Wee Free Men

“I’m a toad, actually,” said the creature, which had been peering at Tiffany from between the paper flowers. “You’re very yellow for a toad.” “I’ve been a bit ill,” said the toad. “!And you talk,” said Tiffany. “You only have my word for it,” said the toad, disappearing into the paper flowers. “You can’t prove anything.” (Pg 32)

Several years ago, Trent from Miscast made a plague toad. It was cute but Plague Toad was its name. Last year a lovely lady who goes by Nerdygirlsdoitbetter made some available for sale in the UK. Knowing I was working on this army and given the inspiration from Trent in digging in and getting it done, it would have been rude not to pick one up. 

The toad also comes with a license to recast and modify it however you want. A plague of toads can be yours. I’ve never moulded and cast anything bigger than a bit of blue stuff and a leg or a head. It does feel in the spirit of the project to give it a try though so here we go…

Required:

1. Two part silicone mix from Amazon, with good reviews from other beginners
2. Plastic cups to mix in
3. A way to contain the mould; options include Lego, foam core, plastic cups. Anything basically that you can fit around the model and pour the silicone into 
4. A test model cos there’s no way I’m doing my first try on the £30 resin toad. In this case I used some terrain pieces I wanted more of for Legions Imperialis.
5. Patience… this might be the hardest thing to come by 
6. It went very well in terms of the mould making. So much so that I went straight into the toad shortly after. Perfect mould for a toad now are belong to me.

My main issue has actually been the resin I was using for the casts themselves. It is a bit old and not really suited for the purpose. It has a lot of bubbles which aren’t present in the mould. After two attempts, I’ve decided to just work with one of them for now. Getting good resin casts can wait until much further down the line (if ever, let’s be honest).

Painting was dabbling with wet blending normal acrylic model paints to look a mottled toad skin. Other than being a bit more yellow, he is just a toad. That can talk. And knows legalese.

“What happened to the toad?” Said Miss Tick, who did ask questions. “It’s gone to live with the Wee Free Men,” said Tiffany. “It turned out it used to be a lawyer.” “You’ve given a clan of the Nac Mac Feegle their own lawyer?” Said Mrs Ogg. “That’ll make the world tremble. Still, I always say the occasional tremble does you good.” (Pg 307)