Terrain Tuesday

In truth, most of my terrain is dungeon oriented.  I guess I'm just an old dungeoneer at heart, but I decided to make some trees, in case some bandits might need to hide behind them at the dungeon entrance.  I used a piece of 1/4 inch plywood and rounded the corners off so that it would have a little height on the table.  I used model railroad trees with the based removed.  This allowed me to attach them by drilling holes in the plywood and using a little JB Weld.  Then I coated the surface with wood glue and very corse sand and stones that I got from the lawn and garden store.  In a moment of madness, I painted the stones (nature's not good enough for me, I guess) and then did another round of wood glue to attach the flocking.  In the end, I don't think that it's too bad for a first attempt for an afternoon's work, but I think that I'm better at making dungeon pieces.  :-)

Terrain Tuesday: Diorama Beginnings

The walls base and stairs for my diorama are complete.  Now, I just need to add some room dressing like statues or pillars and maybe a fountain.  I'm intending to keep this all modular so that I can use it in games going forward.  I'm also thinking of getting self-adhesive felt like the old Dwarven Forge resin sets had and attaching it to the bottoms of the pieces to keep them from sliding.

Terrain Tuesday: New walls

Here is a shot of a couple of more walls that I finished over the weekend.  I like this archway a lot better than the previous one that I made.  It didn't hurt that I used my hot styrofoam knife to incise the blocks around the arch, giving much better delineation to the archway stones and making for an overall better look.  I've almost got enough pieces for my planned diorama now.  These definitely aren't Dwarven Forge quality, but being a bit taller, they work better as photographic backgrounds for miniatures, and they certainly are fun to make.

Terrain Tuesday

I've long wanted some stairs that could be used to handle miniatures at varying elevations.  The stairs that I have from Dwarven Forge are very nice, but really only represent miniatures at three elevations.  So, with this weekend, the weather being snowy and cold, I set about making my own foam board stairs to go along with the other dungeon terrain that I've been making.  I think that I could have done a better job smoothing the sides, but I'm generally pleased with the results.

All of my new Terrain pieces in action

Just another shot of all of my new terrain pieces.  I've sealed them, and they are now ready for use!

My first foray into homemade dungeon terrain

     Ever since completing some basement remodeling about five years ago, I've been holding on to a bunch of foamboard insulation scraps.  I've aways intended to use them to make gaming terrain, but as with many things, I wasn't convinced that I'd do a good job, so I didn't bother to try.  Finally, the other day inspiration stuck, and I decided to have a go at it.  These three pieces are the results.  While they would never compete with Dwarven Forge, I'm fairly pleased with how they came out.
     I did the stonework by scoring the foam with an X-ACTO knife, then widened the gaps with a pencil.  I got the texture, but breaking what has always seemed to be a rule when working with foam and used a light coat of Rustoleum spray paint.  The spray paint of course melts the foam, but when used in the right amount, I found that it melts a nice texture on the stone, and it widens the gaps a bit more giving the stones better definition.  Then I coated all of the pieces in back craft paint and dry brushed them with grey.
     I'm happy enough with the result to try some more pieces.  Maybe I'll try a stairway next.

Look what arrived today in time for my Birthday!

The second Dwarven Forge Kickstarter set!  Two boxes.  Thats an awful lot of caves and caverns.  I'll post more pictures once I open them.

Dwarven Forge Caverns Kickstarter Campaign (Final Days)

Dwarven Forge is into the last few days of its latest Kickstarter campaign.  This time around its for their caverns set and I have to say that they look pretty cool.



I backed their dungeon campaign last year and here is a picture of a sample build from what came with that set.