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Post by dmdubbledee on Feb 9, 2014 20:13:27 GMT
Love it! What a fantastic, and as you say, relatively easy technique. Don't feel bad sgtslag--what you're going through happens to me every freakin' time I log on . . .
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Post by tauster on Feb 9, 2014 20:50:03 GMT
Thanks for the praise, guys. sgtslag: As dmdubbledee said - don't feel bad. Acutally I suspect that your posting was meant only half serious, but as always in written communication, reading between the lines can sometimes be difficult. But just in case you really felt bad: Don't. The same thing (somebody making 'my' way of crafting obsolete be coming up with something better) happened to me multiple times, but instead of feeling down that my previous method proved to be 'inverior' (...?!), I feel good because somebody came up with a better way, so I myself can do it better next time and The Craft as a whole (yes, with capital letters *g*) has been advanced another step. There are some clever methods of crafting that, well, I wouldn't say they are exactly 'famous', but they have have spread around the world among people with our common interests. Take for example the method of using Pledge/Future Shine/Whateveryoucallitinyourcountry as a base for washings: A long time ago, a single individual came up with this idea. I'm not sure the inventor is known, but it doesn't really matter to me. Fact is that (probably) a single mind came up with something that was so much out of the box that at first glance, it would look totally bonkers to even try it. But someone had taken the time and has tried it, knowing fully well that the chances of success are slim at best, and whomever he will tell that he tried such a crazy thing would either laugh at him (in good spirit, if they're friends) or - worse - say nothing at all and give him a queer look. He (or she) tried anyway and lo and behold - it worked. It even worked so well that the method spread around the world. Sure, that's not one of the inventions that fundamentally changed anything important (we're not talking about Tesla, Newton or the guys who came up with fire and wheels), but it made a lasting impression on one aspect our hobby. In a little, humble way, this guy has influenced the future of thousands of hobbyists around the globe. And that is something you can be really proud of, I think. I'm not saying that me finding another easy way to make cave walls is in the same league as this - not at all - but that doesnt matter. I have improved something so that others can continue to improve on it. I have given something back to a community that has since the last year made my life so much richer. That's what counts, only that. And if tomorrow you or anybody else comes up with an even better idea for cavern walls that makes my way pbsolete, so be it. ...enough thoughts for the day. Lets get back to craft!  |
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Post by sgtslag on Feb 11, 2014 14:55:00 GMT
You are correct: I was only half-serious. I'm a war-gamer, which means I produce stuff in larger quantities than a RPG DM would want/need. The TP technique is gorgeous, but it would not be feasible to produce the quantities of cavern terrain I want/need, within my lifetime. My carved insulation foam, while bland and simple, in comparison, is much quicker to produce. It's serviceable, it just is nowhere near as pretty.
My technique required less than two hours of carving time, using a bandsaw, and extruded insulation foam. The painting will be incredibly quick using a Wagner Power Painter, and latex house paint, followed by a brushed-on/slopped-on coating of Magic Wash, for shading, then perhaps a matte clear coat sprayed on. In the end, I will invest less than five hours, to produce around 200 pieces of terrain, both rock cavern walls, and ice cavern walls. Like I said, I need mass quantities, within the single lifetime I've been allotted. If I had the time, I would love to create my cavern terrain using your beautiful techniques, but I have to work a real job... Cheers!
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Post by tauster on Feb 11, 2014 23:16:46 GMT
All the walls in the box (almost 2 dozen) took me about 5 hours, give and take a bit (I never looked at my watch). I guess I could speed that process up, as I was in experimental/learning mode. Now that I know how to do it, and with a larger number of pieces to craft, I guess I could halve that time. But of course that's still nowhere near 200* pieces. I had overlooked that number in your post.
* really... two hundred? Wow. I'm speechless!
Please share some pics of the WIP & the final results when you're done!
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Post by sgtslag on Feb 12, 2014 15:44:33 GMT
I kept all of the cut-off's, even the thin ones, as they have good surface curves. They will need to be attached to some sort of backing, to make them durable, but I hate to pitch them. That's why I bought a used Wagner Power Painter: I tried hand painting them, with a 2" brush, but they will need around three coats of paint to cover them. Ack!!! It is waaayyy too tedious to do it by hand.
I am preparing to run the original Giant Series of modules, by E.G. Gygax, as a skirmish game, using BattleSystem Skirmish rules (RPG-lite), hopefully at a local convention, come Summer. I will be using card stock buildings for the wooden fort on the surface, for G1: Steading of the Hill Giants; for the dungeon caverns, I will be using the foam pieces painted charcoal gray. For the second module, G2: Against the Frost Giant Jarl, I need ice caverns, which means I need plenty of the styrofoam pieces painted white, with a blue Magic Wash. For the final G3 module, I will need rock caverns, again.
