Revisiting a failed project. Cork Dungeon Tiles.

I made some cork dungeon tiles a few months ago using cork tiles.  I "printed" the stone floor pattern with a stamp I made from cheap Dollar Tree foam core.  The results on the left looked pretty harsh.  I never posted them here because I wasn't very happy with them.  I kept thinking about dry brushing them with a light grey so that the black shadow lines were less harsh but I kept putting it off.  Last week I went ahead and did the dry brushing shown on the right.  They really look a lot better and I can still see the lines for grid play. 
I don't know why I let these sit around for several months without fixing the problem.  Sometimes I guess you have to give projects space for a bit and revisit them later.  It only took me a few hours to fix the problem and now I have a nicer set of tiles. 

Here they are pictured with some Wizkids dungeon doors and other dungeon dressing.  I finished the doors this week though I still have four unfinished.  They really make my dungeon layout much nicer. 

Pictures of my new Frostgrave terrain being used in game.

 The Black Magic Craft inspired walls project has spiraled into a whole new set of terrain for Frostgrave and other fantasy games. 

 We made several simple ruined corner structures that could be assembled into ruined structures.  These are made from cork tiles.  At first we were going to make very basic walls but they ended up looking too simple so we decided to add block structures to the corners which made them look a lot better. 

We made a large number of rubble piles from torn and cut pieces of cork tile.  A lot of these were made from the off cuts and odd pieces from the other projects.  Cork works extremely well for this type of construction.  It takes several types of glue well and it paints very easily.  

We also added some play sand to the rubble piles to give some more texture.  You can see some of the cork showing through on the rubble piles in particular but because it is a natural product it works well.  The warm tones look pretty good and help add some character to the cool grey rubble. 

We've done a lot of building with cork tile in the past but I think this has been one of the more successful projects.  We used tacky glue of the rubble walls and arched wall setions but hot glue on the corner ruins and simple ruined buildings.   

We played this particular game on a 4x4 foot table but I hope to make a 3x3 and 2x2 foot play surface.  I plan to build those surfaces with at least 2 inch sides and add arched details to the sides so I can use them as raised sections of the city on the 4x4 table.  We will also be building staircases out of cork tiles to place alongside the platform sections when they are used in that fashion.

This is just the start of the Frostgrave ruins project for us.  Next we plan to build some of the specific buildings for the scenarios in the core books.  After that we will build some more multi level ruins and some more intact structures.  Eventually we hope to start on terrain for the various scenarios in the supplements.  

Since we have a decent collection of painted Fantasy figures we don't have to worry as much about having miniatures for warbands but we do plan to build some specific warbands in the future.  We also need to address of few of the "Creature" need that we don't have covered but like the warbands we have a pretty good jump of those issues as well.  

My wife and friends and I have been very impressed with Frostgrave and other games by Osprey Games.  The miniature agnostic nature of their games is a great draw for people with a collection like ours.  The potential to bring back figures from dead games is also a major boon.  We've had the game for a couple of years not but we have only played it off and on.  I think after a couple of test games we will be kicking off a campaign and I will be posting more battle reports.  We may even start streaming the games and posting edited game videos on Youtube.  

Black Magic Craft Ruins Painted.

 I got the Black Magic Craft style modular ruins I made from cork tile painted up.  I've had them painted for about a week now but I kept forgetting to post the results. 

 I based coated them with a Rustoleum Deep Forest Green then I sprayed them down with a medium grey from the top at a 45 degree angle.  This kept the cooler green color in the shadowed areas.  After the medium grey I dry brushed on Apple Barrel Granite Grey for the high lights.
 

 I'm really happy with the way these turned out.  My wife has finished another set and we hope to have another set and a set of accessory pieces to go along with them. 

Although we are building these walls as part of our Frostgrave ruins set they will be useful for a number of role playing games and table top miniature games.  I have several other projects in progress for our Frostgrave ruins so I will be posting more about those soon.  

Black Magic Craft inspired Modular Ruins.

 I recently moved and when I did I moved into a much smaller home than the one I was living in.  I ended up keeping most of my miniature collection but I gave most of my terrain to my daughter and her boyfriend to use in their D&D games.  As luck would have it I was able to rent some studio space in the town I moved to for an insanely low rate so I decided since I had crafting space and playing space again it was high time to start re-building my terrain collection.

