Grindylow Cavern Skull and Shackles

[gnomezrule]

Thread about this project from the old forums

After some delay and problems underestimating how far paint would go.

After learning that Grey, White, Maroon and brown makes a very chartruse pink.

I give you an update of the world's longest quick project.

Remember this is supposed to be a cave in a tropical island so I wanted some coral reef variation in the bottom as well as white sand. The greens are sea grass the little Grindylow jerks have hidden traps. I painted a very thin coat of blue over the floor trying to show that it is a partially submerged tidal cave. In the pictures it looks shiny cause its wet. It has since dried a little darker. I am thinking that I will get a tint of brown to soften some of the pink coral coral coloration.

I urge any who are going to undertake such a project it is fun and rewarding but do take your time and plan first I do a lot of problem solving as I go (hence throwing several colors together rather than buy more paint works great but it gives you pink not everyone wants pink caves, I know I want to tone it down. My wife and I have been calling it the pretty pretty princess dungeon).

[monkeywithtacos]

That is so awesome!

[skunkape]

If you want to give the appearance of water on the tiles, but don't want to go with the hassle of using any of the water products that companies like Woodland Scenics have, you could try several layers of Mod Podge. I bought a bottle to try on one of my cave tiles that I was working on and it looks good as an alternative!

Good looking tiles by the way!

[thorswulf]

Another super chap and easy way of depicting water is to use blue or green (or both)plastic wrap that is sold by the roll in craft stores for wrapping baskets and the like. Wargamers have been using this stuff for years now, and it looks pretty good and is very effective for just about any watery terrain, be it a beach and seashore, river or swamp. Add some builders sand or kitty litter to the edges of it and you have a very effective river bank too!

[sgtslag]

Last year, I also tried using old foam pieces, cut or carved, to represent cavern walls. I could get them for free, from work. Cutting/shaping them was easy (used a band saw), but as has been said already, they soak up paint like water evaporates in the Sahara Desert! I gave up on the idea, even after trying out black spray paint. I searched for some topical application, to seal the pores on the foam, so paint would not disappear within the foam, but I struck out.

I am really glad to see someone has made this approach work. Your stuff looks quite good. I ended up cutting up a piece of pink insulation foam into modular cavern walls. I am in the process of painting them up, and that is quite tedious: even though the paint does not get absorbed by the extruded styrofoam, it does require 2-4 layers of latex house paint, to cover properly, and I have 150+ pieces to paint!  (Bought a Wagner Power Painter, to speed up the painting, now I just need to git 'r done...)

For me, I needed both stone cavern walls, as well as ice cavern walls. I am painting roughly half of my pieces a charcoal gray, and the other half are getting cheap, white, ceiling paint, which will be followed by an application of blue-colored Magic Wash, to give it that ice appearance. Good luck with your project, and a huge, "Thank you!", for sharing this with all of us -- especially for showing me that this technique/approach can work... Cheers!

[gnomezrule]

Nov 13, 2013 15:15:57 GMT monkeywithtacos said:

That is so awesome!

Thanks!!

[gnomezrule]

Nov 13, 2013 15:23:38 GMT skunkape said:

If you want to give the appearance of water on the tiles, but don't want to go with the hassle of using any of the water products that companies like Woodland Scenics have, you could try several layers of Mod Podge. I bought a bottle to try on one of my cave tiles that I was working on and it looks good as an alternative!

Good looking tiles by the way!

I might have to give that a try. I have plenty of it around.

[gnomezrule]

Nov 13, 2013 18:16:25 GMT thorswulf said:

Another super chap and easy way of depicting water is to use blue or green (or both)plastic wrap that is sold by the roll in craft stores for wrapping baskets and the like. Wargamers have been using this stuff for years now, and it looks pretty good and is very effective for just about any watery terrain, be it a beach and seashore, river or swamp. Add some builders sand or kitty litter to the edges of it and you have a very effective river bank too!

That was one of the methods I was contemplating. I was running out of time. I started in June and my players are a session away. So I went with the wash.

[gnomezrule]

Nov 13, 2013 18:27:55 GMT sgtslag said:

Last year, I also tried using old foam pieces, cut or carved, to represent cavern walls. I could get them for free, from work. Cutting/shaping them was easy (used a band saw), but as has been said already, they soak up paint like water evaporates in the Sahara Desert! I gave up on the idea, even after trying out black spray paint. I searched for some topical application, to seal the pores on the foam, so paint would not disappear within the foam, but I struck out.

I am really glad to see someone has made this approach work. Your stuff looks quite good. I ended up cutting up a piece of pink insulation foam into modular cavern walls. I am in the process of painting them up, and that is quite tedious: even though the paint does not get absorbed by the extruded styrofoam, it does require 2-4 layers of latex house paint, to cover properly, and I have 150+ pieces to paint!  (Bought a Wagner Power Painter, to speed up the painting, now I just need to git 'r done...)

For me, I needed both stone cavern walls, as well as ice cavern walls. I am painting roughly half of my pieces a charcoal gray, and the other half are getting cheap, white, ceiling paint, which will be followed by an application of blue-colored Magic Wash, to give it that ice appearance. Good luck with your project, and a huge, "Thank you!", for sharing this with all of us -- especially for showing me that this technique/approach can work... Cheers!

Yes paint has proved a problem.

It took 4 cans of spray paint. On my return to Home Depot I went for the 97 cent black rather than the krylon paint and primer.