My system will be modular: cotton fabric, with a mottled charcoal gray pattern, will be laid down as ground cover, with the painted styrofoam pieces placed end-to-end, to form the cavern tunnels; for the glacier, I will use a white fabric ground cloth, with the appropriate blue-tinted white foam pieces used to form the ice tunnels, and chambers. I've used similar configurations before, and it worked quite well.
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Post by tauster on Apr 6, 2014 9:41:31 GMT
I loved sgtslag's ice pillars so much that I just had to start crafting. Fortunately it's sunday and I have a bit of spare time. I already have some ice terrain (some ice wall prototypes and Glacier's Heart, my december 14 craftwar entry), so adding a few columns and pillars would be great. I decided to start with sgtslag's design, but also try some new ways to do them. I already know that some plastic cups will melt when touched by hotglue and make great shapes, so I included two different yoghurt cups. Turned out thet one was heat resistant... Otherwise I used the stalagmite method with crumbled TP rolls covered with hotglue, plus some stuff I had around from failed experiments that I could recycle.  As you can see, the yellow cup melted into a nice organic shape, while the white one didn't change at all. I used it to form a kind of an ice bridge...  ...and cover it with aluminum foil to get some texture on it:  Some of them got basepainted white, but for some I wanted to try out the goop method I ahd already used in Glacier's Heart: ...so here's the baking soda snow-goop (I can't give measurements because I just eyeballed it).  ..and here's how the pillars look:   Some of the texture will settle down because it's still wet. If you touch it during the drying process, you can get some permanent changes. The later you texturize it, the dryer the mass will be and the less the textures will settle back down and dissappear. And that where I am at the moment: waiting for the white basepaint and the snow-goop to dry. |
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Post by vestrivan on Apr 7, 2014 14:46:45 GMT
Cool idea, will try that snow recipe... And a great thread BTW.
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Post by sgtslag on Apr 8, 2014 15:01:35 GMT
Love your snow pillars. I live in tropical Minnesota, and we finally got rid of all of our snow this past week -- Yay!!! Your pillars look typical, and very believable for textures. Love the snow formula! I will be filing that away for future uses. Cheers!
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Post by tauster on Apr 10, 2014 17:45:58 GMT
I've got 3 pieces washed and two of them treated with different finishing methods. Left to right: 1) coated with hotglue 2) glossy acrylic varnish 3) no varnish, only washed with light blue/turquoise  1) Coating with transparent hotglue gives the piece a wonderful sheet of ice. Be careful though that your gluesticks really are tansparent! Mine have a slight yellow tint, so where there's a thicker layer of glue, it looks like some yeti pi**ed on the ice...  It's not visible in the picture, but some places really look like urine collected there. *sight* Other lesson learned: I very much like the combination of aluminum foil with hotglue! The glue gives a fantastic icy feeling (due to the round shapes, it looks like being partially melted and refrozen!), while the painted & washed aluminum foil really looks like cracked ice underneath. The downside is that you need very much glue: This piece alone required 3 long (20 cm) gluesticks. Pieces like these are the reason why I used up 1 kg of gluesticks since october...   2) glossy acrylic varnish: doesn't give you as thick an ice layer as the hotglue method, but at least it shines a bit. works much better if you dust or drybrush it with something pearlescent color or a bit of glitter before applying the varnish (which I didn't do here).  3) no varnish, only washed with light blue/turquoise: I'm not sure I'll leave it as is, just wanted to show you how it looks without any treatment.  Important lesson learned: When washing vertical pieces, the color will eventually follow gravity and collect mostly at the bottom - leaving the pieces vertical sides mostly unpainted. I could have put them on the side and waited until the wash dried, repeating the process with the other side and then washing the ground. I didn't and might or might not do so with future pieces... |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2014 18:23:01 GMT
Have you tried silicone caulking? I used it on my sewer monster for the first time and it was easy to work with. Best part is you can color it and it stays transparent just tinted.
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Post by tauster on Apr 10, 2014 18:36:42 GMT
Have you tried silicone caulking? I used it on my sewer monster for the first time and it was easy to work with. Best part is you can color it and it stays transparent just tinted. So far not. I've used transparent silicone for making gelantiuous cubes, but nothing else. Honestly, I don't like silicone caulking very much: It smells, it sticks to everything, you can't apply thick layers because the lower layers wouldn't harden and even relatively thin layers take ages to cure. There are enough alternative materials out there, so I'll probably stick with these. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2014 23:00:09 GMT
Just a thought. Love the baking soda mix. Got to try that.
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Post by sgtslag on Apr 10, 2014 23:45:09 GMT
#1 really looks like thick ice! #2 and #3 look like snow, to me, with little ice -- yet (given time, snow will compact into ice, or be sun-melted, and wind blasted into ice, over time). Being from tropical Minnesota, I have to say, "Well done!" All three approaches are valid, they just depict different stages of snow and ice formations. I suspect your idea of using pearlizing medium will work rather well. I used it to differentiate the wings, from the body, on a toy dragon I repainted as a Copper Dragon. It is subtle, but it's there. This is likely a perfect application for it.
