What is Slug Wizard?
Slug Wizard is an annual open community miniature competition and fundraiser with a focus on the weird and wonderful. The event is open to all and free to enter. It is organized by the talented Bryan Ruhe. The competition generates a selection of wild miniature models but also a collaborative zine featuring original art, experimental rules to add slug wizards and squid gnomes into other tabletop game systems, and stories from this creative community. People from all over the world entered and it was an absolute joy to participate in 2022.
- Check out the details for the competition here
- Competition Instagram page: @slugwizards
- Bryan Ruhe the event organizer’s Instagram: @bryanruhepnw
Rise of the Squid Gnomes
For its second year the Slug Wizard competition pushed the theme to embrace the Squid Gnome – a wild creature of the water that perhaps gained some power through a careless slip of magic from a Slug Wizard.
About This Project
My entry for the competition focused on sculpting a reasonably accurate squid made from two-part epoxy putty (Green Stuff), which would ride a snail shell chariot and be pulled by two undersea “horses” in the form of Moray Eels. To embellish the model, extra details were added to the Squid Gnome’s chariot including a treasure chest, skull and scroll, made from styrene stock and bits from Games Workshop model kits.
Process Work
- The idea for this particular miniature came about after finding an empty snail shell in the garden. In my mind it would make the perfect undersea chariot for a small Squid Gnome. First the shell was washed and dried and then a wire was drilled and set in place on the miniature’s base.
- Twisting some steel wire together, I made the basic armatures to begin sculpting miniatures on.
3. The first part of my sculpting process, when working with armatures, is to start with small amounts of Green Stuff (a two-part epoxy putty) and block in the basic massing of the model. For slender models like the Eels and the Squid’s tentacles shown above it was important to coat the wire in a thin amount of putty and let it cure before building the shapes out any further. If too much putty is applied to the wire at once there will not be enough surface area to hold it in place and any pressure from a sculpting tool will simply spin the putty around the wire.
4. Details were added such as stones to hide the wire connection to the base, as well as the Squid Gnome’s small cache of treasured items; an antique chest, a spell scroll, and a favourite skull. The chest was made from a piece of 4mm styrene bar with strips of 0.5mm styrene sheet cut to look like old boards covering the outside. The handles and lock on the chest were cut from prayer scrolls left over from a Games Workshop Spacemarine model kit.
5. Before painting could begin, the whole model was given a few, very thin, coats of Liquitex Flexible Modeling Paste. This is a thick paint additive used to create built-up 3D effects with acrylic paints similar in look to traditional oil painting on canvas. In the application here the thinned down paste fills in any irregular surfaces and smooths out inconsistent transitions in the Green Stuff sculpting. The paste’s make-up of marble dust gives the model a fine texture that takes paint extremely well.
6. Painting: while working on the Squid Gnomes skin I tried to emulate the multi-coloured and visually textural nature of squids. Lighter areas were painted in orange and pink tones while the shadows were given washes of purple and blue. The hole squid was then stippled in off-white tones.
Other parts of the miniature were painted to appear as if underwater. This meant an imagined source of light directly above the miniature and a blue tint to all highlights as the “sunlight” passes through the water to reach the model. Undersides and shadows on the model received dark purple and blue tones, and the antique chest received some simulated corrosion and on the metal areas.