Frostgrave Terrain Tiles - Part 3

Previously, on Frostgrave Terrain Tiles

So I have now painted up all of the terrain tiles bar one - which had come unstuck from its base. The plan to vary the colours on the mosaic tiles has been shelved for the moment, simply because getting just the grey colouring down was taking an AGE. The texture required quite a bit of work to get all the blue covered by the Paynes Grey. Once the basecoat was completed the dry brushing went fairly swiftly, though. The biggest issue was ensuring that the effect remained constant between boards. I'm happy to have a bit of variation, but I didn't want any glaring discrepancies.

I had previously been vexed by a way to stop the tiles sliding around, but a trip to the local Poundland furnished me with a selection of stick-on felt circles, designed as anti-scratch pads to go on the bottom of furniture. I stuck five of these to the bottom of each tile, one in each corner and one in the centre, and then spread out a sheet of black felt used for space-gaming. The felt pads grip onto the felt sheet and hold the tiles in place very securely. If it's good enough for Fuzzy-Felt, it's good enough for Frostgrave!

With the tiles completed, I took the opportunity to set them up with the MDF modular dungeon now being sold by John at laser-model.store. John has picked up the old Figurebitz line and offers a range of quality, affordable MDF kits - th Tudor style houses are gorgeous (if only I had the space to store them) and he's a very approachable chap. I have the spy/sci-fi version of the modular dungeon still in kit form. I thoroughly recommend his wares.

Anyway, here's the eye-candy:

32 years worth of miniatures battle it out.

They're statues. Just plain, ordinary, statues, honestly (secretly rolls initiative).

"Nevermind how a giant dragon got in through that door, hit it!"

Ice wall made from acrylic ice chunks hot glued together.

Sneaky spiders prepare for a rear attack...

The stone effect is just a light over spray of white , brown and black. I need to add some washes and maybe a bit of flock here and there as dungeon mould and lichen. 

The bars are actually metallic, but the flash washed them out. some rust effects might pick them up.

Nine tiles in a 3x3 grid on the black felt underlay. Solid as a rock.

Slight gaps between tiles where the knife wasn't quite vertical. 

 I'm extremely happy with the way the tiles have come out. I intend to make some moveable snow drifts and ice patches for Frostgrave, but these boards can serve double duty for all sorts of games. With the right dressing they could be used for any sort of urban terrain. I can see them with chain link, rubble and ruins for use in some sort of GrimDark future or as an arena for some sort of gladiatorial game.

Frostgrave Terrain Tiles - Part 2

Following the test piece I looked at in the last post, I have moved ahead and created my first full board. It actually began as another experiment on one of the "bad" pieces of foam. I wanted to test the glue I had chosen, so I took one of my 30cm square pieces of MDF and stuck the "bad " piece to it. I have used Uhu All Purpose, solvent free glue for this, available from places like Amazon and Hobbycraft amongst others for about £3 per tube. 

I chose this because it's polystyrene friendly and will cure in the absence of air, which PVA and wood glues won't do. I often see people use lashings of PVA to fix large areas together, like sheets of styrofoam for terrain projects, but what they don't realise is that whilst the glue around the edges will cure, it will stay liquid in the middle. I've taken large pieces of terrain apart that have been in use for years and found the PVA still wet in the middle of large areas. It also needed to be solvent free, as solvent based glues will melt the polystyrene.

I applied the glue to the MDF and affixed the XPS (extruded polystyrene) sheet to it. In a couple of places I had been a bit generous and glue squished out the edges like an overfilled, sticky doughnut. Once I cleaned up the excess I found that the corners had lifted away, so added some extra glue there and used some small clamps to hold the sheet down. The glue set quickly and the piece was solidly stuck within about 30 minutes. I left it overnight just to be sure.

I checked the next day and there was no sign of melting or warping, and the sheet was firmly attached across its entire width. I then decided to try out the slabs effect on a larger scale (area 4 in the previous post). I gridded the sheet with 25cmm squares using a ballpoint pen. I also cut out the damaged area of the sheet, making it into a square recess. I plan to create a couple of drop-ins for this area; a trap door from balsa, a grating from some wire mesh and maybe a well or pool of some kind as well.

