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. 

Frostgrave treasure tokens!

Our Frostgrave project is moving right along I got a set of treasure chest done yesterday for treasure tokens.  I have had these lying around for a couple of years from the first time I dipped my toe into Frostgrave.  Unfortunately my work schedule didn't allow me a lot of gaming time back then and my group wanted to play D&D so these got boxed.  I have a few other treasure tokens I have been using from D&D dungeon dressings but I wanted a nice set of chest so here they are.  Four of these are from a Mordenheim accessory kit, One is a Reaper Bones chest and treasure pile, the other is an old chest I had from a box of random minis with a book and scroll from the Mordenheim kit.  I really like the size of the smaller chest better but for now the Games Workshop chest will do. 

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.

July Painting with Games Workshop Contrast Paints and Reaper Miniatures.

I finally accomplished one of those hobby goals that every painter swears they are going to start doing.  I finally finished a batch of miniatures I ordered before making my next order.  I got this order of Reaper Miniatures at the end of June and I just finished painting them before the end of July which was my goal.  It's only 17 miniatures but that's pretty good with my schedule. 

I used the new Games Workshop contrast paints over a dry brushed under painting like I did on my Death Guard Plague Marines. I like the contrast paints but they are really expensive.  They work well for this technique but they take some getting used to.  I don't think they make good paints for beginners because of the amount of brush control they require and that fact that you need to think about layers in reverse like you do when painting with watercolors.  You can't just fix a problem by painting over it unless you paint your primer layer back first.  In that respect they are very unforgiving for a new painter but they are very similar to the glazing technique I have been using a lot lately so for me they work.  It's convenient not to have to mix up the glazes before painting and the have a better pigment ratio than my own glazing technique.  They do require some getting used to but I think I'm getting better with them. 

I did paint a batch of minis with Contrast paint in June.  About 8 mostly Wizkids unpainted minis for D&D and Pathfinder.  I never got around to posting them but some of them turned out really nice. 

 I really like these two new Bones Black minis from Reaper.  They are the Crimson Herald and the Dreadmere Wight. I think I would like to get some Zombies and paint them up with the Nurgle flesh green color I used here to make some minions for this pair. 

I knew when I saw the Herald figure how I wanted to paint him and I'm really happy with the way he turned out.  I was able to use the GW contrast paints to pretty good effect by glazing the pink color over the green color where the tentacles transitioned from green to pink.  I also added some pink stippling which I think really gave the model some atmosphere. 

These are some old Reaper lizard men but I really like these sculpts.  For some reason they just give off a classic lizard man vibe. 

I like the way the contrast paints worked on these as well.  They seem to really shine on creatures and other organic models.  I tried to stick with the classic lizard man green look here.  

This was the free promo figure for the month of June Garghuk the Ogre.  This mini was an awesome sculpt and a lot of fun to paint.  He's simple but still looks really nice and his details are well defined.  The pose was not complicated so it was easy to get a brush around the model.  If I was doing a "learn to paint" class I would strongly consider using this model. 

I had a little trouble using the contrast paint on the skin tones because of the large surface but it wasn't too hard to get the problems worked out.  I really like the way the Snake Bite Leather and Gor Guntha Fur turned out in particular. 

 These are a combination of the Bones Black Dreadmere Mercenaries, the Dreadmere Ranger, and Fruella Dreadmere mercenary packs.  The later two are metal minis.  Of course these all have a similar style so I thought I would paint them up as an irregular unit.  I think they would make a good Sheriff and Posse or a Ranger and Woodsmen.  Some group of NPCs that might be encountered in a dark forest. 
 

 I did have a little trouble with the contrast paints rubbing off the coats on these minis while I was painting them.  I've had this problem with other glazing techniques as well. 
   

These are a couple of metal Reaper figures from the Dark Heaven line.  Brother Roberto, cleric and Erick Paladin Initiate.  I liked the medieval fantasy feel of both of these minis.  They looked like they would make good companion pieces.  The cleric is really quite well dressed.  I painted him up to look a bit like a traveling Jesuate but he could be done us as more of a cardinal.    

