'Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,' the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. 'Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.'

-Robert E. Howard
Beyond The Black River

Corrupt Cliffs

Corrupt Cliffs
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Showing posts with label 25/28mm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 25/28mm. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Episode 89: Desert Ruins!

Welcome back! I recently decided to do full terrain at conventions, and because of this, I found myself in need of a few new desert ruin pieces. I decided I should video the build and put out a youtube video for it!


I have provided a table of contents to take you to the pertinent locations in the video you may be interested in.
The ruins will be built from XPS and based on MDF board.

Needed:
  • MDF Base (1/4")
  • XPS Foam
  • PVA GLue.
  • Hot Glue.
  • Sand.
  • Various colors of brown from dark to light.
  • Black paint.
  • Gloss varnish.
  • You will also need Sculptamold,
I mentioned a few other things that I used at the convention that I thought people might be interested in as well.

18" Lazy Susan for Ultimate Dungeon Terrain
Amazon Fire HD 10

These last three links take you to Amazon, which gives me a small commission on each sale, helping to support the blog.

If you liked this article then don't forget to subscribe to get the next exciting installment on pulp gaming both Sci-Fi and Fantasy!

If you have questions or comments don't forget to hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube or Instagram!

Make sure you don't miss a single post and subscribe by e-mail today!

If you need to check out any of these great games stop on by DriveThruRPG and pick something up through my affiliate link to help support the blog!

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Adventure Wednesday: The d6 Outpost

On the far reaches of the kingdom sits a small fort. Its only purpose is to guard the border and warn of approaching threats from the west. The land is desolate and the soldiers stationed here rely on supplies from the nearest city, some two days hard ride away. This place is isolated and those unlucky enough to be here spend day after day looking out at nothing......

Welcome to Adventure Wednesday! Last week we started Story Seed Tuesday. I decided I should move this to Wednesdays so I could have my efforts to create weekly content more spread out across the week. This is our first Wednesday installment and I already though I would do something a little different. If you like this idea, I will see about including some roll tables with future adventure ideas. As we go forward the blog will end up with a good store house of adventure roll tables to go along with the monsters of Friday's Forgotten Fiends!

Stories about an isolated outpost or ship are common place and work equally well for sci-fi and fantasy. Players can either be stationed there when things start to go wrong, or they could be responding to word of something bad, perhaps the last supply train never returned?

Today I am going to provide a few roll tables that will allow you as the GM to generate a quick plot you can use to build an adventure around. The tables are setting agnostic and should work as well for D&D 5e as they do for The upcoming Expanse RPG by Green Ronin Games.

Step 1: Roll for the outpost type.
1d6 Roll
Result
Goods, Cost Modifier
Number of goods
1
2
3
4
5
6
Guardpost
Gateway
Place of Study
Isolated Community
Trade Outpost
Religious Order
-2, +20%, 3
0, +10%, 2
+2, +10%, 2
0, +20%, 1
0, +10%, 4
0, +20%, 2

Step 2: Make a number of rolls equal to the "Number of Goods" rolled in Step 1. Modify these rolls by the "Goods Modifier".
1d6 Roll +
Goods Modifier
Result
1
2
3
4
5
6
Weapons
Armor
Food
Lodging
Basic Goods
Lore about the Area

Step 3: Determine the environment the outpost exists in. Make sure to note if this is a fantasy or a sci-fi outpost.
1d6 Roll
Location
1
2
3
4
5
6
Edge of Kingdom/Deep Space
Rocky Area/Asteroids
Coast Line/Gas Giant
Forests/Rocky Moon
Deserts/Lagrange Station
Mountains/Class M Planet

Step 4: Determine a basic plot
1d6 Roll
Location
1
2
3
4
5
6
Attacked by Enemy Faction (Military, pirates, etc)
Attacked by Natural Enemy (Wild animals, alien organisms)
Natural Catastrophic Event (Earthquakes, asteroid strikes)
Plague (Disease outbreak, Zombies, Mutations)
Betrayal (Higher up at outpost has sold it out)
Outpost has been taken over in secret (Enemies unknown to the players now control the outpost)

Step 5: How are the players involved?
1d6 Roll
Location
1
2
3
4
5
6
Relief Effort
Stationed at Outpost
Sent to Investigate
Escort to or From Outpost
Evacuation of Outpost
Rescue Mission
Infiltration


