I had an idea: 12:05 Since you are gluing your minis to the bases, you could print two wings for your dragon and attach them to its back at an angle. It'd look more 3d that way. You could do similar things to tails and tentacles. Cut them off and re-attach them at an angle.
I know I'm late but as a completely new dm trying to set up a campaign for a party of new players this is not only really damn cost efficient but they look great. Thanks for this because I wouldn't have thought of this on my own.
This isn't even a photoshop tutorial and yet I've learned more about how to use photoshop than any tutorial has taught me before, thanks! Also, this is going to be a huge boost for my game
This is incredible! I run 3 dnd games and I’ve been getting into warhammer with some friends. This method will save me a ton of money as none of us really have the funds for a ton of minis. Thank you!
Wow. As a wargamer for many moons, this has got to be the BEST card stock army I've come across. Great tutorial. Excellent work and final results are brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing
Really needed this, I tried buying minis and I ended up having them stolen from me. Heartbroken from not only spending a lot of money on them but how someone would simply steal them from me.
I've watched many of your videos and I still think this one is the most useful. Time spent, minimal. Cost, low. Immersion at the table, more than adequate. Reusability, immense. I have a 3d printer and I still find myself doing this over printing many of the mobs for my games. Thank you.
Alternatively, if you need to use facing rules on your game, you could desaturate one of the sides of the figure to represent its back side. OR... Instead of using illustrations, you could try and find photos of miniatures, both front and back. It's a bit hard to find high resolution ones, though. But I don't think it matters that much.
For anybody struggling to do the border with gimp, this is the easiest way I've found: 1. Get your mini properly scaled, transparent, colour adjusted, etc. 2. Copy and paste that layer so you've got an exact copy in the same position 3. Right click on that new layer and click "alpha to selection" to select everything that isn't transparent on that layer 4. While it is all selected, go to the Select menu at the top, click Grow, and grow selection by 10px 5. Click your fill tool, then hold shift and click inside your new selection to fill it all 6. Make sure your layers are in the right order so your original image is on top of your new solid background and merge them together
I'm stuck between steps 3 & 4. I've clicked "alpha to selection" but nothing happens and I don't see the word "grow" anywhere as an option. I've also tried simply scaling it 10% bigger and using the fill bucket but it just fills the whole rectangle rather than the orc.
@@Thomas-np3gi "Alpha to selection" should select everything on the layer that isn't transparent. Then you can either right click your image and go to "Select" in that dropdown, or through the Select menu at the top and hopefully Grow will be in there. Sorry, it did not cross my mind at the time that Select is pretty ambiguous there
This guide was fantastic! I don't have photoshop but I downloaded GIMP for free, did the same thing but the shortcuts weren't valid. This is going to be a fantastic tool for me moving forward, thanks for making this.
You will need to google the equivalent shortcuts to the narration. Sorry, the answer to the question is basically another five minute video. On my list, but not high priority right now.
Hey Wyloch thanks again for this guide. I've now made about 25 of these, and I'm wondering... How do you move them around? They look great but don't stand up to be jostled around in a box, the glue seems to separate and then I have to re-glue them to the base. Do you put them in some kind of rack or frame?
Hmmm, no just toss em in a box, never had any issues with either base method. Ensure you act very quickly when using hot glue, as in two seconds from drawing the bead to attaching. Also see episodes 040 and 053 for more basing ideas.
Excellent tutorial, this will really help me out a ton, especially the bit with photoshop and using high res images to make your own template. I had already been using foamcore as a base like you did, but I never thought about just gluing it to the washer. I think I should also mention that there are various companies that create printable sheets of minis that feature both front and back views of a creature, so you know which way it is facing. I happen to use a lot of the free stuff from Onemonk miniatures, as it IS free, though you have to rescale some of it before printing. I hope to see more videos from you in the future.
00:00 "If you have ale, then you have a friend in Grog Strongjaw" Great video! Such a simple process. The only problem I have is that I'm so flat out for content prep that I'll never have the time to actually make minatures for my players. I'm currently planning on using Lego for that.
This tutorial is amazing. Great to see a well explained step by step all the way through the process. As a suggestion. I saw an awesome video somewhere that does it similarly. But instead of gluing them to bases you can use binder clips (with the silver bits removed) to hold them up. That way you can store the printouts in stacks or in clear plastic sleeves in a binder. Makes storage easier. Also for those people that have them. Pathfinder pawn stands work great for these as well, just glue the printouts onto chipboard instead of card stock. I keep the white halo around them though, so that they are easier to cut, and so that they match the other pathfinder pawns.
+Dustin Gonzales Forgot to mention. If you want to use the pathfinder stands... In the stage where you mirror the figure, instead of adding a 1 pixel line, add another bar, (the same thickness of your chipboard), that way you can fold it over the top in the same manner as the tutorial.