I then grabbed my handy rock samples and began to press them into the foam. I'd done about half the sheet when I decided to try out another technique. I must confess I have completely forgotten where I first heard of this, but I do remember one of my dad's old model railway books talking about using crumpled tinfoil to create rock faces.

I took a sheet of tinfoil and scrunched it into a tight ball. I then rolled the ball around on the sheet of foam, pressing it into the surface. The effect was remarkably similar to that produced by using the rock samples, but much easier and less time consuming to do. 

I then used the same painting techniques as I used on the sample piece; dark grey (Payne's grey) base coat, mid grey drybrush and then a light ivory highlight.

The completed piece

Close up detail. 

Stack of XPS sheets glued to MDF squares.

"YOU SHALL NOT... oh, alright then, off you go."

I am very pleased with the outcome, and will probably be using this technique for most of the rest of the sheets. The longest bit is applying the Payne's grey basecoat, as you have to get every nook and cranny or the blue shows through quite glaringly.

With the success of this piece I decided to try experimenting some more, and have started doing a few "character" pieces. The one below is a mix of cobblestones and slabs. AGG suggested that the cobblestones could be painted as a mosaic or even use different colours to reflect the use of reclaimed stones.

I also have some smaller sheets, about A5 size, that are much thicker, at least 25mm thick. I plan to texture these as-is to use as risers to add some 3-dimensional interest to the city. Finally, I also have some very large sheets in the shed that are also around 25mm thick. I may use these to create some dramatic terrain pieces like docksides or a stepped plaza of some kind. Watch this space!

Frostgrave Terrain Tiles

This week I have been working on some terrain tiles for Frostgrave. For those who have been living in a cave or on the dark side of the moon and aren't familiar with Frostgrave it is a fantasy skirmish game set in a magically frozen sity of Felstad. Each player controls a wizard and their apprentice and a band of merry cutthroats and vicious warriors. Wizards fight to recover treasures amongst the ruins with the ultimate aim of becoming powerful enough to cast a spell that allows them to discard their mortal shell and ascend to a higher plane of consciousness.

It's a fun game with some nice, if fairly rudimentary, campaign rules and myself and AGG have been thinking about playing it for a while. I have a variety of terrain pieces, a mixture of GF9 Battlefield in a Box, Pegasus Hobbies Gothic Building Sets and various Conflix pieces, plus some odds and ends from an old Mordheim campaign that I will re-use. I've also been painting up some of my 28/32mm Fantasy figures in preparation, including this 30 year old Citadel Winged Fire Demon.

I have been considering various different options for the base terrain for Frostgrave. Initially I was going to use some textured wallpaper glued to MDF boards. I now have two different rolls of textured wallpaper and neither are quite right. I then saw a post showing buildings made from 6mm XPS under-floor heating insulation boards. These boards are made from the ubiquitous "blue foam" extruded polystyrene (hence XPS) and are available from an array of sources including Amazon, Ebay and a variety of online retailers. I have seen them as low as £3.50 for a 600mm x 1200mm sheet. They are also available in differing thicknesses as well, so you can get 6mm, 8mm and 10mm.

Blue foam sheets. Not the most exciting picture I have ever posted.

I picked up two for less than £10 from an ebay retailer and they arrived very quickly, with free shipping as well, which was nice. I cut the boards into 30cm squares using a long ruler and a Stanley knife with a fresh blade. The foam will quickly blunt the blade on your knife, so as soon as you see it dragging or tearing the foam instead of slicing, it's time to swap blades. I have no idea how such of soft material blunts the blade so quickly, but it does. 

The sheets were advertised as 600mm x 1200mm, but they were ever-so slightly larger, probably about 610mm by 1260mm, so I had to trim the edges slightly. I used a set-square and a long ruler to make sure the cuts were all at right angles and switched to 30cm non-slip ruler and a standard craft knife once the long cuts were done. It's important to try and keep the knife vertical whilst making the cuts, or the tiles won't line up evenly after you have cut them.

The two sheets gave me 16 30cm x 30 cm tiles, enough for a roughly 4ft x 4ft grid. I'm intending to try Frostgrave on a 3ft x 3ft board first and see if it's the right size. Two of the tiles included areas that were damaged in transit, so I relegated those to test pieces. That means I have enough tiles for a 3ft x 4ft board at the moment, with two spare "good" tiles and two "bad" tiles.

