Author Archives: Doctor Zeus

I posted about this before here, but I can add a little more info on it.

I found this dagger on eBay:

It’s made of plastic versus die cast. But that may actually have worked out better for adding the color wash to the blade. (Reason for the green wash is explained below.) The dagger design looks pretty good, I think.

I painted the sheath black using Angelus leather paint.

And I layered a couple thin wash coats of metallic green acrylic craft paint to the blade itself. The green hue of the blade is intended to represent the weapon’s enchantment to deliver time-released drips of poison upon a successful strike (provided that the target doesn’t make a saving throw against it).

Using some of the same leather I purchased from Hobby Lobby to make the grip for Minsc’s longbow

I fashioned a loop to attach the scabbard to Imoen’s belt using a craft glue:

And I painted the loop with the black leather paint before attaching it to the sheath.

When I applied weathering dust to the entire figure it of course landed on the sheath and blade handle.

Here’s a close-up that shows off the dagger.

I’ve already posted a bit about the base clothing, see here and here. But I can provide more detail about what I did for the shirt and pants to get the figure to where it’s currently at.

On eBay I purchased “Saintess Knight (Silver) – White Female Clothes – 1/6 Scale – TBLeague.”

And since the top looked like an extremely tight fit also via eBay I bought a different top, “Hua Mulan – White Shirt (Female) – 1/6 Scale – ZOY Toys Action Figures.”

Both I think are most likely some sort of synthetic that’s intended to mimic linen? Anyway, I used the Hua Mulan top and the Saintess Knight pants.

And since I was going for this:

I picked up this “wine” colored dye at Hobby Lobby:

I soaked the clothing in a plastic cup of room temperature water with a generous amount of dye for most of a day. The fabrics were very similar but evidently the pants didn’t absorb the dye quite as much as the shirt. So the shirt came out a shade darker than the pants. I decided I liked the fact that there was a noticeable difference of shades between them.

I didn’t take a picture of the dyed clothes prior to weathering them. But as we might expect, the color darkened a bit due to the brown weathering powder.

And by now I’ve posted quite a few pics of the dirtied up figure. But here’s a re-post of a pic that shows off the full effect with both dye and weathering pretty well.

The game shows all rogues (Thieves, Bards) as hooded.

Presumably characters aren’t wearing onesies with hoods! So the hood to me implies a hooded cloak. That’s just left to the imagination, of course. But that’s what I went with.

And there are many enchanted cloaks in the game. I’ll often give Imoen the Nymph Cloak to boost her Charisma to get the best prices from merchants, or Algernon’s Cloak to Charm enemies. But I also like the Cloak of Non-detection for her, especially when playing with the SCS mod installed. I keep her class as pure Thief and like to have her backstab with the Dagger of Venom. The Cloak of Non-detection allows her to remain in stealth mode should (SCS’s AI-enhanced) enemy mages cast Detect Invisibility, Oracle, True Sight or True Seeing. And the “Whispers of Silence” cloak, aka Cloak of Non-detection, actually is shown with a hood on in it in it’s item description in the inventory screen.

So I like to think of the cloak she’s wearing as the Whispers of Silence.

I chose purple for the cloak’s color. Imoen’s portrait has her in a purple top, and there’s purple hue in the background. I chose a wine color for her base clothing in order to feature a more realistic feeling contrasting color, i.e., not have her entirely in purple. (See the pic of the sprite shown above for reference.)

So I found this cloak on eBay. It has some rather poorly applied weathering effects, i.e., its dirtied up just at the bottom, plus some unconvincing mud splatters that are very light colored:

This stock cloak has very clean scissor lines as well. Not very realistic looking!

Therefore I got to work on it first with a steel wire brush which made the texture more coarse and worn. As such I added tears and tatters, and I frayed the edges. Then I applied black and brown washes along the edges and applied weathering powders.

The iPhone camera in the low-light charcoal colored box that I designed to photograph figures makes the cloak look almost pink-ish here. But it’s purple. Here’s the cloak in more natural light:

Haven’t posted in a while but I’ve definitely been busy. The build for Imoen’s body is nearly finished.

I’m going to make a detailed post tomorrow explaining how I did everything, and what the thought process was behind various decisions, etc. But anyway, here’s the work in progress. It’s using a Wonder Woman third party head sculpt as a placeholder for Imoen’s head sculpt.

It came out a bit differently than I imagined in my mind’s eye. I like it, though!

Here’s the sprite again for reference sake:

The Imoen head sculpt should by now be in painter Mark Simpson’s hands. Youri at JustOneSixth in Netherlands sent the print on to Mark in the UK a couple weeks ago. I expect to hear from Mark before too long here to show me how things are progressing.

Also, shortly Youri will be sending me a several prints of the Wand of Magic Missiles , one of which he will paint for me and a couple that I will paint myself. More on the wand in a future post.

Oh, and I’ve purchased a shield for her that hopefully will serve convincingly as a buckler. Should be arriving next weekend. More on that in tomorrow’s post!

I think this will work!

I really like the look of it.

It’s a bit small for a shortbow, though. Medieval shortbows were typically about 3 feet in length. This bow is 5 3/8” in length which at 1/6 scale translates to 32 1/4” in 1:1 scale. The arrows are 4” so they’d be 2 feet long. Anyway it’s on the small side.

Here it is alongside a longbow that I got for Minsc and the bow that comes with Lord of the Rings’ Legolas by Asmus.

