Doing a run of kitbashing at the end of the year is becoming a tradition for me, but this year I have changed things up. The way I did it in 2023 and 2024 produced as many figurines as the number of the day, so 1 on the first day, two one the next, three on day three and so forth. The total (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12) produced 78 minis each time I did the challenge. That's a LOT of work, it turns out... and then I have to find somewhere to store them all. So I decided to just post something on each day, and forget about the whole number thing. Added benefits are that I can be more choosy about what I make and also I am not incentivized to postpone all the builds I'd like to do until the end of the year.
So here's what I have posted so far for my 2025 builds, most of which are scratch-builds and recasts, supplemented with kitbash bits. Actually, I think I have gone more 'mixed media' than ever this year, which is a bit surprising.
These hill giants started out as tinfoil armatures and then green stuff supplied most of the rest. The feet might have been taken from old plastic dinos, now that I think about it. The teeth are short grain rice.
An oyumaru mold of a caterpillar toy I found, using fimo as the main medium, plus some green stuff tentacles... and voila, carrion crawlers.
For this Displacer Beast: 2 plastic panther toys, one cannibalized for the extra legs, wire armature and green stuff tentacles. The base is DAS clay, I think.
The top half is green stuff out of an oyumaru mold, and the bottom half is kitbash. I think I did some cloaks with toilet paper and white glue to cover mistakes. Some of these turned out well... others lack definition, especially in the face.
This ... dire bear? was an unbelievably poor quality toy with gaps and ragged edges. In the end, it became a kind of green stuff repair job - mostly to the face and hands. Turned out great!
I just keep coming back to skeletons. They are fun and somehow... the right amount of challenge. For these models, I used paper clip and garden wire armatures (they make for a good looking rib cage) and then green stuff skulls (I just cannot get proper detail on these) and then thumbtack shields (a trick I use way too often) and swords cut from margarine lids.