Now that we have a few fun tables to roll on, let's generate a few story ideas!
Setting
Type
Goods
Location
What is happening?
How are the characters involved?
Fantasy
Trade Outpost
+20% cost
Weapons, Armor, Lodging, Basic Goods
Edge of the Kingdom
Natural catastrophic event.
Sent to Investigate the cause of the event
Sci-Fi
Religious Order
+0% cost
Basic Goods, Lore about the Area
Asteroid Base
Attacked by a natural enemy
Evacuation
Fantasy
Religious Order
+0% cost
Weapons, Food
Mountains
Attacked by an enemy faction
Members of the order, or hire as guards
Sci-fi
Gateway
+10% cost
Lodging, Lore about Area
Lagrange station
Attacked by an enemy faction
Rescue Mission

There you have it. Four super quick story idea seeds and a set of table to generate a lot more all revolving around an isolated outpost.

If you liked this article then don't forget to subscribe to get the next exciting installment on pulp gaming both Sci-Fi and Fantasy!

If you have questions or comments don't forget to hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube or Instagram!

Make sure you don't miss a single post and subscribe by e-mail today!

If you need to check out any of these great games stop on by DriveThruRPG and pick something up through my affiliate link to help support the blog!

Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

The Expanse RPG: The Zone, Part 1: The Basics.

I first encountered this idea in Conan 2d20, which isn't surprising since it was the RPG that brought me back to this hobby. I've seen it used a spatial idea in other games since then, which isn't to say Conan was the first, just the first to me.

When not playing theatre of the mind, games like Pathfinder use a grid or a measurement to move miniatures around and determine if they can attack. ie Thogar, my warrior can move 20' in a turn and a square is typically 5 feet, allowing my character to move 4 spaces in a turn.

Zones allow us to understand our spatial relationships but remove the idea of moving 4 squares or 5 squares. It gives up some granularity and some level of tactics, but gives us a fairly nice bridge between the boardgame/wargame feel of a grid/measurement based system and a theatre of the mind.

If you are unfamiliar with a zone, you can think of it as a spatial area where some action might take place. It's size isn't *THAT* important but should probably make some sense given the encounter. If we take a generic tavern we might have 4 or 5 zones.
  • The Bar.
  • The Front Entrance.
  • The Tables.
  • The Fireplace.
  • The Dark Corner.
Instead of measuring your 4 or 5 spaces a character can generally use their standard action/move to simply move from one zone into another. Moving around inside a zone is generally a simple/minor/half-move action depending on the game you are playing. Yes it removes the ability to do tactically think about where a character is moving and if they will trigger attacks of opportunity or similar. Yes it removes the ability of some players to be a little faster than others. What it does give you is a fairly simply way to spatially show about where players and their antagonists are located in an environment.

You can also fairly easily define areas that are slower to move through by simply making those zones a little smaller. Consider the following graphic showing a road flanked on either side by dense forests. Without specifically counting squares we can see that the road is a faster way to travel and in this case, twice as fast.

You can further make the environments interesting by adding skill tests or increased difficulties to the zones. In Conan 2d20 perhaps the forests add +1D to all skill tests including combat unless they are at home in the forest. In something like ICRPG where you set a TN for the room, you could now set it for each zone instead. Perhaps the zone is on a cliff edge and requires a dexterity test to not slip and another once slipped to not fall off the edge? As you can see it has the ability to add a lot of environmental factors in pretty easily.

You can define these zones with terrain as normal, although this is often the most challenging way to do it as terrain will often bleed together and where a zone is exactly can be difficult for a player to see, especially if they are used to a grid or measure based system. Another way to define a zone is with a set of simple index cards, and I would be remiss without mentioning Runehammer's collections of index cards that make excellent zone markers. Currently he is up to four collections of these cards, with volume 3 being sci-fi oriented.

Our next installment is going to look at how I am thinking of implanting this with Expanse given the full set of Modern Age rules. Things may change but it will give us a good starting place on how to implement this awesome and simple system in our games.

Saturday, August 4, 2018

The Expanse Rpg. Miniatures?

The quick start presents the rules from a "Theatre of the Mind" perspective. They do mention miniatures and how to convert speed onto a grid scale, but this isn't Savage Worlds. However if you are like me you like miniatures and an excuse to buy more is a good thing!

At present there are no official Expanse miniatures. There are of course various sci-fi and near sci-fi collections out there. I made an attempt to go out and find a few of those and categorize them into areas they might fit into the universe of The Expanse.

This is far from a definitive list and most links will take you to whole collections of similar figures. I also realize these might not be the most ideal miniatures for your vision.

If you have some others you think would make awesome Expanse figures drop me a comment!


The Executives and Politicians


These make up the higher end of government and business. Characters like Chrisjen Avasarala, Sadavir Errinwright and Jules-Pierre Mao.

Men in Black
Copplestone Castings
Francis
Hasslefree Miniatures


Star Helix and Other Security Firms


The private security of the belt and inner planets. Guys and gals with guns, also investigators like Miller

Cops and Paramilitary
Em4/Moonraker
Suits
em4/Moonraker
Gov't Types
Heresy Miniatures


MCRN/UN


The Military. Naval officers, Marines, etc. Bobbie Draper of the MCRN Marines is an example.

Nova Corp
Reaper Bones
Troopers
Em4/Moonraker
Inspectors
Heresy Miniatures
Admiral Edwards
Hasslefree Miniatures


OPA


Militia types representing the loose knit organization of freedom fighters and terrorists

Citizen Militia 1
Copplestone Castings
Scavengers
Copplestone Castings
Scavenger Heros
Copplestone Castings


Civilians

General people living and working on Mars or Earth

Newsteam
Copplestone Castings
Modern Civilians
Old Glory Miniatures


Player Characters

The Holdens, Nagatas, Burtons and Kamals of the universe

Anti-heros
Heresy Miniatures
Laran Jax
Hasslefree Miniatures
Danica
Hasslefree Miniatures


Company list

A list of the companies used in picking a few miniatures I felt might fir into the Expanse. I am sure there are others with these manufacturers as well as others. Let me know what you think!

Monday, May 28, 2018

Easy DIY Gaming Table Upgrade!

Welcome back!

Last year, late in November I did a quick video on what I use for a gaming table. It was easy and cheap and created a cool lifted surface. You can find that video here: Gaming Table!

I have always planned on rebuilding the top and making it nicer. Over the last year it has also warped a little, but not enough to be unusable. Since it functions and it would be a solely aesthetic upgrade it has become a low priority in my life. I did however have another idea I wanted to try out; under table LED lighting.


As you can see it creates a pretty cool effect! I got this inexpensive set of lights from Aliexpress which has a nifty remote and allows changing of colors pretty easily! All of the colors are good except for the pure yellow, which looks more yellowy green.

Total price for the strip and remote was about $10cad. Super inexpensive! I did have to get a battery for the remote that ran be a couple of dollars as well, but it didn't turn this from a $10 upgrade to a $30 upgrade. It was still under $15 when it was all said and done.

This project is based on a raised tabletop, but if you had a sunken play area you could use it on that as well just as easily. It adds a new quick and easy dimension to your game that can really help with mood, if you can add this to your area, I highly recommend it!

Have you done any upgrades like this to your gaming area? LED lights? something else cool? Drop me a note and let everyone know what cool things you have done!

One last thing don't forget that buying items through quite a few of the links I provide gives me a small kick back which helps to support both the blog and the YouTube channel! Thank you to everyone that stops by and enjoys my ramblings!

Until next time! Keep it weird!

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Printable Miniatures. Part 2, Basing the figure.

In the first part of this series on paper miniatures I went over the various ways to get the paper miniatures with links to some kick ass guys on drivethrurpg as well as some links to a few custom tutorials. Today I want to continue this series with a short discussion on bases and the pros and cons of each type.

The easiest way to base the paper miniature is to grab a piece of foam core, put a slot in it and insert your figure. It may require a coin or similar on the bottom to give it a little heft. These are cheap, plentiful and with a little work, can look good. This isn't the method I use, but Wyloch goes over it in his video on creating the paper miniature.

The next option is also a DIY option with the caveat that it requires you to have access to a 3d printer. 3d printers can be fairly expensive, especially a genuine Prusa, however there are several models of inexpensive printer that are good for basic printing for a gamer.

