Michka's Runelords project (The Final Chapter 4/17)

[michka]

I finally got some pictures taken of my first real 2.5D terrain. This is from the second chapter of the Pathfinder module Hook Mountain Massacre, which is the third installment of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. Much of the furniture was built for the Graul Family Homestead which I already showed. The terrain tiles are complete rip-offs of the DMG method of modular dungeon making. Trying to copy DMG's style took me a long time, and I'm not entirely happy with the results. I love what he does, but my version comes out too cookie cutter. 

OK. Enough waffling. Time for some pictures...

This is the main floor of Fort Rannick. The original design for this was heavily modified so I could use modular tiles. (There's an unused version of this layout that is very faithful to the original map sitting in my basement. It didn't work out.) The tiles are made from foam core bases with 1/4" by 1/4" balsa wood. The furniture is made from balsa wood, because I can't get popsicle sticks to cut right. The bunk beds are based on the DM Scotty beds, just with longer posts and a second bed on top. I figured bunk beds made more sense for a barracks room then the traditional beds. The two hearths were sculpted from Super Sculpey. The barrels are just painted Woodsies. I ended up buying three or four bags of these barrels when I found them.

   

Here is the second floor of Fort Rannick. Originally this was a round structure, but I modified it so I could avoid using the curves. I also had to do some modifications so the stairs lined up. The long wooden things on the left side are pews. I should have taken better pictures of these. Maybe I'll do some shots of the furniture soon.

This particular section of the module is quite grizzly. Actually all of Hook Mountain Massacre is pretty grizzly, as you can see from my first Graul Family Homestead thread. To sell the mood at this point I made corpses to scatter around the terrain. These were simple human shapes sculpted out of Super Sculpey and painted. The bodies were white glued to plasticard painted red and gloss coated so it would shine. I think the effect really works.

And finally, here is all the terrain stored in just two boxes. Well, the second floor doesn't fit, but you get the picture...

I hope you enjoy. I'll post more pictures of the furniture if anyone is interested. Let me know what you think.

 

[halloweenville]

Wow! That Looks Absolutely Amazing! your paint job is Superb and the Furniture is very professional! I think the bodies are my favorite, being a Horror Buff and all...lol!

[ashrothedm]

I really like all of the furniture pieces. Great work!

[michka]

Thank you halloweenville. I think your avatar lets us know that you like horror.    I thought about using old minis to make the corpses. Then I decided I needed to practice sculpting so I might as well kill two birds with one bunch of dead guys.

Thank you ashrothedm. I really wanted a lot of furniture, so I wouldn't have to recycle pieces till I moved to the next level. I think I have enough general pieces now that I can start making more specific pieces. I also need to re-make all the doors. The ones I have here too small for my newer dungeon tiles. Oh well. A crafter's work is never done. 

[ashrothedm]

My players joke at how many crates and barrels are in their locations, and it's mostly because I have not made all of the appropriate furniture pieces. It seems people sleep on crates in my campaign world.

[pedrodevaca]

o.O

I need to make some grizzly corpses soon and definitely going to borrow your ideas. ...I'll give them back I swear >_>


Awesome work all around!

[dragon722]

Great job! your 1st 2.5 tiles you say....simply MARVELOUS!!! Cannot wait to see all your future stuff...

[voduchyld]

Everything looks awesome! I love your painting technique, it's so clean and sharp. And man! I mean those corpses are to die for (pun intended). I can't sculpt, i've tried a couple of times and can never get to create what i have in mind. So kudos for sculpting those amazing pieces!

[Draklith]

Yeah I think you might be being a little hard on yourself there m8

I think the tiles and furniture came out wonderful, I was thinking they might want to get a "foundation expert" out there, cause they might fall through the floor at any moment    j/k

I really liked your slaughterhouse room, good job on the bodies, might have to make me some'dem

I thought to myself, anytime I can kill two birds with one bunch of dead guys....it's a no brainer, lol 

[curufin]

Your tile set is absolutely stunning! I love the furniture too! I will definitely need some bloody bodies now, after seeing yours. Please forgive me (im am not familiar with the module), but are those balance beams I see?

