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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 26, 2014 12:26:37 GMT
My idea is to make dungeon/forest. I haven’t seen them anywhere. Not all the action use to happen on dungeons or caverns. i am not trying to be insulting , but then might i suggest making them 2 inches taller , and/or making the trinks thinner ? the problem i see is that the trunks are kind of short , fat , and cartoonish looking , like something you would see in childs play set . the foliage shouldnt be at head height for a tree that wide . i say this because you have a great idea , and it warrants great execution . if you keep the trunks that wide , then i would suggest making them 2 inches taller . if you want to keep the walls shorter , then just make the trunks narrower . and unless you need the walls to be flat on top so that figures could stand on them , why not make the top more irregular , like the top of the treeline should be ?
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 25, 2014 6:51:15 GMT
i get that they are supposed to be trees , but ......
first , what ARE you going for ? is this a wall that the players are supposed to get around? get through ? or just a boarder to the play area ?
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 20, 2014 17:57:35 GMT
i so i have a question that i have tried to find an answer to , and while i am sure i am not the only one to ask it , i havent seen any one else ask it in the web pages i have gone over looking for it .
so a mimic is called a "mimic" because it mimics things (treasure chests , beds , barrels , etc ..... ) so what does it look like in its natural state ? it is supposed to be some sort of outsider , so presumably it mimics things there to , hence how it evolved the ability , but what does it look like when its not mimicing something ?
now bfore some one answers , i have looked at images of mimics , and while the original description uses the word sudopod , to describe how it bgins its attack , there are also images with hands and arms . and keep in mind that it attempts to bite its prey , as opposed to engulf or absorb them as a pudding might , so ......... it doesnt slither or slide across the floor in the illustrations , as a slime or snail would so .......... BUT , at the same time , its "mouth" and sudopods could have been attack styles it learned as it grew to adopt an efficient means of attack that it observed .......
so what does a mimic look like in its natural state ?
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 18, 2014 12:07:51 GMT
if no one else has yet spoken up for them , i would be more than happy to put them to use . i have a few ideas about how to use them .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 13, 2014 22:00:19 GMT
Cool idea. You should try to add withe highlights for a more glowing feel. Maybe some ambient light on the domes and floortile. Take a look at Miniature painting videos on youtube. I watched a video about glowing eyes or jet exhaust recently. agreed , it needs highlights at the least on the lightning (its kinda dark ) , but AWESOME idea , with AWESOME results ! or actually , what might look neat ; lightning is really thin , what about doing a 2 step process of tracing the lighning within the effect ? using a some what thin brush draw a lightning patter on the current arc in a lighter blue . THEN using a thinner brush draw a kinda jagged line of lightning within the lighter blue , using white .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 13, 2014 7:51:10 GMT
i was going to suggest converting the mageknight pne , but was beaten to it . i have a few that i uyse for other games , its a good fig , and lends itself well to conversion .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 13, 2014 7:47:28 GMT
For your information I have an honours degree in fine art, and 25 years experience in graphic design and publishing. It has nothing to do with visual creativity, I am used to the maps of TSR when the dungeon was printed on blue graph paper and the solid blue was defined as solid rock. In my case the black is the solid rock and the edge of the tile defines the wall. It's not rocket science and yes I use painted miniatures and not wooden pawns. I will post an adventure photograph that shows the kind of effort our club goes in creating a visually exciting dungeon terrain when I get the time. In the mean time happy crafting!!!! what was your focus in fine arts ? your question was why do the walls when just the floor is enough ......... why do you use miniatures when pawns/tokens are good enough ? you mention your experience in graphic design and publishing , and perhaps thats part of why you view the floors as good enough ; the main focus on graphic design seems to be what OTHER people want , trying to get a project "good enough" for a supervisor or client , as opposed to ONLY doing your own thing for YOU . atleast that was my school experience with fellow students who were graphic artists and designers trying to break away to discover them selves in the fine arts world . you mention the old days of graphpaper maps , and to me thats all the wall-less dungeon tiles really are . if i'm goingto spend my time making and painting figures , i want the battle field to be just as well produced . when i play games that use tile maps , i alsways put a black sheet down on the table first , not to differentiate the bounderies , but to put even more focus on the game board and the figures on it , and adding in things like the partial walls takes the map from being just a paper representation , to being as much a piece of art as the miniatures on it . to me personaly its also part of my sculpture training in that when we presented a piece for critique , the piece had to be presented as it would be in a gallery , display stand and all , not just tossed on a table or hung from any section of wall , hell , if we JUST wanted to hang something on the wall , we had to spackle in the previous nail holes and touch up the white paint so that it looked fresh for the critique , and if the wall needed to be another color to accent the piece , we had to bring in a sheet of plywood , texture it and paint it as a false wall panel .