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Post by The Brave on Nov 26, 2014 19:26:47 GMT
Just downloaded the color print-out files of the pop-up terrain kickstarter. Storage advantage wasn't the deciding factor, I joined because of the WOW!-effect. The low price (18 USD for both color and sepia pdf files) kept the spending threshhold low - even if you add the print costs and some bucks for the other materials, it's cheaper than other commercial terrain pieces (I know the comparison with pure commercial products is unfair, but still...)  Now all I need to do is print 'em out, watch the crafting instructions and craft away... Genius! |
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Post by tauster on Nov 26, 2014 21:01:18 GMT
Some progress with the Modron... Silver priming, black washing and silver drybrushing on the legs:  Some rust on the legs:  I'll paint (rust) the rest of the body tomorrow, as I want to give the superglue enough time to completely cure (superglue on your brush ruins it completely). |
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Post by tauster on Nov 27, 2014 20:47:27 GMT
Black washing on the arms (2 times)   ...and rust all over the body:  finished!  During the rusting I discovered that the hole in the center of the 'leg-ring' looks... surprisingly organic.    Naturally I couldn't resist and added some brown oily leakage. Yes, untight Modrons might lose some body fluids too. Maybe they're humans too, after all?  |
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Post by tauster on Nov 29, 2014 9:52:06 GMT
After an almost-two-months hiatus I'm finally painting up the rock arch I made inspired by @noctary's cavern walls.    I very much recommend trying DMScotty's alternative stalagmite painting method - the results are stunningly realistic! As usual, in retrospect I have absolutely no idea why I procrastinated painting yet again: It was super-easy, quick and I'm totally happy with the result, even if I'm not finished (pearlescent gleam has yet to be done). |
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Post by tauster on Nov 29, 2014 9:59:31 GMT
Has anyone ever tried to use one of these Skylander USB Portals?  I got a defective one for 1 € on ebay and will try making a mould with it. If the LED still works, I can use it even as an active portal. If not, I still have a great accessory that I can mass-produce (giant wells, masonry half-arches, crumbled walls, etc...) or paint it up and use it directly. |
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Post by tauster on Nov 29, 2014 12:31:10 GMT
...and finished!  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 13:56:25 GMT
Very good looking stuff tauster!! The robots are stellar! |
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Post by tauster on Nov 29, 2014 18:30:23 GMT
Thanks, I'm really happy with how the rust effect turned out!
Just finished the 2nd round of mould-making: Here's the originals. Not on the picture: An ornately 'chiseled' (plastic) measuring-tool from Warhammer with some nice 'grim reaper' skellies and some cool flameing textures (see last pic)  somewhere down the road, I want terrain pieces with some huge gears. I've already learned that large structures are quite brittle with my sort of clay, so I'll make some paper maché, which will have the added bonus that the gears will already look corroded. Lesson learned How to avoid getting too much gunk on your hands: Stir the mixed starch & silikone (for example with an old screwdriver) until it gets flaky. Then close the container and shake it vigorously for a while. When your mix was right, the result is something like that:  If the stuff lies in the bag in little flakes, add some more silicone. I wanted to make moulds from the troll and the rat (no idea what I'm going to make with 'em, but it will be fun). The poor guys look remind me of facehugged victims from the movie Alien...  |
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Post by tauster on Nov 29, 2014 20:15:02 GMT
Got some paint on the ruined terrain pieces... I started by painting up the rocks between the masonry  ...and then based the masonry white. Theoretically this would be unneccessary for the white stones, but I had to conceal some stains where I got a little too triggerhappy while painting the rocks.  I want the piece to blend in the style of the Walking Ruin terrain set. So normally there's no question how to continue: 1) white basepaint: check. 2) drybrush pearlescent gleam 3) brown and green dabs here and there 4) finished Since I don't really like what I did in step 3) anymore, I'm looking for alternative ways to paint that look better but still similar enough to blend in. However I've put simply too much work in this tile to experiment with it now and... well, ruin the ruins. So I took the other piece I made from the same clay and use it as lab rat so to speak. White priming, pearlescent drybrushing and black wash:  Additional washing of a very watered-downraw umber (very dark brown)  |
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 12:42:27 GMT
Pearlescent drybrush:  Black washing:  Dark brown washing:  The washes on the terrain have dried (pic taken in cloudy daylight).   Now what's missing is some greenery. I have several flockings, plus some adhesive grass bushes... |
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 12:51:39 GMT
The new mould series:  The largest gear. I'm quite sure that the gears will break when I take them out of the mould because the mould mass is quite strong. I could whittle some of the silicone away so that the mould gecomes thinner and easier to bend, but the danger is cutting away too much. So at least for the largest of the gears, I sculpted some reinforcing structure on the open side. Let's see if this works...  Another chess figure. This one can be taken out immediately after pressing the clay into the mould (which would be impossible with the gears, or the heads), so I made two. The mass itself is a special lightweight clay I bought months ago but never acutally tried out, so I'm very curious how hard and sturdy this will be when cured, and how long curing takes.  For the middle-sized gear I used leftover from another clay (brand name: fimo). There wasn't enough for the complete form, but if I have half of the gear sticking out of the ground, it should look fine.  The fairie's head. This one has lots of fine details which I can't wait to see, but I fear it'll break apart (several times) when prying out...  The rest of the moulds: Two action figure heads, a ornate pillar and the warhammer reaper-and-flames thingie.  |
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 12:57:36 GMT
Back in august, videador shared some amazing pictures of painted dungeon floors with different color schemes:  He inspired me to try sculpting similar terrain myself (only without the grid), but I stopped working with it after the black basepaint... Now I tried to replicate the color scheme in the lower left corner: dark blue & aqua. Wet colors:  Colors (plus black washing) dried:  It's my first try so obviously it not nearly as well-done as the original, but I'm encouraged to continue this road. Knowing how to make moulds certainly helps here, because now I can make lots of identical pieces which takes a lot less time that sculpting them individually and then paint them up. |
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 13:10:57 GMT
Sawed some pieces from a hazel branch that had bracket funghi grown on it:  The wood is already very light and soft, which means that the fungus has grown more or less completely throughout the wood. I'm considering sealing the sawed areas with matte varnish and gluing some magnets or metal scraps on the tps and bottoms. Then I could make some magnetic tree platforms. However the pieces are not completely straight, so either I'll saw them again or they will be prone to toppling over on the table. On the other hand, I don't want to have the fungus get an appetite for my wooden furniture...  I've got my hands on two pieces of polystyrene, the round one quite large (15 cm high, 24 cm diameter). It's a different sort of polystyrene, stronger and denser than the usual stuff.  I can carve it with my hotwire saw, but so far I have no clue what this will become. Any ideas what this can be crafted into? |
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Post by SpielMeisterKev! on Nov 30, 2014 18:09:32 GMT
Howdy,
Your first thought had to be mushroom for those foam pieces? Hollow it out and make a 2.5d mushroom lair for some baddie...