So you can see it’s comparatively quite small.

But then again, it’s for Imoen, who at 5’ 4” is going come up about to Minsc’s bicep in height. So I’m hopeful that her small size will help make the bow work out.

Here’s hoping! If not I can always look for another one.

For female Phicens there’s a variety of heights and physiques.

I found a great page at Giantoy that details the differences.

I’m leaning towards S27B which would have her height at just shy of 5’ 1” (five feet and seven tenths of an inch). Bust size for that figure is medium. Tanned body.

My thinking on this is that making her relatively tiny accentuates the sense that she is your kid sister and sidekick. Similar to the idea of halflings’ natural gift for thieving, the fact the she’s small could be an asset to stealth.

As I’ve mentioned, I keep her as pure Thief and equip her with the Shadow Armor and Dagger of Venom. I send her in to backstab enemy spellcasters to disrupt their spellcasting with the DoM’s venom drip. Then she scoots away to use her shortbow. And/or to fire her wand of Magic Missiles to continue to disrupt enemy spellcaster’s spells.

But anyway, I think the smallest size is probably a good way to go. If you’d like to weigh in, you can do so here but I’ve also posted about it on Reddit’s r/Baldur’s Gate sub: https://reddit.com/r/baldursgate/s/YLQOnEFFj0

Update:

Well, despite a Google search saying 5’ 0” it doesn’t appear to be officially sourced.

In thinking on it more, the 5’ 1” stature I was envisioning seems a bit too small. Plus as some have pointed out she is a Bhaalspawn.

Looks like about 5’ 4” is the consensus. And I would agree this feels right. It’s also a little more consistent with her being a badass backstabbing thief, at least as I play her.

According to Giantoy’s chart (https://giantoy.com/blogs/guides/tbleague-phicen-standard-female-figures-comparison-with-photo-body-shape) Phicen S29B with a head on it is 27.2 cm, which by my calculations corresponds to 5’ 4.25”. So That’s probably what I’m going to use. https://giantoy.com/cdn/shop/products/847a76c98fe02c24ec2f87f32759ba3c_701x688.jpg?v=1603372752

I went ahead and order this on eBay for the Dagger of Venom:

For which I’ll superglue a leather loop to the sheath in order to secure the sheath to a leather belt. This is a high end item, so I think it’s probably fine if it doesn’t have any wear and tear on it. The item description just says:

“This dagger is a potent blade favored by assassins all across the realms. This particular dagger of venom was created for use by the Shadow Thieves of Amn. Every time it hits an opponent, it secretes a venom into the bloodstream of the creature. The venom works quickly and efficiently.”

So there’s no telling how old it is. But then it’ll probably look best if it’s got a bit of weathering to it. So I’ll probably dry brush it to achieve that.

Again the item illustration for general reference sake:

As mentioned in the previous post, I’m giving her a purple hooded cloak and a shortbow.

In addition I’ll assemble the list detailed below. If I can find good approximations of these items already created online from other sources, I’ll certainly use them. If not, I’ll commission them to be custom designed.

As I’ve mentioned several times by now, I prefer to leave Imoen as pure Thief in BG1. I haven’t played BG2 in a very, very long while now. (Maybe going on a decade now? Yikes!) But during the years I still did, I enjoyed using mods that allowed me to either keep Imoen as pure Thief or even to change her class to Bard—including Blade—which I really liked much more than making her a wizard.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the list:

Studded leather Shadow Armor +3

Dagger of Venom

Buckler

Wand of Magic Missiles

“Worn Whispers” Boots of Stealth

And as mentioned in the previous post, for pants and shirt I’ll see what’s out there before I commission anything. But I’ve already found a pair of white linen pants on eBay that I could dye a wine color which could complement the purple cloak quite well. The shirt will mostly be covered by the shadow armor. Only the sleeves will show.

I found a pair of medieval leather boots on eBay that’s very tempting to pull the trigger on. But it’s intended for a Knight. I’m concerned the boots will look too large for a female foot. The boots I may have to commission.

The dagger will be easy enough to find on eBay. Hopefully a buckler will be as well. Hopeful that I can find a magic wand on eBay that’s suitable for a Forgotten Realms WoMM. But JOSS can design and print it in resin if need be.

The main commission I’m expecting is Shadow Armor.

This is one of the funnest phases of the build: assembling clothing, weapons, and gear. Now, for sure, some of Imoen’s outfit will be custom made. I expect I’ll commission her leather armor. (Hmm… Shadow Armor +3 from the Thunderhammy Smithy? I always leave Immy as pure Thief in BG 1.) Possibly boots. Maybe shirt and pants will be custom made as well. But I may buy them white and dye them a purple or wine colored hue.

Anyway, in order for the figure to have a natural, organic feel in my opinion the clothing should consist of a variety of fabrics and styles.

So here’s a shortbow I’ve ordered on eBay for Immy:

I’ll probably scuff and dirty up the quiver with some dry brushing.

And here is a hooded cloak, also from eBay, that picks up on Imoen’s outfit’s colors in her portrait:

Hopefully the dirt at the bottom looks fairly convincing. It does on the white colored version of the same cloak.

Clothing for Immy could be a challenge! Looking on eBay, I’m not seeing much selection for Medieval attire for females suitable for a Baldur’s Gate Thief… I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. Hopefully 1/6 collector groups on Facebook can steer me in the right direction.

For reference sake this is the color scheme I’m going for, roughly based on her portrait colors: