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Post by tauster on Oct 1, 2018 14:43:34 GMT
I saw the Black Magic Craft episode for making bricks! Such an easily implemented technique! I do need to make myself a bunch of bricks using that!
To be honest, I'm not a big fan of making stuff out of individual stones. Ruins, let alone whole buildings, take much too long for my taste. But that method was simply too enticing, I just had to make a few bricks to see how well it works. And now I have to make something out of them, just to avoid having them clutter up my space... *sigh*  |
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Post by Sam on Oct 1, 2018 20:51:54 GMT
If you make it, they will come.
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Post by skunkape on Oct 2, 2018 13:40:55 GMT
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the individual bricks either, but they do end up making nice looking walls!
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Post by tauster on Oct 2, 2018 15:11:51 GMT
The second from left and the two small ones are new, the others wanted to be in another pic.
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Post by Sam on Oct 2, 2018 20:01:38 GMT
They look great. I was surprised how well the roller works. I would always have a storage issue. And, protecting them from the environment; high humidity, cats, grand children, etc.
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Post by tauster on Oct 2, 2018 20:15:02 GMT
They look great. I was surprised how well the roller works. I would always have a storage issue. And, protecting them from the environment; high humidity, cats, grand children, etc. The rolling pins work even better than what the monolith pics suggest: The gaps in the texture are just overpainted with color, not failures in the rolled-on texture. With a more careful paint job they would have been more perfect, but that wasn't what I was aiming for - I want them ancient, with the arcane glowing runes failing here and there.
I'm having a storage even without the stuff made with the rolling pins, so this is neither new to me nor an argument against making more stuff. My hopes are on moving yet again, as my craft room will become the realm of my oldest when the youngest gets his own room. So I'll use the attic which now is filled up with the stuff that has no other place to go. I hope I can get rid of some of that stuff, optimize my organisation and make more space. It would be a small wonder, but I have high hopes, and at least another year of time for finding good storage solutions for a room with two roof pitches.
I never had any environment issues, though the 'curious small kids' scenario might become relevant as soon as the youngest is olde enough to walk and open doors and storage boxes. Which might be anytime now...
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Post by tauster on Oct 23, 2018 19:46:58 GMT
...made me search for fold-up trees. I didn't find anything readily available* but I got the idea of making treen out of styrofoam. * read: no free print models, though I did find some stuff on drivethrurpg, here and here So I rushed to the workshop, fired up the Thermocut and free-handed a prototype. Not much to say on the process, so here's a quick WIP series without my usual rambling. Took me 15 min to come up with a working prototype. Decidedly not pretty, but without making that thing I wouldn't have been able to sleep, wondering half of the night if I could do it.
So it works, and I would have done a whole series with the rest of the two foam blocks (five more trees I'd guess). However I would have missed one of favourite episodes, so the tree will have to stay alone for another night. I am sure I won't let him wait for 12 years and 6 months, like certain people did to certain other persons.  |
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Post by erho on Oct 23, 2018 21:04:27 GMT
I like it!
The question is; Proxxon or 3d printer?
Thats where I'm at in my life, first world problem!
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Post by factoriatabletop on Oct 24, 2018 12:16:55 GMT
liked so much de idea of the tree...
you gave me an idea for trying something...
my question is...why not make it out in paper? or cardboard?
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Post by tauster on Oct 24, 2018 16:55:24 GMT
liked so much de idea of the tree... you gave me an idea for trying something... my question is...why not make it out in paper? or cardboard? Cardboard will probably work better than paper. You could print the green texture on paper, glue it to cardboard and make sturdy and good-looking trees. Just a thought. If you try it, please share the results!  |
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Post by tauster on Oct 24, 2018 16:59:55 GMT
I like it! The question is; Proxxon or 3d printer? Thats where I'm at in my life, first world problem!
The Thermocut is way cheaper than any 3D printer and probably has a much easier learning curve, so the investments in time & money is much lower. I really want to get into 3D printing for several years now, but even if I had the money, I don't see myself having enough time to learn all the stuff thats required to get good results. Apart from that, 3D printing essentially means sitting in front of the PC, and that's what I do the whole day in my job already...
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Post by erho on Oct 24, 2018 21:39:04 GMT
The Thermocut is way cheaper than any 3D printer and probably has a much easier learning curve, so the investments in time & money is much lower. I really want to get into 3D printing for several years now, but even if I had the money, I don't see myself having enough time to learn all the stuff thats required to get good results. Apart from that, 3D printing essentially means sitting in front of the PC, and that's what I do the whole day in my job already...