I have zero experience with Photoshop. I watched this video about a dozen times and baby stepped through the process hand in hand with this video. It was fun, it worked great and it was an awesome intro for me to Photoshop, thanks!!
As someone who does a lot of 2d digital work, this is an awesome way for me to really add a personal touch to the miniature aspect of table top gaming.
Late to the mini party, but still wanted to offer a belated thank you! Your video was very helpful (especially since our group is just starting out!) It will be fun to see something other than dice for enemies.
These look great! I've noticed that Paizo is selling Pathfinder printable paper minis, but they look so cartoony, so this is a much better way to do it! By the way, I'm not sure if it works this was in Photoshop (can't really afford Photoshop right now), but in Gimp you can just create a new layer with the defined sizes and filled with color in one step.
This is just brilliant! Fantastic video providing a cost saving idea, while the crafting side is a fun buy inn to share with the family as well. D&d / Basic Fantasy is approved in our house. Thank you!
Totally works a charm! I found packs of 3/4" thick black plastic tap washers, 3 for 75p, topped with budgie sand and fish tank pebbles, makes awesome cheap figures! Thanks so much for the tutorial!
This video has served me well and also been a gate way drug into creating more things. I've used the knowledge you imparted in this video to design my own Pathfinder item cards from scratch front and back. I've printed them with this method and glued them to normal playing cards with great success. They are designed so vital details like name weight and value are at the top so you can stack them ontop each other and create an on the fly item list to quickly figure up your weight and the value of your inventory while being able to pick out the cards and read roles specific to the item
Great stuff. Exactly what I've been doing but I don't glue my miniatures to bases since it makes storing them harder. I just use printable paper bases.
Not to seem like I'm just coming on here to harp, I actually enjoy your clear and concise tutorials, and have watched the majority of your videos, they are a very nice compliment to DM Scotty's stuff.
First of all, very nice Vid, thanks for that! A tip how i do the shadows (probably easier?) if you do not need to fill up more black afterwards: Right click on the layer of the figure -> Filling properties -> Contour -> Make it 10px wide an black -> finished. (Don't know if the menus are 100% correct, just translated it straight from my german version)
Such a neat idea, i am just now starting to DM alot of games and wanted to upgrade my player's experiance with mini's. This is 100% affortible for me and looks absolutely great.
this is VERY professional. The same method can be applied to a much shoddier but equally effective outcome at 1/100 the time. You can even make blank ones to write on them whatever you need on the fly....
Wyloch, I really enjoyed your tutorial. The use of washers and the clear packing tape are awesome. I have enjoyed watching your videos, because you find creative ways to make things that you might have to pay an arm and a leg for else where. Plus nothing beats using something that you have created. I am right now working on building several 40k armies with a similar process, mainly because my brother and I play over Skype and sometimes the units that I would like to use I can't, because I have to use them to proxy what he is using.
I really like this. A few thing I do differently. To each his own: 1. Try uline polyester mailing labels. They are expensive (about 90 cents a sheet) but at 28mm scale, you can get a good 12-14 figures, about 1/3 cavalry and 2/3 infantry (most of my stuff is for wargames rather than rpgs) from a sheet, and the things are all but invulnerable, 2: I don't do permanent bases. I think it works out much better if I can store about 2500-3000 figures in a tackle box. The minus to this is that set up time takes longer. Anyway, I make my bases out of 1" square transparencies, the thicker stuff. You can get the sheets from FedEx Office by specifically requesting "report covers", rather than, "transparencies" which are flimsier. Then get a big bag of clear, transparent pony beads. If you have a teenage daughter, she'll know what these are. Use a decent clear plastic glue to stick two pony beads to the square base (but not to each other), flat sides down, touching side to side (again, NOT glued together), and you are done. To mount the miniatures, simply flex the base apart slightly, so a gap is formed between the two beads, set the figure inside, and place it flat on the table. The base will hold the figure in place nice ly, and you can remove them when not needed. As a moderately large scale miniatures gamer (I average around three hundred figures per battle) I can make a relatively small number of these and yet re-use them again and again. They also have the advantage that you need no flock. Being transparent, the base largely vanishes into the battlefiled, especially if you play on a battle mat. Good gaming.
Thank you so much! I know you made this a few years ago but this will be a great to make into set of stocking stuffers for my boys who are just getting into D&D!
Hi there and thanks for sharing your passion with us. I couldn't match your skill and dedication but I would like to contribute with some details I personally like about paper minis. It is of course my opinion and not mandatory by any extend: First I think that a white background brightens up the figure, so the black line should be still be there for contrast purposes but very thin, over a white aura background. This suits better at least, or even if, you are portraying a full white figure such as Yeti or classic ghost. The base of figures should be always dark or directly black. Its work should not be to drag attention from the figure above it, keeping in mind exceptions such as the mentioned in-game item and such especial cases. Its shape round or elliptical and not too thick above "ground". Keeping a rectangular frame with somehow rounded superior corners around your figure instead of trimming around the figures' details make also excellent minis as long as all of them look similar. This makes the figure actually look better when you're not looking the figure directly in front of it. A paper figure melting too much with the rest of the diorama isn't actually a great achievement, since they are the story characters. Thank you.