One of the YouTube channels I follow is "Black Magic Craft"  which is an excellent DIY terrain making and gaming channel that details projects with both advanced and beginner techniques.  A while back I saw him do a set of simple ruined walls which he could also use and Dungeon walls and I though it would be a good first project for my new studio.  You can find the Video here: 

 The guy at "Black Magic Crafts" does a lot of his building with XPS foam and a hot wire cutting table.  I don't have this kind of tool but I do have my trusty cork tiles and Xacto knives.  I made my first set of ruins out of one 12x12 inch cork tile.  You can get these for about $7.00 a pack at Walmart here in the U.S. and about $9.00 at Hobby Lobby or Lowles.  I find it to be a good material to work with for numerous projects.  I usually use either hot glue or tacky glue as my primary adhesive for this material.  For this project I choose tacky glue because it allowed me to adjust and even remove sections of the wall as I was building them.

The most tedious part of course was cutting the bricks out of the tile.  I chose to make my bricks 1/4 inch by 1/2 inch.  The tiles are not quite 1/4 inch thick so you need to keep that in mind when laying the brick patterns or it will throw your build off.  

My wife also made a set using similar methods.  Here she is laying the bricks out.  I would say our bricks are around 20% smaller than the foam bricks used in the original project but because the cork already has a natural texture we were able to skip the steps involved in adding texture.  It's also okay if some of your bricks are slightly thicker from side to side than others because they actually improves the texture of the wall.  I felt like this was not exactly a speedy project but I have done much more tedious builds.

I have perhaps 6 hours in this build so far and I feel like I can probably stop once I have used up one package of four tiles.  Our primary interest in making these walls is to get some terrain together for Frostgrave which is usually played on a 3x3 foot table.  We also plan to make some static ruin buildings and other features so we don't need to cover the entire space with these ruins.  I also feel like that will give me enough walls that if I ever want to use them as Dungeon walls I'll have enough for the amount of Dungeon I normally place on the table.

I'm pretty excited to get these painted.  I still need to add a bit of sand texture to the bases and some of the wall areas.  I think I may make three tiles worth of sets like this one then make some interest pieces out of the last tile in the pack.

Based on the amount of time I have in on these I estimate I'll have the build finished in another six hours at most with probably three hours of painting time.  That's a bit of a long build but it will produce a large amount of terrain so I think it will be worth the time investment.

My new favorite bases!

Recently I've started basing most of my miniatures on wooden bases instead of metal or plastic ones.  Wooden bases take glue and paint very well so my bases don't get chipped.  I've had a lot of problems in the past with the edges of my bases chipping even when I sand the sides to get the metal and plastic bases more grit.  I've also had sand and even flocking and static grass chip off the tops of minis from time to time when the glue chips off the plastic bases. 

For standard 28mm minis I've been buying these 1 inch wooden bases from Woodpile at Hobby Lobby.  They come 12 to a package for $2.00 a package.  I really like the finished rounded edges.  They are about as thick as a Games Workshop round base although not quite so these Reaper Miniatures figures don't gain too much height on them compared to the other miniatures in my collection.  The wood grain edges even look kind of nice.  I like having some texture to the sides of my bases but I usually don't like to have a lot of texture overlapping onto the sides so these give me a nice amount of texture which as I said earlier also helps hold the paint.  I've found them to be far superior in every way to plastic bases.  

Simple Encounter Board

I've been kicking around the idea of doing a small encounter board for my D&D and other RPG games.  Most of my RPG encounters take place over a small area compared to the amount of space needed for a war game.  Most of the time I set up my RPG encounters on a 4x4 foot war game table or larger.  I wanted something smaller that I could place on my gaming table instead of off on another table.
 

I picked up a 33x50" Ready Grass Vinyl Mat from Woodland Scenics and a 20x30" poster frame from Walmart.  I think I spent about $20.00 U.S. on the project but I don't have the exact figures. 

 I laid the cardboard poster backing from the frame on the grass mat then traced the size.  After cutting the mat I was mostly done. 

I used some tacky glue to glue the mat down to the cardboard backing then placed some heavy books on and let it set for a couple hours.  I recommend against using a water based glue for this to prevent warping.  I did have some slight bubbling with this but that worked out okay because the board looked more natural with the slight rolling surface rather than if it was perfectly flat.   