The plan is to affix the foam tiles to 30cm square 6mm MDF tiles which I had cut from a larger 1220mm x 606mm sheet by my local hardware store (B&Q for those in the UK - if you buy your wood from them they will cut it for you free of charge in many stores). The plan is to add the EVA tiles to the MDF to strengthen them and add a bit of weight to stop them sliding around. I'm tentatively thinking of some way to join all the squares together to avoid moving everything around whilst they are in play, but haven't go very far with the concept. At the moment it's either going to be a collapsible framework or possibly just velcro strips and dots on the undersides.

I have used one of the "bad" tiles to test a number of possible finishes. One of the advantages of XPS foam is that it is strong and dense and can be carved and scribed without crumbling into the little balls that the more common expanded polystyrene (EPS) suffers from. It does have the same drawback that it reacts badly to solvents and many aerosol propellants. Spraying EPS or XPS with rattlecans will cause the surface to melt and shrink and give off stinky fumes. So, hand painting or airbrush is the way to go.

I textured the board in a variety of ways (see below), then painted with some cheap craft acrylics from The Works. I used a dark blue-grey for the base, then a cool grey for a heavy mid-tone drybrush. The final highlights were made using a light drybrush of an ivory/off white. The image below shows the various finishes.

Area 1 is comprised of "crazy paving". This is simply a pattern of random shapes drawn into the foam using a ballpoint pen. It crushes the foam and leave s a nice seam between the slabs. Some areas were "scribbled" on to mimic the depression left behind by a missing stone.

Area 1 - crazy paving

Area 2 uses a rough 1 inch grid to represent more regular flagstones. I lightly drew a grid on in pencil then used the ballpoint to draw around each flagstone. Drawing round each one, rather than just drawing a grid, gives a more natural feel to the flagstones, and rounds off the corners slightly. Cracks and missing pieces were added randomly.

Area 2 - Flagstones

Area 3 is comprised of small cobbles or bricks drawn by hand. small O's abd C's are drawn into the foam using the ballpoint pen, so they abut one another. This is a very time consuming process and there is a tendency for the foam to tear if you aren't careful.

Area 3 - hand drawn cobblestones

Area 4 is perhaps the most interesting. This has been created by pressing the rough end of a broken piece of rock into the foam (actually two pieces of rock, a sample of granite and basalt from my OU geology sample set). The random texture of the rock creates a very realistic rock-like effect (which is probably to be expected since I'm using a rock to simulate rock). The gaps between the slabs were created using the sharp edge of the rock samples, and aren't as defined as I'd like.

Area 4 - stone slabs

Area 5 is cobblestones created using a pen cap and the eraser cap from a propelling pencil. In both cases they were simply pressed into the foam to create an overlapping pattern. I have also seen an example of cobblestones created this way using a rectangular shape made from reshaping some brass tube. There is still a bit of space on the sheet, so I may see if I can find a suitable tube to try this out with.These methods have the advantage of being fairly quick, but the results seem to be much less controllable than the other methods. The pen cap is far too large, but the eraser cap from the propelling pencil looks OK. 

Area 5 - cobblestones again

I have also tried a 6th technique on the other "bad" piece, which is to scrunch up a ball of tinfoil and roll this around on the surface, pressing it in. This leave a random texture similar to the stone but is MUCH quicker and easier to do. This sheet is in the process of being painted right now, but I'll add it once complete.

So, which option do you think looks best? I'm torn between the cobblestones and the rock-effect slabs. I may actually mix it up, and add in some designs to the slabs, so I can mix the techniques up a bit. I also think a variety of styles will make the frozen city much more interesting. Let me knw your thoughts in the comments below.

Dark Ages Church WIP

A few quick WIP shots of my Dark Ages church, inspired by some excellent churches here, here and here.

The main body of the church is made from 3mm foamcore card on a hardboard base, dressed with a mix of coffee stirrers, balsa strip and some balsa sheets for the doors and floor. The floor has been laid as planks, but I suspect it may have been bare stone flags or even dirt in early churches. I've made a bit of a pigs ear of the inside of the doors, as I was going to leave the roof attached,  so they may get boxed in to some kind of archway to hide them.

