sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 26, 2014 0:08:02 GMT
You could probably make them look even better with a vertical strip for the cardboard with the sides and top lined with the peeled foamcore...and not needing to worry about the sand except on the ends, which could probably be done by way of just hot glue as well.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 23, 2014 5:02:08 GMT
A lot of the larger home improvement stores also carry them, though it a lot larger amounts and are normally willing to chop it down to a useful size...would probably also save a bit of cash doing it that way with this if you're doing a few of them. They sell them for wall mounts that a lot of people use if they need them as larger versions of the tack boards.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 22, 2014 16:39:56 GMT
Might be repurposed sprues, but not entirely sure there as they don't seem to have the chevron shape most sprue pieces seem to have
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 21, 2014 23:20:54 GMT
When I watched Scotty make this stamp, my jaw instantly dropped. So easy, with to great unregular results! I really want to see a 'natural caverns' stamp, because that's what I need in my campaign. You can actually get a pretty good result with little work if you can get your hands on some of the larger pieces of lava rock. If you add a bit more pressure when applying paint, you also get a pretty interesting surface texture if you're using the mats... My big thought between the two options for base tiles shown is that combining the two could actually work rather well...though I already have a couple of the cork sheets because I like chopping them up for basing, and I believe it's matakishi's tea house where they use the cork sheets for all sorts of construction
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 21, 2014 4:00:48 GMT
I know this might be sacrilege to some but, … I have stopped using cardboard for basing, because I had a lot of problems with it warping. Now I only use MDF. When you have a good electric jigsaw and angle grinder, it is almost as fast as to cut as cardboard. When relatives throw out old cabinets and closets, I go scavenging for MDF. I haven’t bought a single piece to date. I also know that a lot use foamcore. Where I live foamcore is ridiculously expensive, about 40$ for a 28x40 inch sheet. And I am into cheap terrain. Where do you live that it's that much, when I need to buy some there are full poster sized sheets that are 2 for between $8 and $10 depending upon the store...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 21, 2014 3:58:37 GMT
One easy thing that can work well that still goes back to hot glue is to take some of the heavy stirrer straws, cut to height and attach to the base you want to use. Then take cardstock, and pretty much cut it like the roofs Scotty uses for the huts in his video except smaller and crush down the top so that you get the dome rather than a peak. Use your hot glue to give the stem the right shape and the same for the top, then hook them together with a bit of glue as well.
The end results look good and paint up easily, and can be done in multiple sizes.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 20, 2014 21:50:14 GMT
I've largely been using a variant of the Foamcore mixed with chunks of the Next version. It doesn't really cost me anything more as I have access to a decent amount of it for free, though I do occasionally buy a few pieces for things...and it works for other crafting projects.
For the basic tiles, it normally keeps the basic 2 layers of foamcore. My big difference is that I only actually paint the upper rim, my secret is that in between the walls layer and the bottom layer is paper with a printout of what I want the interior to be for flooring. There's enough free textures available that it's rather simple to find it and then glue it to the base time and then glue the other over top. I then cover the exposed foam on the sides and along the inside of the wall, with a coat of hot glue.
The end result doesn't really warp if you seal it, and you can add other things on top of it while having a more varied look inside with a few simple things even to the base image. It also provides a more consistent appearance for tiles...meaning that shifts in paint won't do much. And since I'm normally still using a grid, well, it's dead simple to put the grid on them by simply opening the PDF graph paper I have and running it through the printer again.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 20, 2014 21:36:42 GMT
This is similar to how we did things before. We didn't use painted mats as we were still using grids so we used battle mats and other gridded surfaces. I appreciate the versatility, but the created tiles are much cooler IMO. Plus I love making them. One things that I've done with several of the walls, doors, and everything else I have or duplicated from elsewhere is that they work well WITH tiles as well. It lets the tiles that you do make be something more special and focused on, and it reduces the needed storage space overall as a lot of the flourishes are things that will be available for multiple uses rather than largely be stuck in one place. Meaning that the focus events in an adventure are the ones that draw the most attention. Hell, if you aren't using a grid, you can even further reduce what needs to be used and just put the walls straight on the table...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 20, 2014 1:03:35 GMT
Looks a lot like a thicker variation of the modular walls, doors, and things from the Star Wars (D20): Adventure Game...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 17, 2014 22:04:02 GMT
One thing that might work to improve these is to save painting the base until after the crystals and give it a bit of heat, just enough to get it softer and then let it cool. It would probably make the colors into an even more crystal like form, and would set them a bit more, while making them more fantasy crystalline in appearance by smoothing out a lot of the tool marks. You could probably even do it with a hair dryer on higher heat within a minute...or a heat gun if you have one.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 17, 2014 5:27:38 GMT
Honestly, I just buy it...