Kev!
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 18:26:51 GMT
Giant mushroom? *grins broadly*  Honestly, I hadn't thought of this. As I wrote before, so far I have no ideas & plans for it at all... That would be the largest mushroom in the history of our gaming (a bit more than 15 yrs), and I doubt that there are many groups at all, worldwide, who had such a humungous fungus on their table. The temptation is clearly there - I can feel it's mycel grabbing at my crafter's soul... However this would be almost certainly become a single-use piece, which will give us a great gaming night, but after that it will just clutter up my already-cluttered-up work/game/craft room. So I'm looking for something that can be used multiple times. My main campaign is in the Underdark, so everything related to caverns would be good. Later in the campaign, the party is heading for a aboleth city, so any weird architecture or gigantic psionic/arcane/steampunkish terrain piece would be great. Keep the ideas coming!The first shot was already a really good one, and if nothing better comes along, a fungus it will be. |
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 18:33:18 GMT
...couldn't wait for the clay to harden, so I carefully pried the heads out. As expected, I hat to make several cuts into the silicone moulds as they were simply too thick and thus too unelastic.  The level of detail could be better, but considering the circumstances (thick mould, brittle clay, plus an impatient me) it's OK. I can always use them as dungeon or terrain decoration (broken statues of rats and trolls/ogers - that will give the players food for thought!) or even frankenstein them on some other critter...  I wonder if I can squirt hotglue into silicone moulds? The end result would be super-sturdy... |
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 19:09:51 GMT
I don't want to ruin any of my moulds, so I dabbed a bit of hotglue on one of the pieces I had whittled down from a mould. And what can I say - as soon as it was cold, I could peel the hotglue off without any problems! So I filled the rat's head completely and put something around it to keep it the cuts closed. At this moment it is cooling down, and I can't wait to see the result!!!  Guys, if this really works,... Making moulds opens already up so many possibilities, but using hotglue as a medium would be another quantum leap! Not only is it much more convenient and time-saving (you don't have to let the clay harden and dry for one or several days), but it would also make possible very delicate moulds - the kind of stuff that would have crumbled when you only as much as looked weirdly in it's direction. |
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Post by tauster on Nov 30, 2014 19:44:51 GMT
IT WORKS! HEU-friggin-REKA!!! The rat's head looks pretty good. It pops out of the mould better than the clay (plus the added advantage that I don't have to clean the mould and brush out all those teeny tiny clay leftovers). The level of detail isn't perfect, but it's quite good. The picture isn't the best; even to the naked eye it is hard to see the details on the hotglue. I'll paint it up tomorrow, then we'll see how good it really came out.  So I made a hotglue gear. Cooling time was less than 10 minutes. Compare that to clay: Wait 1 or 2 days, plus probability of the clay breaking = definitely 100%   I also chose another mould with an extreme level of detail. As you can see, there's still an issue with air bubbles, but my gluegun was already a bit cold when I made this one. I imagine that with really hot and runny glue, the air bubbles will rise, and even if they don't pop on the surface - as long as they rise only a bit, they're out of harm's way.  So really, who needs 3D printers when you have silicone, starch and hotglue? |
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Post by sgtslag on Dec 1, 2014 3:54:50 GMT
For future reference, try applying a black wash, or even black shoe polish (rub it on, then rub it off with a rag, which will leave it in the recesses), to the Hot Glue castings, to show the level of detail captured in the finished castings. I saw (a year ago?) a web page demonstrating how a fellow was able to make injection mold castings, using home-made molds, and Hot Glue for the plastic being injected. He used good ole' Plastic Army Men figures to make molds from, as they would not generate IP issues. His castings came out pretty good, with minimal loss of details, and minimal issues in the casting. Your success backs up what he posted. I've always had this in the back of my mind, but I've never had a need to cast anything... Yet. Thanks for sharing your results. Cheers!
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Post by tauster on Dec 1, 2014 19:52:47 GMT
sgtslag, I primed 'em in thinned-down black yesterday and it did really help bringing out the details. It'll be better after a few drybrushings, I'm sure. Three things on the pic below: 1) As expected, the half-gear totally broke. I can salvage the gear's teeth for some future decoration and will break the gear's body into little rock chips. 2) The faerie mould is quite decent. As you can see, there's still a lot of dried-up clay in the mold, which meant lost detail. But for an ancient statue it will work just fine - these things aren't exactly pristine. 3) A pair xmas gnomes my mother made that will definitely cause some smiles on my office desk. 
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Cheers!