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Post by tauster on Nov 19, 2015 20:11:53 GMT
OK, time for another moulding post!  Ever since I started crafting, I've collected lots of plastic packagings. Lots and lots. Some of them come in shapes that practically beg on their knees (or would, if they had knees) to be made into terrain! Heck, sometimes I feel like 'Are you kidding me? I don't need the article but I'm almost buying it just to have that package!'  Boxes of candies. Turned upside down, these look like some weird machine. And if you make individual mould, they make fantastic bases for minis! Small box   Large box  Another chocolate box. Haven't decided yet which side looks cooler...   ...aaand another. The ridges are wide enough for minis to balance on (right pic). The pits should be filled with something unpleasant (molten metal, acid, giant grubs made of rice corns,...)   Some of this stuff practically is a ready-made building...   ...while others look like floor. Food packagings often have that texture. You could use it to stamp miniature bases (greenstuff, milliput etc) with it.  This is one of my favourites. That curvature is awesome, and the abstract geometric outcroppings make it perfect for some weird, arcane machine. Probably goes into my aboleth city!  I think it's time for another paper maché weekend-session in the workshop (only that I have a house to build, so time is even more precious than usually...). I wouldn't want to use modelling paste or plaster because I want a rough texture, and paper maché is perfect for that. Pro-tip: Get yourself the cheapest blender you can find (used models are even cheaper!) and make your paper maché faster than by hand! |
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Post by teazia on Nov 20, 2015 6:01:34 GMT
T, I have a couple of questions:
1. How often do you get to run games with all your goodies?
2. Can we get a big picture/behind the scenes look at your craft storage/warehouse? I am sure it would be just as inspiring as the finished items.
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Post by tauster on Nov 20, 2015 6:31:56 GMT
1) not nearly as often as I want to. I have two campaigns running that both started over 15 years ago, but since many players have moved, we play only once or twice a year. Online solutions like skype might help a bit and we've tried that route last year, but still it's hard to get the whole crew together (and next to impossible since one player couple has been divorced). The most use my stuff sees is in Combat Room sessions, i.e. storyless one-nighters with PCs of the player's choice (Combat Room sessions habitually turn into mini-campaigns because I can't resist sneaking a liiiitle bit of backstory in, which is moreoften than not tied to one of the aforementioned campaigns, and my players want to know how that story ges on after the session ended. With these CR sessions added to the tally, I use my stuff probably every 2 months or so.
2) I'll post a pic of my crafting corner, which is a room in the home office I share with my wife, plus a shot of the workshop I share with my father, where all the bulky, smelly and dirt-making stuff is (dremel, silicone, etc).
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sadric
Paint Manipulator
crafting not enough, not enough time. :-(
Posts: 199 
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Post by sadric on Nov 20, 2015 8:14:00 GMT
And then there's this 1m wide mesh... Dunno if I need the whole roll, but I suspect there will be enough pits and pieces left over to craft for years. Only... what would you do with this stuff if SciFi isn't an option???  Maybe you could make windows out of it? You know "butzenglass-scheiben". Scotty use soemthing like this in his new tilescape windows. He didnt tell us how he craft the widnows, But I guess its something like this. Or glue it down on ground tiles as dwarfen flooring mesh grid, or aboleth flooring mesh grid. I remember someone have used it for Sci-Fi Tiles with an metallic drybrushing. You could use it for Fantasy in the same way. |
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Post by tauster on Nov 20, 2015 18:08:08 GMT
The Butzenglas-idea is great. You could paint two window-sized meshes in grey or metal color on both sides each, then put a üiece of clear (or colored, if you want) plastiv between them.
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Post by tauster on Nov 20, 2015 18:25:10 GMT
(...) 2) I'll post a pic of my crafting corner, which is a room in the home office I share with my wife, plus a shot of the workshop I share with my father, where all the bulky, smelly and dirt-making stuff is (dremel, silicone, etc). Here's the promised shots... My junk heap crafting corner  The even larger junk heap workshop  Now you might understand the deeper meaning of my signature. Yes, it indeed is a bit unorganised, it isn't only the first impression. Sure, since I know where I have put everything, I can make sense of the apparent chaos (more often than not, anyways). But still there's a huge need for organised storage. That's the next project after the house is done, i.e. next autumn or so. Until then I have to live with that chaos. |
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Post by tauster on Nov 22, 2015 14:20:39 GMT
After seeing those color racks on ebay for the umpteenth time, I decided to make ony myself. I've worked a lot with wood revently and finally have the required tools, so milling a few holes in a board shouldn't be that difficult. Or so I thought. Measuring out a 40 cm board. The GW pots are abour 32 mm wide at their bottom; I hava 30 and a 35 mm milling head... the 30 is too small, even with working at angles and 'spinning' the machine. So I drilled in 40 mm intervals.  The distance between the holesproved to be too small - the wood broke away.  So after a few more successful attempts I tried another material: Soft wood fibe boards. I have enough leftovers to build a rack for hundreds of pots, so lack of material wasn't an issue. The real problem would probably be hardness, or the lack thereof... This stuff gets decently hard after being treated with whiteglue,...  ...but it looks like it doesn't take the mill head very well:  So that was out of the question as well. Or maybe it's really because the distances between the holes were too tight? Probably... I could save it by pressing it between two wooden boards and using whiteglue to stabilise it, but it's not really worth that trouble, so this one goes to the junk heap. I tried yet another material, just for fun: Pink foam. A few months back I would have saved every last scrap of this material because I simply couldn't find it anywhere. Building a rack out of this stuff would have been tantamount to sacrilege, given the scarcity of the material. But now I have a small heap of leftovers from housebuilding, so I tried it on a small piece. The result: It stays more or less stable, but that's only because the distances between the holes are now so large that it wouldn't make sense anymore to build a rack out of it - it would simply take up too much space for too few colors. So this will probably remain an experiment... It didn't look like much, so I used the texture rolling pin to give it a more pleasing design.  At the moment the whiteglue coating dries, which will make it reasonable hard. Then I'll paint it up. Maybe I use for something in the dwarven forge... Any ideas?  |
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Post by tauster on Nov 22, 2015 20:20:48 GMT
Inspired by deafnala's monochromatic color schemes, I made some underdark-themed scatter terrain: Very small pieces, based in black with only one layer of grey drybrushing,...  ...but each piece got one (or three) eyecatcher (a idea taken from tabletopminions) painted in strong, almost Sin City-like colors.  Because the details are sometimes quite tiny, here's a close-up of each piece. Bad mushroom meal  Old sword in old hand  Underdark spring, Part one  Underdark spring, Part two  I really like how they came out, considering it's the first batch. I had so much fun with it, so there will definitely be more! |
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Nov 23, 2015 4:24:06 GMT
Consider this idea stolen... just as soon as I finish my mini batch of cave tiles!