Looks pretty good with terrain and figures on it.  Just exactly what I was hoping for.  The frame separates it nicely from the table and I think it might prevent dice from rolling onto the board so easily. 

I plan to make several more of this for different types of terrain including one with a flat black surface for laying down dungeon tiles.   

The Tree of Shame

I made this tree for an up coming Dungeons and Dragons game.  It's based on a tale from Arthurian legends.  The skeletons are shown for scale.  I was really happy with the way it turned out since it was fairly simple to make.

Years ago I made three wire frame trees from bailing wire.  They sat unfinished in a box for over a decade.  One of them was covered in green floral tape which is something I had used in the past on wire frame trees.  I mounted the tree on a cork board base then used Gorilla Glue hot glue to create texture on the structure.

I didn't want to use plastic shields for the tree because now that Games Workshop has stopped making Warhammer it's harder to find good shields cheap so I picked up a package of fake finger nails from the Dollar tree and cut them into shield shapes with a pair of scissors.  I had to mark the shield shapes by scoring into the nail with an Xacto knife because I could not draw on them. 

I dipped them in very hot water to help flatten them out.  This distorted some of them a bit but that was okay since they were suppose to look battered and distressed anyway.  I then mounted them on square dowels and painted them with black spray paint. 

I painted the shields with some quick and dirty heraldry.  I didn't get too precise with the painting since I planned to weather these.  It's handy to look up the rules of heraldry if you wish to depict it realistically.  I've studied it since I was very young.  My interest in medieval armor and knighthood led me into Dungeons and Dragons and the Society for Creative Anachronisms. 

If you have less knowledge of heraldry you should Google "Heraldic rolls" or "Rolls of Arms" which are medieval records of Coats of Arms.  These are a great reference not only for ideas but also the medieval style heraldry is easier to depict than modern versions that you might find if you just Google Heraldry. 

Here are the shields weathered up.  I wanted them to look pretty battered and a bit moldered from hanging on a tree for long periods of time.  

I can't wait to use this project in my next D&D game.  It should prove to be an interesting encounter.  

       

Battletech City

We've made quite a bit of progress on our Battletech City in the last few days.  The buildings in the middle of the picture here are the ones we have built recently.  The more basic skyscrapers are made from Dollar Tree gift boxes while the others are scratch built from various objects.

We've got a lot more buildings in progress but I think things are looking good so far.  My goal is to have enough to make three 4x4 foot tables which I will need when our Port Krin campaign kicks off.

X-wing Satellite

Just thought I would post this large satellite/station that my wife and I built.  She actually built it and I painted it.  It's made mostly from two baby bottle caps and some junk from mechanical pencils.

Hover Truck

So I ask my wife if she could scratch build me a simple little hover truck or skiff for our Star Wars campaign and this is what she came up with which is far more than what I was expecting.  She painted this one too.

KP-767 Dewback Spice Freighter

I scratch built some freighters from some a couple of Old Spice deodorant bottles and random plastic bits for my Star Wars Shards of the Empire game.  These are in X-wing scale and they are a bit larger than the YT-1300 model from that game so they are large ships.  I'm using the Hound's Tooth stats but I'm giving the ship a 360 degree firing arc with it's primary weapon and a single missile slot.  I'm not worried about points because these are not going to be used outside my campaign.  the one on the left is slightly larger so it's a slightly heavier variant.  

They turned out a little plain and I would like to have plated them up a bit more but I only had a couple evenings to get them put together and painted so I'm happy with them.    

Back from outer space with new easy tables and stools!

 Well it's been a while since I posted.  Guess I just got burned out on blogging.  I've still been playing all this time I just have not been posting much about it.

Anyway I found some wood bits at the local Lowles in their hobby section that I thought would make good tables and stools for some of my sci-fi terrain.  I got a package of wooden disk with some turned vases and some small spools.  I glued the vases upside down on the bottom of the disk to make tables then used thumb tack to make seat cushions for the stools.  Assembly took only a little while.  I had enough bits for 10 table and stool sets with a couple tables left over.
 

 I then primed the tables with primer grey.  Here you can see them compared with several random 28mm miniatures.