This was sooo cool! Im gonna buy photoshop and try it myself! Though, I think Im going to do mine with a white edge around them, I think the black edge makes the picture harder to see.
ninjabunny A white paint pen should do it. Also, buy cheap curved manicure scissors for the detail cutting. Turn the image, not your scissors. I would also get a bone folder with a half off coupon from retail me not at any major craft store to make sure everything is flush.
So I just thought of this while looking around for things to use for D&D crafting, i was trying to figure out how I was going to make paper minis without a printer, then I turn and see my entire collection of Magic The Gathering cards. Boxes upon boxes of commons and uncommon worth literally pennies, I start going through and wuickly find quite a few that have full beautiful artwork of cool creatures, I just grab my exact blade, cut out the monster from the image, then cut a square from the remaining text box and glue it to that as a base! Its not all that flashy, but it works and all you need is a magic card with a nice image, glue, and a knife! So far they look really good other than the card back, but it will do in a pinch and you can spend like $10 to get 1,000+ throw away cards at a game store. Might be worth looking into :)
Solid video. I'm surprised I haven't seen this content online before. Guess it's the tree in the forest (for me). Now I've got to learn how to use my computer and printer ?! The craft part is the easy part for me. LOL ! Really like the color coding and simple base construction. Thank you.
very nice! I was trying to figure out how I could make matching paper pawns that'd match my pathfinder pawns. it's hard finding resources for near future settings
I do not attach a base. I buy binder clips and keep the paper minis unattached. That way it is easy to move and carry the minis without risking any damage. You just stakc them inside of a tubberware container and then put the binder clip on the bottom. In the end it is a lot cheaper, 92 cents gets you a dozen.
@@WylochsArmory I am more concerned with functionality, cost, time, and transportation. With of course cost being the driving factor. I was just suggesting that for people who have less funds available to do such than buy glue, hot glue gun, and the other miscellany you add to the printouts that end up costing about 80 to 85 cents a mini as opposed to the 13 cents for my suggestion. And that is not factoring in the extra cost one is going to incur in regards to transportation or the time cost incured by extra decoration on the base. Instead of just buying a dollar tupperware container to store the couple hundred paper minis and the clips, you have to spend a buck fifty or so for a larger container and about 25 bucks on foam to keep the minis safe and secured from getting cruched or moving.
Ok I have started to make a few of these for our games .. I have made mostly elves and humand ()and a young dragon .. when you are making dwarves, halflings or goblins what size do you use for the guide ? obviously the smaller races will not be the size of humans .. or would you simply go with 60 - 75%
I just go with whatever feels right. I have a standard human fighter that I treat as my "standard". I copy it next to whatever I'm working on, and scale it appropriately relative to that standard human.
I love this tutorial! Its perfect! 😁👌 However I might just have to draw my own characters because my friends prefer my designs for their characters. I will be printing the dragons and beasts though. 😁👍
jesternario I am a paper crafter, and do a lot of detail cutting. Skip bulky scissors and just use a cheap pair of curved manicure scissors. Turn the image, not the scissors. Also- crease the top well before pulling the label off. If you don't have a bone folder, fold and use your fingernail for a sharp crease. If you do have one, also use it once the image is down on the CS to make it look prefect and also once the tape is down. HTH.
When it started and he was drinking from that big glasses I half expected him to do an Archer and hold his finger up signaling us to wait while he drank some more. :)
Maybe it's that I'm tired today. Whatever the reason, I am 🤣 at "Poorhammer". Pretty sure GW won't be endorsing that one any time … ever. Love the tutorial on these!
Thanks for your tips, enjoying your videos. Here is a photo of my stand -- the paper minis slide into the rubbery foam and it's a good friction fit and can move tokens by holding on the map -- no matter how hard I try I can't shake the base off. My stand is 4 layers of cereal box glued together (using 1" circular punch) and then a couple layers of the thin rubbery foam I bought from HObby Lobby. Image: cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic2555030.jpg . Since they just temporarily slide into the bases, i can just make a dozen or so bases and have hundreds of paper figures that slide into them -- all of which I can throw in a tiny box without worry of any getting bent.
The reason you don't notice a difference between the 300dpi and 400dpi is because 300dpi is likely your printer's max; I believe most consumer-grade printers can only print up to 300dpi.
I do a lot of fine detail cutting, they make swivel exacto's, but honestly when cutting cardstock the best way to do tiny work like between the Orc's legs is a pair of curved manicure scissors. Can even be a $1 pair. Turn the cardstock not your scissors. Much more precise.