The priest was the hardest to paint with the contrast paints.  The bottom parts of his over robe got really dark because I tend to do my dry brushing lighter at the top and darker at the bottom.  I had to go back in a paint in highlights then glaze them again with the grey contrast paint to get the details.  I really enjoyed painting the armor on the paladin but it didn't photograph very well.  In fact both of these models look a lot better in person but that happens some time.  I think they are quite worthy of my tabletop however so over all they were a success.  

I still have pretty mixed feelings about the GW contrast paints.  I feel like they play to my style pretty well and I have enough experience to handle them but I think a lot of new painters will be frustrated by them.  A lot of the darker tones really need to be thinned down and it's really hard to tell the difference between the browns in particular until you use them a while.  Some of the colors shift quite a bit when you thin them as well.  You really have to be able to block in large areas on a mini in one go to make these work which takes good control and if you are not careful they rub off pretty easily.  The skin tones are also kind of hard to work with.  I was fine to use my dry brush technique on the male models that I wanted to look ruff but I had to paint light grey back onto the face of the one female model I did this month to avoid giving her a five o'clock shadow.  Since I've been using similar techniques for a while I was able to predict this.  All in all I'm happy with them but buyer beware for those unfamiliar with using glazing techniques.   

Warlords of Knottinglund Episode 01 The Burning of Nottamun Town

Two hundred years ago the Taurian men of the Minotaur Empire left Knotinglund in the hands of the Knots a people who had served as their mercenary enforcers against the native Druidfolk. Since that time the Knots have enjoyed nearly unprecedented prosperity and good fortune with only the occasional Duridfolk or Goblinkin raid. They have traded with the other goodfolk of the island and have become the envy of many of their neighbors but they are not a united people. What true wars they have endured have been at the hands of the seven kings who rule the kingdoms of the Knots although even these have not amounted to much. None of the kingdoms are willing to risk large scale warfare their lives are so comfortable. The occasional earldom or border shire will change hands but capitals are never threatened. Of all the kingdoms of the Knots Goldfeld is the richest not only in terms of physical wealth but also in terms of the value of the land. Located in the middle of Knotinglund it has the best farmland on the island. It is truly a breadbasket.

Manton son of Randolf Earl of Highhill looked out onto the plain from his hilltop fortress. It was the first day of the Winter Solstice in the 858th Year of the Law. Nottamun Town, some ten miles from the fort, was burning. So late in the year it might have started accidentally but no one had shown up asking for aid. It might have been started by a goblin raid but with over fifty Fyrdmen and a dozen Thanes in the town that seemed unlikely. Raids of that kind had not been seen for over a century. Not in the kingdom of Goldfeld especially. The Druidfolk had not been seen for decades and then only rarely. Perhaps in some of the wilder kingdoms they might have been able to make such a raid but not in these civilized lands. Turning to a Huscarl to his right he said "Gather my Thanes in the hall". The Huscarl nodded his head and turned to carry out the Earl's command.

Looking at his gathered Thanes, Manton's heart sank. Fat, old, incompetent, and far too comfortable armed with little more than symbolic weapons that had never been drawn in anger. Now they were bickering about why Nottamun Town was on fire. "Maybe they haven't called for help because they have it under control. They have the river right there running through their town after all!" said Beornwald a particularly self important Thane. "Under Control! How can you say it's under control? Look outside, you can see the fires even from this distance!". It was Adelric, Manton's son. He had come in with Anwen and Beatrix, two other younger Thanes. Perhaps the only Thanes in Highhill capable of carrying out their martial duties. "Let us go find out what is going on father" Adelric continued. "Ha! None of you have the experience required." interjected Beornwald. "Then I should charge you to investigate the matter for me" Earl Manton replied. "B, but my lord, my family is here for the Yule feast. My home is bursting with guests. I can't just leave them at this..." Beornwald trailed off looking at his shoes. "Then it is settled. My son, the priestess, and the young bard will go. Find out for me what is behind this tragedy and see if you can't help any survivors," the Earl commanded. "Yes father" Adelric replied then he and his companions turned to leave.

