Ice/Rock Crystal Formations

About a month ago I showed a few of these ice crystals that I had made from cork. No not the best thing to make very clean cut crystal formations from, but I had a shed load of wine corks and they needed using, so I had a go anyway.

I finally got them all painted up and I don't think they came out too bad to be honest, perhaps not ice crystals but they might pass for crystaline rock formations. With a vaguely cold feel to them.

They cost me absolutely nothing but some time to make and I will definitely use them in my games, from Frostgrave to D&D to Five Parsecs.

I also became aware that I often make small pieces of terrain like these in groups of eight. Heavens knows why but it seems I do. There will be further evidence of this in the next week or so.

D&D: Challenge Update 6

Another set of three characters I painted for my lad and his group of players. This time two more Reaper Bones miniatures and a metal figure of unknown origin.

If the bases look a bit peculiar its because I made them all from card and PVAcrete, sturdy enough to withstand being knocked about in a box.

Fighter, Monk and a Cleric I'm thinking. I tried to cover as any adventuring D&D types as I possibly could.

Wagon Train, the start of.

I seem to have had a whole series of games where wagons were crucial to the plot and first I could not find my original model, made quite a while back now, and then I realised one was not enough.

So last week I set about creating another 2 to complete the set. I think the pictures pretty much say it all, the wheels are always the part that take the longest and are the least fun, so I got them done early on.

The actual wagons were based on the one I made earlier, it seemed to work OK, so why change it.

I have some toy cows to use as pack animals. probably a bit large but close enough and very cheap.

I have some GS work to do to strengthen joins, especially the wheels, but then its just painting, which is simple enough.

I used wood glue for some parts, superglue for others when I needed something glued immediately and when I put the wheels on the cart, not done yet, I will sprinkle Bi-carb over the superglue join to strengthen it. If you're not aware it creates and chemical change in the glue which sets hard immediately, the Bi-carb forming a solid with the superglue. Pictures when I post about this next.

D&D: Challenge Update 5

The first of the character models. The two on the left are Reaper Bones figures and the other is a metal model I got cheap on Ebay.

Despite hot water the assassin really didn't want to stand straight, but otherwise they are fine.

Or at least they were until one of my cats decided they wanted to knock them all of the shelf they were sitting on! Don't think any of the joins can be seen and they all seen strong enough, so all's well in the end.

D&D: Curtained Doorway

I have a game of D&D coming up this weekend and there was a curtained doorway mentioned at the end of the last session. It was then that I realised I did not have a curtained doorway to place on the table. So I thought I would make one for this and other sessions.

Its double sided and the basic frame is corrugated packing card, worked over with both Das and PVAcrete, with a bamboo skewer for the curtain runner at the top.

Then just undercoated black and some matchpot paints of appropriate colours were used: browns and greys.

Here are a few construction shots.

Cottage Revamp Two: Update 4

Finally completed the building section of this cottage revamp. The roof has been putting me off getting it done for some time. In the end it wasn't such an ordeal as I had imagined it was going to be.

The next stage is to get the thing painted and then to add the smaller bits of scatter terrain to the surrounding base. I'll be interested to see how well the stone work looks when painted, may well influence the building element of the next cottage.

Need to work on the join line on the next cottage, see if I can create a lip to cover it.