The thatch roof is green pan scourers split down the middle to make two thin sheets. These are affixed to a roof former of foamcore with PVA and then once dry are painted with 50/50 dilute PVA and water to stop them shedding and add stiffness. You have to be careful with the dilute PVA as it can make the paper backing on the foamcore soggy if you are too liberal.

The building has been under-coated in cream exterior textured paint to seal and add texture to the foamcore. The next stage is to basecoat and then start the highlighting process, which I will start with the airbrush to get most of the colour on, then switch to stippling for the daub texture on the walls. The roof will be airbrushed black and then dry brushed up to a pale grey-brown to represent old thatch.

Dark Ages Wattle Fences

I'm building up a collection of 28mm terrain for some Dark Ages/Age of Arthur gaming, using either Dux Brittanium or Dux Bellorum. As part of this I decided to make up some wattle style fences. Rendera make a nice set in plastic, which I became aware of after I had made my own... 

The construction was fairly simple. I started with a 2 meter length of semi-round wood trim, about 18mm wide and 5 mm high at the peak. I had originally bought this as a base for 15mm bocage, but never got round to using it and it had been snapped this into short lengths to get it into a storage box. I started by sawing off the snapped off ends and sanding down the corners.

I then drilled 2 mm holes along the length of the strips, at semi regular intervals. I varied the distance between them, as I'm thinking the dark ages farmers didn't measure the distances between uprights with any great accuracy.

I then put a blob of super-glue over each hole and inserted a cocktail stick, rotating it as I inserted it to spread the glue around.

Which gave me a veritable forest of spikes. 

These were left to dry thoroughly. You may need to trim the underside if the point of the cocktail stick has protruded all the way through. They can easily be sanded off or cut with a sharp craft knife or scalpel. I then marked off  a line where the top of the fence will be, using a 28mm figure as reference and remembering to take into account the added base thickness that there will be on painted troops. I picked about chest high, just the right height for two dark ages farmers to lean on to discuss the details of turnip farming and pig husbandry. 

I then Sellotaped the tops of the cocktail sticks together. This avoids them pinging across the room like tiny missiles when you clip them off using side cutters. I also tried Dremeling them off using a cutting disk, but it's just as quick to use side cutters. Cutting them this way is quick, but leave the tops slightly flattened. A quick squeeze in the other direction evens them out and give a quite nice roughly cut timber effect.  

I then painted the uprights in Burnt Umber (dark brown) and the base in Burnt Sienna (reddish-brown - GW Bestial Brown is very similar). I left the tops of the uprights unpainted to look like the fresh cut wood inside the bark. The base got a liberal coating of PVA followed by Woodland Scenics Medium Brown Ballast and then Woodland Scenics Medium green flock in patches. The whole thing was then left overnight to dry.

The next day I started to add the wattle to the fences. Wattle is typically made of branches woven between the uprights, either split or whole. I had already experimented with various materials for the wattle itself, including green garden wire, beading wire (which does make great barbed wire, though) and garden twine soaked in PVA, none of which really gave me the effect I wanted.. I had seen a recommendation for thin leather cord on another site and whilst browsing for it at Hobbycraft saw some waxed cotton thread in dark brown. At £3 for 22 meters, I thought this was a bargain, and seemed to be exactly what I was looking for.

I tied the end to one of the uprights and then wove the cord between them, passing on alternate sides as I went. Occasionally I had to stop and push the cord down, as it had a tendency to creep up the uprights. Once I got close to the top I tied off the cord again, and secured it with a dab of super-glue to stop it unravelling. The picture below was on my test piece, which I hadn't painted or flocked at this stage, but the method is the same.

The end result was quite pleasing. I managed to get about 5 or 6 feet of fence from each spool of waxed cotton. They need a misting of watered down PVA from my garden sprayer to fix the flock and ballast in place, and I may experiment with a light drybrush on the cord to bring out the detail, but even as they are I think they look pretty good. I may now go back and re-do a livestock enclosure that I had previously done in garden twine soaked in PVA, replacing that with the waxed cotton.  