The three Thanes set out together on the road to Nottamun Town. As they approached the town they encountered no one.

A small section of Nottamun Town lays on the south side of the Nottamun River where a few houses still stood.  Across the river the larger part of the town was ablaze.  The gatehouses were on fire and as they approached they could see signs of conflict.  Weapons, helmets, and shields lay on the ground.  Pools of coagulating blood filled the furrows and boot prints where two shield walls had clashed.  The one thing missing was the bodies.

The watch tower was empty.  Many of the weapons stored there had been removed from their racks.  More signs of conflict were found at the top of the tower but no bodies there as well.  From the top of the tower Anwen thought she saw movement in the water.
 

As they moved towards the river armed figures started to emerge from the water.  They were not men but they were once men, now just skeletal remains marching toward the three Thanes.

 Adelric charged a group crossing the bridge.  Three Skeletons charged towards Anwen and another three towards Beatrix the bard.

 Adelric and his horse cut down two of the skeletons on the bridge but as he turned on the third a gigantic skeletal Minotaur came charging through the smoke.

The priestess Anwen fell before the spears of the three skeletons who charged her.  Things were looking dire for the Thanes.

Adelric moved to cut off the skeletons that cut down Anwen and the Minotaur gave chase.  Beatrix destroyed two of the skeletons attacking her then ran to help the priestess.  

Adelric and his Warhorse attacked the Minotaur destroying the beast.  The skeletons attacked him with their spears but could not get through his defenses.  

 Beatrix rushed over to heal Anwen while being chased by another skeleton but even though the skeleton wounded her she was able to get Anwen back on her feet.

Anwen called forth a spiritual weapon and destroyed the skeleton chasing Beatrix with magic and sword.  

Together the Thanes destroyed the remaining skeletons.  After the battle Anwen began examining the destroyed skeletons.  She noticed that the weapons wielded by the human skeletons were ancient and of Druidfolk design and that every one of the skeletons wore and iron torc of Druidfolk design.  The torcs were freezing cold to the touch but the Thanes took a few of them to return to Highhill.  

Upon returning to Highhill Adelric and Beatrix took the Minotaur skull to Earl Manthon while Anwen went to track down Gosbeorth the Sage to see if he knew anything about the torcs.  Anwen did not find Gosbeorth at home but after she re-joined her companions they found the old sage at the alehouse.  Gosbeorth confirmed their suspicions that the torcs were crafted by the Druidfolk.  Strangely the torcs, which had appeared freshly forged, had already become badly rusted as if they were about to crumble to dust.  Gosbeorth suggested that the magic used to craft them must have been very powerful.

Later that night Manthon called his Thanes before him again.  Beornwald accused the three thanes of making the story up but the Earl dismissed him.  He then charged the three with locating the Druidfolk who were responsible for the attack.  

Note:  This is part of a Prequel campaign for another Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition campaign I hope to start in the Summer of 2019 which is inspired by Game of Thrones and the Wars of the Roses.  I'm currently conducting a few mini campaigns to establish a history of events in my players minds.  The setting is an island I've designed called Knotinglund which is very heavily inspired by English myths and history.  The Knots, featured in the early campaign are a kind of cultural analog to Saxons, Vikings, and Normans.    

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.  

Miniature Update 11-30-17

 Just posting some miniatures I've painted lately.  I'm trying to get some monsters painted up for my D&D games.  First up is this Reaper Bones large fire elemental.

A Reaper; Rust Monster, Clay Golem, and Efreet as well as a Dungeon Delvers Basalisk.  I'm hoping to get more done soon. 

Random Miniature Update 11-9-17

I painted this Reaper Bones Griffin based on a Bateleur eagle.  

These Reaper Crusaders will be "The Drowned Templars" in an upcoming game.

Three Reaper Orcs I painted up to represent Half Ogres.

I painted this Reaper dark elf sorceress as a Drow.  She will be "The Twilight Queen" in my campaign.

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.