Just never buy it from a miniatures places, the wargames flock is the same as the railroad flock, and the railroad flock comes in rather large amounts for both terrain and bases...normally you will need to buy two close colors, but even then you end up with enough to fill a half gallon jug in tight pack to the top from two of them. I keep mine in a larger plastic tub that I've refilled with the middle green with lighter and darker green ones I've used that adds a larger variation
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 17, 2014 4:41:21 GMT
Might need a stop there myself, probably need to wait until September though, my family tends to have events in clusters so my open funds are burnt out for the month...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 15, 2014 22:46:58 GMT
If you have them, the stackable plastic storage crates work extremely well, you can easily make it extremely modular by taking a stone spray to the entire thing and then hitting it with some watered down black paint via a house painting brush...take some of the semi-transparent plastic sheets used to tint window to line the interior if you want. Stack them upside down with cardboard floors attached to the bottoms to cover the floors you want. And on top of the in game uses, it works great for transporting your materials if you need to do so...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 15, 2014 2:55:50 GMT
White marble is rather easy for larger surfaces if you have a sponge. Other marbles are workable as well, but white is the easiest.
Base white, give a heavy black wash, then take a black paint pen with a fine tip (Extremely useful for painting eyes on minis and a lot of similar things anyway) to draw a few random veins, don't go insanely overboard, but you can easily use a lot of them. Then take some cream or bone paint and stipple it on over the rest, after that dries repeat with white. When stippling, try to leave some veins there to keep the right look. Then hit it with a semi-gloss layer and done.
It works for minis as well, but it's a little harder to keep the veins directly intact.
An easy tool that you can make to help with this is to take an older brush with a metal binder for the bristles that's losing bristles, remove the bristles (You can save the bristles in clumps for tall grass clumps with basing and terrain if you want) and cut a piece of sponge that you can cram into it while expanding the metal...before assembly, put a drop of a non-water based glue inside the handle and then put the sponge piece in place before bending the metal back in to seal it up...you can also do this with one of the wooden pencils if you can handle the eraser, but it tends to be a bit on the more difficult side.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 13, 2014 19:08:26 GMT
I still find it funny that this is such an issue. You're just exchanging grids for a 1" increment ruler. In fact if I was moving diagonally with my movement of 8 (40'), I move 5 spaces on a grid, with one left (35'), in a gridless game I move 40'. Part of it is that a lot of players don't like measuring them out and prefer the abstraction of the grid and it lets them think about available options even off the wall options. It also means that they can keep formulating ideas during the rest of the groups turns without interfering with what is actively happening. Adding an egg timer speeds things up as well Part of the thing is that there now are a lot of wargames that use some form of a grid that fed into D&D and several other RPGs...such as the WotC ones and even now you have Deadzone and the Clix games
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 13, 2014 8:52:07 GMT
Actually, my group kind of revolted after trying a session...and considering that most of the books used are technically owned by the store with the gaming library setup (There's a good stock of minis, terrain, books, and a lot of other things that have piled up there that people have donated to it for various things over the years) and I'm not the only one in the group who runs games, I'm just the one that tends to like running the story more than playing, or is at least most directly willing to volunteer.
It also leads to fights and complaints between the players as they plan things out about how far things are and what they can do, as well as ranges of things even with templates...it also ended up slowing the game down considerably compared to the previous rule that had been in play of using a 1 minute egg timer for each persons turn barring a few outside situations that might take slightly longer or new players figuring things out.
I have considered taking a different variant with a 2" grid and halving distances while opening up more internal movement inside it after a few games of Deadzone, but that's liable to be the same problem of the players liking the same basic rules to work from in order to frame their ability use in ways that make sense to them.
It's not really that different anyway as I kind of like the gridded battlemats to begin with for RPG stuff, mainly because if I need to draw things, I have a ready made scale to base it off of rather than freehand...which always leads to problems for me anyway.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 12, 2014 22:44:07 GMT
Theae are some really great tips! I would love to see some pictures of the finished products I've got pics of most of the results on my blog, not the trees though, I've only caught a few glimpses of those with his current project and he wanted to surprise everyone playing with it...I do know he's building a castle as part of it though. Here's The Blog
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 12, 2014 22:02:49 GMT
These are all some basic tips that I've utilized for my recent work on both a OA campaign and with what I've put together for the Ronin minis skirmish game. Some of them are also things from a few friends who have made some themselves. So, here's a few things that would probably work for a lot of the Oriental Adventures settings.
Tiled Roofs These are rather easy, take corrugated cardboard and remove the outer card layer on one side. Then clean it up, and the end result works quite well for the right appearance. It tends to work better if you measure and cut the basic shapes for the roof first.