 After priming I dry brushed the tables white them painted the cushions and highlighted them.  I then added a wash made from burnt umber, dark blue and a bit of floor polish.  Although you can see some of the wood grain in the finished product I just chalked this up to the concept that this is cheap mass produced plastic furniture made with a wood grain pattern.  One thing I really like about the tables and stools is that you can still get four miniatures around each table with the stools in between which makes them look occupied without having to have sitting models.  

Here is a shot of the bottom of the tables so you can see how easy they were to construct.  In the future I may make a few tables with things on them for specific terrain sets like a diner or bar.

ESF Strike Force Finished!

I finished up this Earth Security Force Strike Force today.  I know it's small but I don't yet have all the models for this force and as it stands I think this is still over a 1000 point No Limits force.  I'm pretty happy with the way it is turning out so far.  The drones were a pain to get right.  I scratch built their stands then had to epoxy them to them.  It was hard getting the epoxy to set fast enough.  
Next up I plan to add a squad of robotic troopers.  I'll probably go with 6-8 robots for the squad.

Earth Security Force: Ghost Troopers

I've been working on a small Earth Security Force army this week for my Solar Empires setting.  The Earth Security Force consist of mostly drones and robotic troops but there are a few "human" troopers called Ghost.  Ghost are elite jump troopers who wear holographic armor that helps them blend into their background.

I made these troops from old Dark Eldar models from Warhammer 40,000.  I cut down their "spikey bits" and added some heads from Pig Iron Productions as well as jump packs I scratch built from small zip ties.

Tanksgiving: Project Wrap Up!

Well I went a little over my deadline wrapping this up but I'm okay with that.  I managed to get 9 tanks and armored vehicles finished in one month for my Tanksgiving project and since I didn't start till the end of the first week of November and I just finished these at the end of the first week of December I'm still pretty happy with my progress.
I finished four vehicles for my Hell Knights Mercenaries bringing their vehicle total up to 13.  Three of the tanks are for my Wolfhound Friekorps which is my next big army project.  Two of them I just painted up as generic mercenary tanks for general use.

Tanksgiving update: Well Crap!

Well today didn't go as planned.  This is all the progress I made on my Tanksgiving marathon.  Not exactly what I had hoped for.  I just had too many things pop up today and I got too distracted with other task one of which I will detail tomorrow.

Tanksgiving Update: 5 Vehicle Mix!

I've been trying to finish up a few more tanks for my Tanksgiving marathon so I spent the last two days trying to build up several of my half finished projects.
My wife built the grey APC from the body of a cheap "Army Man" Patton tank.  We are going to be using it for the Wolfhounds.
The green 6x6 is from Secret Weapons Games and it is the only "kit" model I have done for this project.  It also cost about what the rest of the tanks in the project cost combined but it is a very nice model.  If I had the budget I'd buy at least a squadron.  I may pick up some more in the future.
The two smaller hover tanks in the front are based of a Matchbox toy.  These "Douglas" Medium Hover tanks are for my Hell Knights.  I already have one of these completed so this will bring me up to a full squadron.
The large hover missile launcher is a variation of my Landshark AFV called the "Hammerhead".  It is also for my Hell Knights.   It is built from a toy LAV-25 which came in a set from Dollar General and included the missile launcher as a tow behind weapon.  I simply converted it into a missile turret.
Hopefully I will get these painted by tomorrow night.

Tanksgiving Update: Two heavy tanks finished!

I finished these two tanks up today for my Tanksgiving Marathon.  This brings me up to four finished tanks.  Both are based on a $3.00 toy tank I picked up at the Dollar General store.  The green one is pretty much just a paint up and the camouflage one has had it's tracks removed and replaced with hover drives I scratch built from cheap razor handles.
Obviously the design owes a lot to my M1 Abrams MBT but it is a bit more narrow in design.
In my setting these tanks are produced by the same company.  The hover tanks obviously has less armor but greater speed.  The design designation will be the Laird MBT and Laird HHT respectively.  I've painted the hover tank up for my Hell Knights army with the company markings.  The tracked version I have painted up to be a part of a generic mercenary motor pool I am building so I have gone without giving it a company or national marking and have instead simply given it a name and number.
I intended to photograph these with some miniatures to show their scale.  They are pretty big.  Defiantly "heavy" tanks although they are not as big as the two Ligers I just finished. I'm happy with the way they turned out and they will likely be making an appearance in my campaign very soon.