I, too, have gone through a very large amount of Hot Glue... It is such a wonderful media to work with, but it isn't free, or inexpensive either. I need to build better armatures, which require less application of Hot Glue.
Great stuff. Looking forward to future updates. Cheers!
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Post by tauster on Apr 11, 2014 19:34:16 GMT
I need more ice walls!  So here's the first step in crafting walls: The cardboard core. You really don't need to work exactly here, no measuring involved. Just make some irregular shapes. Of course if you want masonry or brick walls instead of natural walls made of rock or ice, that you would make them more regular.  Next step will be texturing. I could do that with paper maché or use aluminum foil. Still haven't decided which way to go... ...and yes: That's 2 kg of hotglue sticks you see in the background.  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2014 19:46:08 GMT
looks like you'll need every last gram.
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Post by tauster on Apr 13, 2014 17:40:28 GMT
I've painted 'em all up... Instead of using hotglue to icyfy (or is it 'icify'?) them, I took a new acrylic gloss medium I had bought months ago but never got to using so far. It was cheaper than my usual acrylic gloss varnish and brings results that look far better on icy terrain. This stuff can be mixed with acrylic colors to make them more glossy:  I stippled this stuff on and as you can see, it keeps it's form very well, forming icy ridges. Together with the pearlescent drybrush it really sells the ice look. The 'ice lump' is covered with hotglue from the new batch. It's different in color (clearer, not the former yellowish tint) but also needs more heat than my gun can deliver to get really runny...  Even with the new acrylic gloss I think the one below still needs to be covered in hotglue: It just looks too much like crumpled foil. (...and I'm sure my players will make snarky comments regarding its phallicness. *g*) The partially melted joghurt cup:   I was in doubt whether or not to gloss over the large ice/snow pillar since I rather liked the non-glossy look. I still decided to varnish it so that it looks similar to the smaller one, and it turned out quite well.   Two more detail shots:   |
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Post by sgtslag on Apr 14, 2014 14:36:06 GMT
I agree, the glossy coating makes it fit in better. While it may not be the most realistic, it works for gaming. I've found that 'realism' doesn't always translate well into mini's gaming table terrain. I think they all look outstanding. Well done! Thank you, also, for the inspiration, and the ideas! Cheers!
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Post by tauster on Apr 14, 2014 16:24:01 GMT
I agree - 'realistic' is not always the way to go... Thanks for the praise. I'm happy when the stuff I do inspires people, as I get tons of inspiration from this community - so I'm happy whenever this flow goes in both directions!
I recently found some polystyrene padding material in the shape of pockmarked, tripartite stars:  My spontane reaction was to paint them up in a winter-theme similar to the ice-pillars above, but I'm also looking for different (i.e. unexpected) color schemes something that will 'wow!' my players. Since I'm really happy with how my flesh-colored terrain pieces and miniatures turned out, I'll try how this looks. I can't wait seeing my player's faces when the party encounters floating, fleshy stars!  Here's a quick shot of the WIP as it stands now: 1) 2x basepainted white and washed turquoise 2) 3x basepainted white (either washed as 1) or something else - any ideas?) 3) 3x fleshy basepaint The 'ice stars' will receive pearlescent drybrush, plus maybe a glossy varnish. The 'flesh stars' will get a purple wash for the complete flesh effect, plus a glossy varnish for a wet look.  Next will be some different variations with black basepaint; I suspect that strong metallic colors will give a gleaming, luminous appearance. Applied with a drybrush technique instead of a washing (or a clever combination of both?), this might bring out the texture quite well. Let's see... Question to the community: What other color schemes would you think look good?
I have something else where I need some inspiration: Wormwood.   Recently I've teared down two large woodsheds and rescued some of the wood because it has absolutely beautiful 'wormy' textures. I have absolutely no idea what to do with them, so I hope that all you crafters have some cool ideas! Ideally they would somehow fit into an underdark campaign. I know that wood isn't a terrain feature that you usually find in the underdark, but there's always the feydark (from DND 4th edition's Underdark book), where you have a much more 'natural' environment doen there... Another possible theme would be something wormy that's native to the underdark (I have some wormy miniatures...). ...or something totally different - I'm open for everything!
Any ideas?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2014 0:10:45 GMT
I see coral. Bright colors and lots of holes speaks to me as something coral like. Doesn't exactly fit into an underdark setting, but that's what I see.
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Post by gnomezrule on Apr 15, 2014 3:00:49 GMT
You see that sort of streaking in the Grand Canyon. You could make some cool desert pieces.
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It's not visible in the picture, but some places really look like urine collected there. *sight*
Cheers!
Sept 23, 2020 2:51:57 GMT
Cheers!
May 11, 2021 22:57:40 GMT
Nov 16, 2021 6:33:44 GMT
Nov 16, 2021 6:33:44 GMT