Youre right, I have the same reservations. I work in IT at a hospital, and I dont have a PC at home for a reason! |
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Post by sgtslag on Oct 29, 2018 17:41:04 GMT
I would recommend the Proxxon Hot Wire Cutter model, on Amazon.com. I have one. Love it. I'm not huge on styrofoam cutting, but I have a large terrain project, which I've done prototypes already, on the Proxxon. Works superbly: fast, easy, makes fantastic curved-cut designs for what I want/need. I did my original modular, geomporphic cavern terrain pieces using a bandsaw, with additional texturing: tedious, super-intensive labor required... I cut brown paper grocery bags into strips; crumpled the strips to give it pick axe chiseled textures; Hot Glued the paper strips to the surface of the carved foam pieces; applied modeling paste to the tops/bottoms, to provide texture, and cover the paper-foam seams along the edges; painted the whole piece light tan; painted on Minwax Polyshades Royal Walnut urethane stain, and done. Used copious amounts of Aspirin, and other NSAID's, to alleviate the pain in my cramped hands... The new Proxxon prototype pieces are carved in 1/2 the time spent on the bandsaw, and they do not require additional texturing! I only need to paint them, add in a small amount of sand texture, scattered along the edges of the base, , then paint, apply The Dip, and done; wash, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum -- I will need around 30-50 pieces (likely more...). The good news is that the bandsaw pieces are being re-painted, and re-purposed, for modular, geomorphic ice cavern wall sections. So in the end, I will have very decent water-carved rock cavern wall sections, and chiseled ice cavern wall sections, but equally useful. I could not make my desired rock cavern pieces without the Proxxon Hot Wire Cutter -- the desired textures are not achievable on a bandsaw (if they were, it would take around 5-10 minutes to carve each individual piece... multiplied by 50!). The Proxxon is worth every penny, IMO. Cheers! |
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Post by factoriatabletop on Oct 31, 2018 15:17:42 GMT
liked so much de idea of the tree... you gave me an idea for trying something... my question is...why not make it out in paper? or cardboard? Cardboard will probably work better than paper. You could print the green texture on paper, glue it to cardboard and make sturdy and good-looking trees. Just a thought. If you try it, please share the results! well,is not what i was thinking but i made this " backgrounds " just in a 2sd way...  i think, next week, i will try to use the same template but adding a 3d look like you made... my point is just, i used paper ( glue into cereal cardstock...)...) mmm i think i prefer your system...my trees look like very flat cheers tauster! |
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Post by tauster on Jan 3, 2019 21:17:04 GMT
Today my two Thermocut add-ons arrived from Shiftinglands. Yay!
I got the multi-corner tool and the Circular Cutting Board. Shipping was fast, the boards were protected in multiple layers of bubble wrap, and Gerald even put in a free extra (gothic windows template). They are a little pricey, but the quality is outstanding and they add so much value that I would get them again without batting an eye, or any other sensory organ. I immediately tried them out, starting a 'ruined round tower' (see here for a turorial) just for having an excuse to play with the circle tool. I followed the steps more or less, just used hotglue instead of PVA for gluing the bricks because thats much faster as there is no need for overnight drying.
I did the brick trick to age them (see here). Using screws instead of stones gives your bricks sharper edges, and you can sort out the screws much faster than stones by using a strong magnet. I hotglued the bricks together, using an old CD as a base. I made a cardboard template of a gothic window from the freeby template and placed the bricks around it, cutting them to size as needed.
The foam circles were cut from the inner core of the brick piece. I used a thin one for the bottom floor ad a broken-off piece of the 1cm strong circle for the 1st floor, texturing both with different rolling pins. Not sure the subtle texture will survive the primer, as this stuff is quite thick.
Grey + brown + olive green + water + PVA glue = slate grey primer.
Go over the whole thing once,then add any cut-off foam parts, some pebbles and sand to make ruined stuff to generously slather wherever it looks right. Let dry overnight. Updates tomorrow, hopefully.
All in all this was done in less than three hours. You know I had reservations about building stuff out of individual bricks (first post on this page), but it is much faster and more fun than I thought. Plus, you can build exactly what you want, without any tool-induced limitations.
The combination of Making bricks en masse with the Thermocut and the shiftinglands tools, together with the brick trick for aging and the texture rolling pins for making floors truly changed the game for me.
