One of the pleasures of being a member of the game industry is being able to work with people who create the things we love to play or use in our games, and for me one of those people is sculptor and modeler Clint Staples. I was pleased and grateful that during his recent visit to Skirmisher HQ he was willing to take the time to repair some large models of mine that had gotten damaged over the past several years.

One of the pleasures of being a member of the game industry is being able to work with people who create the things we love to play or use in our games, and for me one of those people is sculptor and modeler Clint Staples. He was one of the people who attended the first-ever Skirmisher Leadership Retreat that we held a few weeks ago at my home in Texas Hill Country and, while he was here, I was pleased and grateful that he was willing to take the time to repair some large models that had gotten damaged over the past several years. He also generously took home with him a half-dozen painted minis of mine that had also gotten damaged — in most cases having had their weapons broken off — so that he could repair them at his leisure and then send them back to me. 

Watching Clint work was actually more fun than I thought it would be and both Brendan Cass and I were impressed that the two pieces he worked on while he was at Skirmisher HQ actually looked significantly better than they had when they were new. 

First was a WizKids' "HorrorClix Cthulhu" miniature — a term I used loosely, as it is about a foot tall — that we acquired at GenCon in 2006, the year it was released. We assembled it there and used it as part of a display for our own Cthulhu Live horror LARP but, on the way home, its wings ended up getting snapped off and our subsequent attempts to repair it were unsuccessful. So, for the past 11 years, our mini Great Cthulhu has been wingless. 

Clint managed to use epoxy and metal pins overcome the design flaw that caused the model to break in the first place (i.e., weak and brittle plastic pegs affixing the wings to the body), and then did some modeling and painting to both disguise the repair job and make the place where the wings protrude from the body look much more organic than they ever did before. 

The other damaged piece was a re-purposed aquarium model of an ancient Greek temple that, while very nice looking, was not really built with gaming in mind and is both made from brittle plastic and hollow, causing it to fare badly a few years back when it got dropped. As with the other piece, however, Clint repaired it handily, and then touched it up so that once again it looked even better than it did the day we bought it. 

Clint was also kind enough to give me a nice selection of things he has sculpted over the years! They appear below, and include a "Thor's hammer" amulet; some really cool spell effects models depicting Wall of Fire, Wall of Stone, Evard's Black Tentacles, Spiritual Weapon, and a massive Leomund's Hand; and an elaborate and beautiful multi-part Kraken that Clint flatteringly expects I will effectively be able to assemble and paint.