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 12, 2014 13:58:24 GMT
Because we like the way it looks and feels? What do you do when there are walls within a room? What if the tile is right against another one, representing two parallel rooms? Every system is just representative and it largely comes down to preference.. yours differs from mine I guess. Hurray for individuality! Use a black coloured tile could be a solution, I wasn't getting at anyone. I was merely asking why some gamers define walls on their tiles. For me it's about using a tile set that is practical and almost endless in possibilities. i think it has to do with the visaul creativity of the persons building the dungeon , and the amount of dedication they have to the craft . i am not making a dig at you , but ask your self why you create a dungeon at all , instead of useing "theatre of the mind" ? my guess would be that it not only makes it easier to get all of the players to understand where they are , but its also more impressive to look at . do you use actual figures , or just wooden pawns ? same reasoning i would presume . in every hobby (in this case the crafting aspect) , there are people who take it very much to heart , so that while we all accept that other people may not put in the degree of dedication that we DO , we our selves put in all the details to meet our own sense of devoution not just to the game , but the crafting of the game to make it all that we think it can be . if you have seen my figures in my threads , you could very well ask why i go to such length to make them each individually , when they could all be substitued with paper tokens ? many players and DMs go the cheap and easy rout , but i am a "miniatures gamer" , so to meet my expectations , that just doesnt fly . for me , building the figs is as much about the process as it is about the result . as a result , i also look at what other have done to see if there is anything i can really learn from them . for instance , in the minis war competition , i voted for the ozze because while AJ's beholder was impressive , the ozze was also impressive , and the tutorial part about the platic beed parts showed some great attenion to detail and materials handling . i wont speak for the others , but to me , a dungeon with out the walls doesnt look complete , as if the person making it was rushed , and still needs to finish it .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 11, 2014 10:53:16 GMT
you could also ad in a bit of awe , perhaps a kong like wall that keeps their "god"safly away from their village .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Sept 9, 2014 13:17:43 GMT
as you mention , the car is a bit big , especially if its a VW bug , TRUE 28mm is 1:56 scale , but the 28mmHEROIC that most of us use is 1:48 scale . while it can still come across as a bit big , if you go to ebay , you can buy 1:43 scale , which is really close . i search "1:43 diecast" in toys and hobbies , THEN pick the catagory from the menue on the upper right . some of the cars are outragiously priced , because they are for collectors , BUT there are a lot for kids toys too that are very resonably priced .
just a thought
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 24, 2014 0:17:37 GMT
<img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> this is mostly a repaint of a mage knight dragon <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> this one i heavily modified into a wyvern with an ork rider <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> this one was modded with the headdress and banners and such <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> this one was extensivly modded with the addition of the cyclops torso , and a giants head , reposed and added in the hair and club and such <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> another extensive mod , using a spawn figure for the torso , and haveingto dril to secure the wings . i covered the leg holes with shields and sculpted staps to hold them in place <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> and for those aliens fans out there , here is a power loader i made from a herocliz fig and some mechwarrior darkage figures ......
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 18, 2014 16:04:24 GMT
i like how your work area is so nice and organised Oh it'll get worse - we've only lived here 3 months lol ya ....tell me about it when YOU have commercial grade shelving covering 2&1/2 walls , AND a table top covered 2-8 inches deep in piles of bits , AND table top power tools ............and ........and .............AND .....and ......