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Post by tauster on Jan 5, 2019 16:37:17 GMT
...finished!  The wash, still wet: That's how the washing looked when dried: Drybrushed several layers: - first with a 50:50 mix of grey and white, brushing not only downwards (as the daylight would fall) but also horizontally, to ghive the whole piece more structure.
- Then a drybrushing with pure white only downwards, to create light & shadow effects.
- Finally some brown-ish drybrushing wherever dust/dirt would be, i.e. in the lower parts of the tower and on the second floor.   |
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Post by tauster on Jan 5, 2019 17:02:53 GMT
Some of the leftover scraps from yesterday's tower ruin sparked another inspiration.
Lesson learned: never throw scraps away. Unless you run out of storage space, that is. Then get more storage space.
I'm talking about the topmost pink foam piece:
I sliced a very thin (1mm) layer off to get rid of the diamond-shaped corrugation. Note tha ' gett rid off' doesn't mean ' throw away' (see above under ' lesson learned' ). Being able to make those ultra-thin sliced one of the cool things about the Thermocut. Then I made four pieces, each about 10mm broad. I used the circle board to make a large circle, about 5-4 cm broad.
I spontaneously repeated that procedure with the inner circle, ending up with one large and one small band, plus a small circle.
The bands were cut in half, and one large half will be placed on the four pink ...lets call them 'archedpillars' (not sure there's an architectural term for that kind of thing; does 'arcuated' fit the bill?)
My son had other ideas, making a rather cool S-shaped form. I am tempted to make a larger terrain piece, but with these large pieces, I will run out of storage space rather quick. Maybe I'll do a flat ruined piece, where the whole thing came down and is overgrown. Stacks better than a version where the pillars are still standing, holding the ceiling upright...
Time to texturise everything. All hail the rolling pin!
Another circle for the base. As you can see, I rotated the circle board 90° so I can cut a larger circle without the arm of the Thermocut getting in the way.
I can't use the rolling pin on the large circular base, and I can't slice the diamond corrugation away without cutting the base in half (which would kill the stability of the board), so I used the thin slices of the circular bands and texturised their smooth side. I'll glue them to the base later, using PVA glue and hoping that this will make a strong enough bond.
...then I realized that I wanted a different pavement on the ground, so I used my large roll and textured the remaining bands.
Now everything is glued on and drying.
Time required until here: about 2 hours.
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Post by tauster on Jan 6, 2019 14:17:24 GMT
After seing Black Magic Craft's Hag's Hut tutorial, I couldn't resist and had to make my own. Even if that meant ongoing projects had to be postponed. Let's see if the hut gets finished without meeting the same fate. My boy decided he needs a hut for himself, so we're doing two. I used regular XPS instead of styrofoam for the bodies of hut and roof. Afterwards, I realized that I could have simply cut a pringles can to size and make a cone out of strong paper, but the shapes were already done when that idea hit me. So what. Cutting the field stones Hotglued on the bodies. I used only hotglue and no PVA because it saves time, even if there's a lot of whisps to deal with. Waiting for the PVA to dry wasn't an option anyways because my boy wants to paint the fieldstones today, and we still have to wait for the spackle and primer to dry. Guess he still has to learn the lesson about crafters having to be patient, but with 6 years there's still plenty of time ahead to learn that. Brushin the spackle in the cracks and wiping the excess away with paper towel. And that's where we stand.
[update] Primed. I left out the black modpodge primer from the tutorial) in a beige tone.
And basepainted. Right now it looks much too colorful, but the black wash and the white-ish drybrush will mute that down and 'unify' the colors.
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Post by tauster on Jan 13, 2019 16:56:50 GMT
* in case you smiled about the awkward designation: I have no idea how such a piece of architecture would be called. If you know, please do enlighten me!
I broke of bits and pieces to age the thing, then painted all white & drybrushed it with pearlescent sheen
Glue won't probably do the job, so I used kebab skewers to pin the pillars in place.
One half will be still standing, while the other half lies down in ruins...
For maximum playability, I want a ramp to run up and jump on the upper level. Sounds easy, but the slabs have to be placed in a way that makes sense. Not sure I'll go this way, it is just a first attempt:
...so thats where we stand. I will propbably add another element or two but I want to keep at least the center place as free as possible to be able to use it as a modular terrain piece. There could be a tower in the middle, a well, a spring, a magic gate...
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Post by tauster on Jan 20, 2019 11:21:17 GMT
Didn't make much progress last week, just got the wash done.
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Cheers!