 Overall I'm pretty pleased with them. Including painting I managed to get all of the fences completed in two evenings work. The most arduous part is winding the thread around the uprights, which can get quite dull, but the end results are well worth it. I even managed to use my Dremel as a drill without drilling any more holes in the dining room table.

Evil Thorny Hedges and the Indestructible Loofah.

I saw some inspirational pictures of 10mm Evil Thorny Hedges over at One More Gaming Project a while ago and have had an idea in the back of my mind to create some for our Might Armies campaign. I've also been constructing some 28mm dark ages terrain for Dux Britannium, and figured that thorny hedges would be good for that as well.

Picture from One More Gaming Project

I picked up a loofah at Boots for the princely sum of £3.25 whilst on a trip to Hobbycraft and set about cutting it up on my return. Now, Chris mentions in his blog above that the loofah is a seed pod and so as natural plant material is easy to cut. Not my seed pod. I can only assume that Boots have taken to dipping their loofahs in liquid Teflon or possibly Adamantium prior to setting them out on the shop floor. The loofah blunted two new blades in my craft knife before I'd even cut one length. I then switched to scissors and the loofah snapped the scissors! Granted, they were a pair of crappy Ikea multi-pack scissors, but nevertheless, the loofah was proving to be remarkably resilient.

I switched over to a serious tool now -  a retired bread knife. Withdrawn from front-line bread cutting duties, this knife is held in secure storage in the man cave and held in reserve for serious cutting duties. Usually polystyrene loft insulation. When presented with the loofah I found that it did not cut the seed pod, but did jump and do an excellent job of cutting into my thumb. I super glued the wound closed (works a treat)  and considered my next move...

With this level of defiance, there was only one option left: Overwhelming retaliation. I broke out the Dremel. All was going well, I stripped off one length or thorny hedge, and was working on separating out the next  when, in a shower of cutting disk shards, the loofah of doom broke the cutting disk....

I'm beginning to think that perhaps this loofah is truly evil. I've cut the single strip I have managed to remove into sections and started to base it up. It's now awaiting some undercoat before I drybrush up and add on the basing material.

As you can see below, the loofah gives a really great thorny texture. I think, combined with some clump foliage, it could also make a good basis for bocage. The "base" of the hedge could easily be clad in air drying clay or filler to make the raised banks, and either hot glueing or super gluing clump foliage to the top would leave a thicket of branches in the middle.

Titanium Dropship Painting Competition - 2nd Place!

I recently entered the Titanium Dropship painting competition run by the guys over at the excellent Dropship Horizon (a regular lurking zone of mine). The competition had three categories, one for a squad of miniatures, one for a vehicle and one for a piece or small collection of terrain pieces.

I placed an entry in each of the three categories, a set of scratch built colony domes, a GZG Crusty heavy weapons squad made up of the mortars and arc cannons, and a GZG Crusty light walker. Each entry was allowed three pictures, and the pictures I entered are all below.

I'm really pleased to say that the colony domes came second in their category, behind a really excellent diorama of the walker suit from District 9 in the shanty town (the same walker I entered in the vehicle category, in fact). You can see the first place, second place and third place entries at the Dropship Horizon blog, and all the other entries can be seen here.

I was particularly impressed by the conversions done to make some proxies for 15mm GW Terminators and really liked the colour schemes for the NVL troops in this entry. The ACAV combat car really impressed me with the simple but effective colour scheme and a few additions that made it look really lived in, likewise the tank from Paul at Mini Metal Mayhem. He also entered a really great set of Red Shadows that I am not totally jealous of at all.

The colony domes were plaster casts from the blister packaging  of some old Androidz toys that I picked up at the bargain bin at Toys R Us. I made four castings out of the blister packs that I had salvaged, but removing the castings wrecked the blisters, so I'm unlikely to be able to use them again. I've been making quite a few plaster casts recently, and I'm considering in investing in a few of the Hirst Arts plaster moulds to add some scifi greeblies.

I really enjoyed choosing which minis to enter for each category, and it's really prompted me to up my game for next year. Seeing the other entrants was really interesting and has given me lots of inspiration for new techniques and paint schemes to try out.

One suggestion I would make would possibly to have separate categories for professional painters and amateurs. I've no idea if this is common or not - I've never entered a painting competition before so it may be that it's common for the armature and professional painters to be competing alongside each other.