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Post by tauster on Nov 24, 2015 7:24:21 GMT
Consider this idea stolen... just as soon as I finish my mini batch of cave tiles! Glad someone picks that up - can't wait to see your take on it! Here's another piece: A little broken-off stalagmite from which (muddy?) water is dribbeling over some terraces into a shallow pond. At least that's the image I had in mind when making it.   I'm basing it on a large twist-off cap for two reasons: 1) Twist-off caps are even and do not warp. 2) It is magnetic on the underside, so I can put it on a fly stand (it will be quite lightweight when dry) and have some underdark spellcaster rip it from the ground and fly around with it. 3) I had the cap around. Two reasons. Working with paper maché is always fun: You get lots of organic-looking texture details, the material is easy to work with ultra-hard when dry. |
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Post by ogrestamp on Nov 24, 2015 9:25:08 GMT
At the moment the whiteglue coating dries, which will make it reasonable hard. Then I'll paint it up. Maybe I use for something in the dwarven forge... Any ideas? Tauster, this could be some type of cistern for the cooling of the molten metal. Of course, the water will be tainted, and with tainted water, there's always some tainted monstrosity living inside it. |
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Post by ogrestamp on Nov 24, 2015 9:28:13 GMT
You could make roadways out of this stuff, perhaps. |
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Nov 24, 2015 16:01:17 GMT
If that mesh is plastic, try melting holes in it with a candle. You want it to sag a bit. After it cools flip it over. Should be able to make some lace mushrooms.
Or really any organic terrain.
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Post by deafnala on Nov 26, 2015 15:37:47 GMT
The mesh is good for LOTS of things. It's makes fine looking SciFi metal floors. For Fantasy, it used as the lead in leaded window; just cut it out to the window size, paint, mount on the backing piece, & add a layer of water effect or gloss finish. OR just frame it & mount it.
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Post by tauster on Nov 26, 2015 16:17:35 GMT
Sadly, at the moment I have neither use for SciFi terrain nor for windows. What a pity... But at least that stuff doesn't take up much storage space!  [afterthought] ....hmmm... Would that kind of glass look good in a giant dwarven smelter / blast furnace? With a flickering LED inside? Ideas, ideas... |
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Post by ogrestamp on Nov 26, 2015 17:18:20 GMT
A blast door with some reinforced windows?
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Nov 26, 2015 18:08:58 GMT
Paint it brown for a Net?
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Post by tauster on Nov 26, 2015 18:09:59 GMT
Something like that. Or simply a window for visually control of the molten material insight. You know, a real dwarven mastersmith can tell the temperature by the color of the molten metal...
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Post by tauster on Nov 27, 2015 9:35:55 GMT
Some progress on the stalagmite pool... it took several days to dry, so yesterday night I could basepaint it black. I also had some other unfinished pieces around that I'll use as scatter terrain.  Oh, and I finally used that scraps of wood softboard to make something. It is a perfect skeleton/core for larger structures you don't want to built completely out of paper maché. Styrofoam would obviously work as well, but since this stuff can soak up PVA glue, I figure it will have a much stronger bond with the the outer layer of paper maché.  I took care to make several levels with plateaus large enough for minis. The boards are 22mm strong, btw. Now I have to wait for the 3kg of PVA glue to be delivered (it took me about 11 months to burn through the last 3 kg - let's see if I can keep that pace up... ).  Forming an outer layer of paper maché shouldn't be much of a problem, since the material takes care of the texture all by itself. A real challenge would be to add, after hardening, another layer of some (cheap!) sculpting material and really sculpt some realistic stalagmite structures, perhaps similar to the beautiful dwarven forge tiles (see here and here)... Not sure I'll go this route, but with a large piece like that )base: 13x23 cm), there would be plenty of space to practice. And if I don't like the result, I can always add another layer of paper maché. |
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Post by tauster on Nov 27, 2015 16:33:18 GMT
Cans of fish = ready-made boats. Just saying...  You've got to remove the metal margins with a can opener. Whenever you handle these cans, really take care: The metal is not only sharp, it's vorpal! |
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Cheers!