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 18, 2014 15:52:23 GMT
I started using these a couple years ago as work areas. They keep paint and glue off the table, feel nice (lol), and provide a pretty decent non-slip surface: (Gray mat in photo. Underneath that I've got a 2' x 4' sheet of hardboard) Also, if you make a mess (flock, trimmings, etc) you simply pick it up, curl in half and dump the bits in the trash. i like how your work area is so nice and organised , this is mine a few years ago , its gotten more organised , but i have so many projects that are unfinished that its a lot more cluttered right now .......and i added a table top band saw and drill press since these were taken . <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" "> <img style="max-width: 100%;" alt="" src=" ">
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 18, 2014 14:45:57 GMT
its kinda like what i already do with my wall sections for the ruined building corners for bombed out cityscapes . i see benifits to both 2.5D and NEXT , depending on the project .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 18, 2014 13:55:42 GMT
thanks , i have some beholders that i started a long while back and just shelved as other projects came up . depending on how long the deadline for the craft wars is , i was thinking i might do a small 2.5D beholderhive , and finish up the beholders for it , but i'm not sure if i have enoughtime for that because i would have to make all the other beholders and kin from the "I Tyrant" book to flesh it out and make it legit . i would need to get a few more items and supplies , and the unfinished beholders arent as characterful as my older one , which i might need to fix a bit , and that would take time but of course since i dont play D&D more than once every few years (if i'm lucky enoughto get even THAT much play ) , i am thinking if i DO it , i would have to auction it off on ebay ( cant afford to have it taking up my project space . i dont think i have ever seen or heard of anyone with a "hive" , but a threat THAT powerful is more than most groups could really face if they want to have any survivors left , so i'm not sure how much it would fetch at auction .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 18, 2014 4:48:11 GMT
I really love the asteroid stations. clever, and easy (ish). We do starfleet battles about once a year.. I am sending link to my friend who has the figures.. he may want THIS link s83.photobucket.com/user/abqamateur/library/Space%20Ships , it has more pictures of more ships , but warn him that i dont visit photobucket more than once in a great while , so if he has any questions , dont post them there or i wont get them for a long time .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 18, 2014 4:43:22 GMT
thanks guys . in the FASA trek universe the first klingon style bird of prey was a romulan design , they were successful enough that the kingons traded klingon weapons and tech designs for the romulan tech plans for the BOP and the lesss efficient cloaking devices . it kinda makes sense when you look at the TOS episodes where the romulans are running around in klingon D7's . its also easily explained because between the TOS era and the next gen era the romulans are absent from the federation storylines for the most part , though i am told that the novels didnt have to really keep to a single cohesive narative , so that they were free to contradict each other and the TV show at will and may have romulans featured in them ....or not . and actually , in the FASA narative , the BOP are light scout ships , but both the romulans and klingons modify the designs to build cruiser sized versions of them aswel i tried to keep to that when i was trying to make an "enterprise" era BOP . whle enterprise had some good elements , it had a lot of screwy ones too . trying to make to make BOP's similar to the "enterprise" era was one ofthe hardest conversions . if you look at the romlan and kligon ones above (the pics with the PAIR of ships ) , they are only about 2/3 as long as the original BOP figures , and required 3 ships to build (1BOP , and 2 starwars Bwings for the wings)
btw - am I the only one that found it strange there was a Klingon Bird of Prey and a Romulan Bird of Prey?
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 17, 2014 14:20:54 GMT
but mold makes cheese .................wheres the cheese ?!?!??!
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 17, 2014 13:57:34 GMT
thnx yep , and it was that love that made me sell them when we stopped playing here , so they can be off on adventures with some one who will get a lot of play out of them for a very long time these are just the more interesting ones , i had also made several more common ones like the TOS scouts and destroyers , etc ...... and my focus was on being able to reproduce them in mass , so i had a whole fleet of ships , with multiples of the above .
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Post by grandinquisitorkris on Aug 17, 2014 12:20:42 GMT
i'm guessing there are more than a few startrek fans out there . so more than a few years back i was traded a game called starfight , it was a cheap simple PnP that even with all the expansions only cost about $15 . ....................i then proceeded to spend about another $1000 on fleshing it out . i bought a MONDOMAT from chessex , made plastic planets , bought TONS of star trek micromachines , etc ........ now the game used paper counters and ships , but i prefer 3D figs , so i took and made stats for as many of the ships as i could get , but that was kinda limiting , so i made new ships to flesh it out even more . to tryand keep the design somewhat appropriate , created a conversion method based on the FASA combat simulator , and could then use the construction rules to design ships to fill in gaps . we had ships for the TOS era , and the next gen era . below are pics of some of the custom ships i scratch built or moded . all of them were done using startrek micromachines as the source of the components , as well as plasticard and the like . some are simple conversions , some took a few attempts to get it right . i eventually lost too many of the players that were into it with me , so we stopped playing , and almost all of it went out in auctions durring sprring game cleaning , though i do still have the molds for the klingon space station , and some parts that i can still build with . for the trekies out there , enjoy </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'> </a>'>
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