Consider several of your ideas stolen by me...

[DnDPaladin]

excellent work, duplicating one style is not the way to go though. its like painting a portrait, reguardless of how many times you will try to fake it, you wont suceed on mimicking perfectly. to each its own i say.

that said i think there is a small fault in your corridors. your tiles seems to have a bit of a problem. your corridor pattern is too similar, when you look at it you see the pattern. so i can say you stamped the same way all of them. sometimes rotating the stamp 90 degrees help on not making said pattern identical.

aside fromt hat, fantastic work. seriously, my own work was far from getting there. so its amasing.

[michka]

Thank you everyone. I'm so happy people like what I'm doing. The players seem to like the crafting, but it's other crafters who really know what we're trying to do.

Curufin, the 'balance beams' are actually medieval saw horses. I did an image search and these came up. I needed them for a workshop room. 

The trick to sculpting for me is to just give it a try and see what happens. Those bodies are no where near correct proportionally, but since they're dead I'm not too picky.

[curufin]

Jan 16, 2015 20:05:45 GMT michka said:

Thank you everyone. I'm so happy people like what I'm doing. The players seem to like the crafting, but it's other crafters who really know what we're trying to do.

Curufin, the 'balance beams' are actually medieval saw horses. I did an image search and these came up. I needed them for a workshop room. 

The trick to sculpting for me is to just give it a try and see what happens. Those bodies are no where near correct proportionally, but since they're dead I'm not too picky.

Medieval horses!  Brilliant!

[SpielMeisterKev!]

Howdy,

   First off, I gotta say EXALT BUTTON!!!

I am still shaking my head in amazement WTF? Corpses FTW!

You got some karma coming for this one,
Kev!

[Sam]

Great job. Everything looks good. I agree with Kev. Exalt.

[jazhi]

Very nice tiles. They look very polished, and I like that you didn't cram them full of stuff. Just enough to set the scene. And I like that you shared your storage solution.

[chiefsgtbradley]

Well done, Sir! Your Floorpainting looks so cool and professional.

[michka]

Time for an update.  I have some shots of the basement level to Fort Rannick here. This is a simple two room site were a major villain could be found. Here are the photos...

The small room was originally the guard room.  Our villain is using it as a temporary quarters at the moment though.  This tile is in the style I'm working on for my modular dungeon tiles from here on in.  It's made with regular foam core for a base, with dollar store foam core as a second layer with the paper covering pulled off. I engraved this with a pen, then rolled over with a large ball of aluminum foil create the rough surface. Then I add 1/4" by 1/4" balsa to the edge, prime it black and paint it up as usual.  It's a time consuming process, so I may not get a full set of these made right away.  

I haven't had the time to make doors to fit the new tiles, so my old ones will have to do.  The cells were made based on the hair curler idea.  I used bass wood rods to add indications of doors on the front. Plasticard was used to make the roof. I was using hot glue to attach the roofs, which wasn't working out at all.  It was way messier then I wanted it to be.  As I was running out of time (The game was that night) so I decided to just add a bunch more hot glue to the outsides so the cages would look web covered and moldy.  I think it works.  If nothing else it's colorful.  

And here is the villain...

    

She was a Lamia, so I had to have both her forms.  Both of these figures are collectible plastic miniatures that I did some touch-up on. The lady needed a bit of cleaning up from her factory paint job.  The lamia comes with black hair and a metal bikini.  I fixed the hair and covered up the exposed areas so it looked like the two might be the same person.

The most annoying thing about this whole scene, the wizard gets a lucky critical on the monster in the first turn and beheads her.  And there are no monsters in the second room.  This whole scene is about confronting this Lamia.  Fortunately the PCs parlayed with her for a while, so they got the vital information out of her that leads them to the next scene.  Thank goodness for talkative bad guys.   

Let me know what you think.  More to come...

[voduchyld]

I love that floor texture! And the red hair on the Lamia!

Edit: Redheads are so sexy!

[ashrothedm]

The entire encounter looks really nice! I really like the crisp color selection that you are using onto your pieces. The mold/web on the cages does make them very interesting. Nice job!