populated by human-like animals. While it’s been described with some degree of accuracy as “grimdark Redwall” I believe there’s more to it than that. The artwork speaks to a world with a complex, beautiful, and terrifying relationship with nature.
I was grateful for the chance to speak to Martin about the setting and the impact it had on me, and like everyone else I met that day he couldn’t have been more gracious. He gifted me with a miniature that you can find on his patreon of a veteran tortoise, on the condition that I promise to paint it and tag him when I did.
I was only too happy to oblige.
At the same convention I got to raid a bitzbox and freeform kitbash a miniature. The result (once I’d taken it home and fine-tuned it a bit with some greenstuff) was an abominable chimera. This cursed creature is a writhing mass of teeth and limbs, defending itself with the shields of dead foes crusted together by age and rust. Once I had it primed and next to my tortoise, I realized they were perfect opponents and painted/based them to match. The armor and other metallics for these pieces take notes from the style of Ana Polanšćak.
Basing and painting these miniatures purely for the joy of it without any deadline or game utility was very freeing, and let me experiment with a few techniques and materials (like oil paints) that I hadn’t tried before.
I realized once these miniatures were done that I wanted to set them in a scene, to give their fierce duel some context. Basing miniatures is one of my favorite parts of any project like this, so why stop at the edges of their 35mm discs?
So I set to work building a piece heavily inspired by the great Roman Lappat’s display bases using a wooden plague, foam, milliput, cork, foamcore, tree armatures, stones from my driveway, plaster molds, dried roots, and any number of other materials.
The painting on the base was done almost entirely with washes and contrast paint over a zenithal prime. I added a water feature to the front with tinted UV resin, and a spring pattering onto the rocks from above with the same resin and a human hair.
The banner for the piece was made mostly from a can of Moxie (I’m a New Englander, what can I say?) with two shields cut from styrene. Banners are another favorite of mine. If someone wanted to hire me to just make banners and bases all day I’d be in heaven.
Working on a piece like this where I had inspirations but no expectations was wonderful. I was free to use whatever tools and techniques I wanted, paint until I was happy, and really drill into the details I find so fun. Thanks to those that followed along on this project and gave helpful feedback both in my personal life and on the In Rust We Trust Discord.
I’m very happy with this piece overall, and it has a proud home in my display case for the foreseeable future.
For a more detailed look, check out the miniatures section of the gallery.
I’d love to make more pieces like this for other settings I’ve found inspiring. Right now the list includes:
- Nekroplanet Grob
- Gaslands
- Necropolis 28
- Warmaster
- Frostgrave
- Stargrave
- Battletech
- Ian Miller’s Warhammer
- Flames of Orion
- Trench Crusade
- Mörk Borg
Have any other suggestions? Let me know!