This article is reprinted from the spring 1996 issue of Enclave magazine and is © Enclave magazine. You're granted permission to copy and distribute this article, as long as you don't modify the article and you keep this copyright notice with the article when you distribute it.
PROP MASTER
Making Your Own Miniatures
by Todd Furler
As I'm sure you're aware, the use of miniatures to represent characters can add much to a gaming session. Of course, not everyone has the money to buy miniatures or the time to paint them. Also, as a purist, I personally am dissatisfied when I end up having to use a miniature of the Dwarf With Spear (of which I have several) to represent the Four-Armed Mackerel-Headed Demon Lord (of which I have none, oddly enough).
So, in this article, I'm going to tell you how to make your own character displays. These are small posterboard tags that are mounted upright on a stand. They're not three-dimensional miniatures, but you'll find they serve you well, they're inexpensive, and you can personalize them as much as you need. If you've ever seen one of the Torg events that Russ Fernsler and I run at the local conventions, then you've seen these things in action.
Materials: A sheet of light-colored posterboard, available from any office supply or craft store. While you're at it, get two sheets of different light colors.
Square slotted plastic bases, 20 mm or 25 mm size. Games Workshop makes packs of 20 that sell for about $4. These should be available from any retailer who carries Games Workshop merchandise.
A pack of black pipecleaner. If the size is specified, get 3 mm pipecleaner. (This refers to the approximate outer diameter of the fuzzy cross section.) Larger sizes are too thick for our purpose.
A tube of super glue gel. Make sure it's the gel, because this is much easier to work with than the regular stuff. You can get super glue gel in almost any department or grocery store for about $2.
A pair of small wire snips.
Something to press the pipe cleaner into the glue, like a toothpick, a nail file, an old flat-bladed screwdriver, etc. Using your finger is not recommended.
Precautions:
Instructions for the bases:
1. Separate the slotted bases from the sprue (the frame), preferably by cutting them off with the wire snips so you don't gouge out any pieces by twisting them off.
2. Flip a base over so that you're looking at its underside. You'll notice that, from this side, the slot is at the bottom of a small "trench" formed by the supporting ribs of the base. You'll also notice that the trench extends beyond the ends of the slot. This forms a little "shelf" at each end of the slot. We'll be gluing the pipe cleaner onto these shelves. (The round bases, incidentally, don't have these shelves; the slot extends right to the rim of the base. As a result, you end up gluing the pipe cleaner directly to the rim. Since the pipe cleaner is perpendicular to the rim, this is not a strong joint, and it quickly fails.)
3. Take one of the pipe cleaners and put its end into one end of the trench. Use the wire snips to cut the pipe cleaner near the other end of the trench, so that the piece you just snipped off fits in the trench.
4. Check for fit. Push the piece of pipe cleaner to the bottom of the trench, against the slot. It doesn't have to be an exact fit, just long enough to rest on both shelves at the same time and short enough so that you don't have to force it in place. (If the pipe cleaner is a smidgen too long and you force it into the trench, it'll bow slightly. This will make it very unlikely that the pipe cleaner will get a good grip on the posterboard when you try to use the base.)
Flip the base over and look at the pipe cleaner through the slot. The pipe cleaner should either be centered in the slot or, even better, off to one side. It must not cross the slot diagonally. (You'll be slipping a piece of posterboard into the base between the pipe cleaner and one edge of the slot. If the pipe cleaner goes from one corner of the slot to the opposite corner, you'll be hard-pressed to get the posterboard in there.)
5. Remove the pipe cleaner from the trench. Put a small dab of super glue gel on the shelf at each end of the trench. (One thing the gel does have in common with its runnier cousin is that it will continue to extrude a small amount of gel after you put the tube down. Be aware of this.) You don't want to use too much glue, or it will squish into the slot and harden there. This can make it a challenge to get the posterboard into the slot as well.
6. Put the pipe cleaner into the slot. Press it all the way down to the bottom of the trench.
7. Flip the base over and check the fit again. If it's not right, use your toothpick/nail file/whatever to nudge the pipe cleaner into a better position.
8. Wipe the excess glue and set the base aside, upside-down, to dry.
9. Grab a new base and return to Step 3. Repeat as necessary.
Instructions for the posterboard tags:
This part is easy, so I'll handle it with simple narrative. I usually make my tags about 1 inch wide and 2 inches tall. If you're going to make tags from the artwork that's included with our Feature, you'll find that the tags need to be slightly larger than this. Make sure you measure the artwork so you can size the tags properly. You'll need to form a tab on the bottom of the tag that's one-eighth inch tall by half an inch wide. Do this by cutting a small rectangle from each of the bottom corners. This tab will go into the slot of the base. Make one tag and test it before you make a whole sheet of them with the same dimensions. The tag should go into the base easily, and the base should grip the posterboard firmly enough that the base doesn't fall off when you lift its tag.
I've found that it's helpful if the tags for the nonplayer characters (NPCs) are a different color from the tags for the PCs. I use generic numbered tags for all the NPCs in my campaign. For special NPCs, you can draw or paste pictures onto the tags. (I only do this for games at conventions. It's a lot of work to come up with pictures for all your NPCs. If you only use pictures for some, the players will perceive those "some" as special and the PCs will target their attacks against these NPCs. Trust me on this!)
Give the players blank tags for their characters. A player can label his tag with anything that moves him: his character's name, a hand-drawn picture, a photocopy of a picture that he thought was appropriate for the character, whatever. He can even cut out a picture from a magazine and paste it on the tag. For conventions, Russ and I put the same picture of the character on both the character tag and the character data sheet. This makes it easier for a tournament player to immediately identify her character.
If you play a game in which facing is important, make sure you distinguish the tag's front from its back.
That’s all there is to it! Give it a shot and tell me what you think.