At the top joint, take a wooden dowel, such as the cheap ones in craft isles with the bags of a dozen foot long ones for under $1...just get the same size for the project if you're doing walls or similar things...same building should be the same size.
To add more detail, you can use a pair of scissors to groove out the dowel, to add more layers of tile take more strips of cardboard and strip the outer layer off of both sides and layer it up the solid base piece. You can also add other detail by taking straws and split them length wise and then cut each strip down to the right length as discarded tiles...
For painting, base it black, either with a spray for non-foam or just use black paint. I used a terracotta color that I got from walmart recently, but I've used various other mixes to have the more dull appearance a tile should have followed by a dark wash.
Bamboo If you want to add chunks of bamboo to your terrain, you really need two things, foam and a mix of straws of different sizes. The foam should be thin cuts that can fit where you want the bamboo, use a pencil to poke a small hole where you want the bamboo.
Then you take the straws and cut them to a mix of lengths, the wider straws should be taller. One end should be cut at a visible angle and the other side should be flat. Take the flat end and press it into the foam, and work it into position over the pencil marks. Then remove them and add glue before putting it back in place firmly and hold until it starts to work if it's drooping, hot glue isn't normally the best option here because it can easily melt or mess up the fit. Tacky glue tends to work the best for it. Let it dry completely before the next step.
For painting, base it black (mix a small amount of sand into the paint by sprinkling it on as you go, especially around the top edge), then you want a pale yellow-green, I use one called grass from the craft paints, followed by stripes of a darker green (not entirely sure which one I use, the label came off a long time ago on me), that should make the bamboo look striped with even stripes. Then you take white and add a thin line to the center of each dark stripe as well as a thin touch at the very tip.
Cherry Trees This one is something a friend has used and it looked rather good.
First you want some rather good looking, small trees. The best looking ones he did came from a cheap plastic toy set (He'd gotten some from a farm, jungle, and dinosaur sets), clean the lines and base them. My group tends to use old CD's with the shiny side up and scratched up with my knife. Use a dab of hot glue to attach them and use rocks and whatever else you want to cover the basing for it. (CD's work well for more scatter terrain). You can easily use the hot glue to add a gnarled root system from it, even attaching the tree to a rock and building the roots around it...normally you can fit two or three trees to a base. I tend to like the look of two with a path down the middle.
Make sure the tree limbs are spread out, then spray it black, and paint it.
For the trees, take some scraps of the pink foam and rough sand paper. Basically just grind it down and collect the dust. It works perfectly for color and if you're using foam for other things, is just a couple minutes work to make. You just need the smaller trees, and unfortunately a lot of the card and toilet paper tend to not work quite as well with that size, though a wire core with a mix of masking take and toilet paper would probably work well for the size and the strength you'd want.
Paths Okay, this one is a lot more generic, but it's a useful thing to have.
The basics is that this again focus' on CD basing, mainly because you can easily leave small gaps between the bases and rotations of them to add twists and turns while still making them look nice. The three types I've used are normally just using hotglue and the larger craft sticks with some sand/grit.
For a dirt trail, just use hot glue texture where you want the pathway, it's rather easy to have the muddy texture, and before it dries add a few small rocks and dust it with a fine sand.
For the others, they are different types of "tile/stone" pathways. For the first, I just take the craft sticks and measure them out in length with another stick and basically cut them square. It works as a good one for stepping stones type pathways, either on its own or mixed with the previous dirt trail to make it be a bit more used.
For the last, I tend to use 1 1/2 inch lengths, then have them 3 pieces wide with the outside edges the same starting points and the center up by 1/2, have a small gap around the internal edges...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 11, 2014 21:17:16 GMT
For painting, you might want to take a few looks at the Deep Wars tutorials, I think there's a few on Lead Adventure, but there's a few scattered around the net that works well for the rippled look without much work if I'm remembering right.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Aug 10, 2014 17:55:52 GMT
Yeah, the Wargames Factory skeletons are great for some things, but a pain to make into playable skeletons. However, they are wonderful for breaking down to work with other things such as corpses or loose bones. While cheap and useful for conversions, a lot of the WF plastics are best for use as things other than minis because they're a pain to put together in the far to many parts issues. I've got a couple different boxes of their rising sun line on order locally with the intention to break them down for corpse counters for a skirmish game and use a lot of the other pieces as conversion fodder as the accessories are quite good.
Best glue to use is some of the various plastic glues, the Army Painter ones seem to be the better choices there compared to ones like Games Workshops, because it tends to be far cheaper for the amount you get. If you use it right, the glue actually melts the plastic slightly and fuses the pieces rather than just a normal glue patch.
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