I have an A-net A8 which is a decent machine, print quality wise, and gives you the ability to try getting your feet wet for not a lot of money. It is built with cheaper components which should be replaced if you are going to use it a lot though. It will be more than able to print up bases and other things that you might find at a website like thingiverse. These two links are some samples of thingiverse links you can use for basing paper miniatures. Sample 1 Sample 2

Moving away from the DIY option we start to move into some for of clip. The first and cheapest version of these is a binder clip. These are a pretty good solution being easily available, inexpensive and coming in multiple sizes and colors. I don't personally use them, and right now as I am typing this I am wondering why. The only real drawback I can see to these is they will be a little more fiddly when it comes to changing your figures over. You will have to re-insert the metal handles so you can easily open the clip to remove the figure. I think the pros may outweigh the cons here.

You can get a cheap acrylic base designed for boardgames as well. These are pretty good and give you a clear plastic base, and can be purchased in multiple colors. The downside to these is they require a fairly thick card as the clip is fairly wide. I have used these and need to use several layers of construction paper to make them work. Despite how inexpensive they are, I don't really recommend these ones unless your paper figs are quite thick.

The ones I have purchased and use the most are most similar to the binder clips, they can be found sold as "card holders". These are easy to use and replace the figure into. I have only found them in black, which is another strike against this style. The downside to these is they are among the more expensive option, that being said they are still going to run you less than $.50CAD cents each. As much as I like a lot about this style, I doubt I'll be buying more of them.

Litko makes a range of bases for paper figures, similar to the 3d printed model I talk about, these are square or circular and come with a curved slot to hold your figure. The downside to these are two fold. One, they are getting upwards in price, running about $.50CAD each. Two, I don't find litko to have especially friendly shipping options to Canada. If you are in the USA this might be a great option where they will be about $.40USD each and have better shipping options.

Over the past year of using paper miniatures in most of my games I have used several of the above purchaseable solutions. At this time I have not tried the binder clips or 3d printed models, but I think that the binder clips might be the best option being inexpensive, easy to get and in multiple colors. I have also not ordered from Litko. Another possible downside to some of these is that they represent non-standard bases sizes. I don't think it'll take much to make them work, but it's something to think about.

Now that we have our bases and figures, next week we will talk about the process I go through when I assemble these figures! Until next time, keep it weird out there!

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Printable Miniatures. Part 1, Getting the Image.

In Part 2 we talk about basing options!

We all love miniatures, or at least I suspect you do if you are reading my blog. If you play a system that uses a lot of smaller level fodder type characters, such as a 2d20 system or Savage Worlds, you might find it hard to have 15 or 20 of a single figure type. Even for me, with the Conan board game to pull from, it can be hard to have enough bad guys.

Custom Minis from a Ghoul stock image I got from DriveThruRPG
Enter the paper miniature, sometimes refered to as flats. I first came across these when I was getting back into gaming and watching the various channels on youtube that exist. Check out Wyloch's tutorial on how to make your own.  He goes through how to make these props, step by step using images found images.  Please be respectful of copyright when you are building printable minis this way.

We also have Printable Heros over on Pateron. For a couple of bucks you can get access to the cool collection of figures he has produced. For me though, I often need something fairly specific and I am building them pretty close to the last minute. I don't have time to search the net for the image and cut and paste it, trim it up, size it and get it ready for play. Sometimes I just want to do a quick search, print out the figure and get it on my table. For this I go to DriveThruRPG.

I am sure you are all aware of DriveThruRPG. If you are not click the above link and it will take you to a wonderland of digital products, BUT back to printable miniatures.

These guys are probably my favorite shop creating printable miniatures. They are have a wonderful distinct style and he has a wide variety to fill many many different gaming roles! Get them here!
Another store that has an excellent selection of figures for use with your games. Like Okum arts there is a wide variety of figures from fantasy to sci-fi. Get them here!
The ICRPG Core set is more expensive but comes with a wealth of content, including a selection of printable miniatures for your table in Hankerin's distinctive black and white style. Get it here!
These guys have a wide selection of printable miniatures(some are even free!) as well as papercraft buildings. Get them here!
A later entry to this list, as I just found them recently is Trash Mob Minis. Like Okum Arts above these guys have an impressive collection of paper figs in a very distinctive style. I recommend checking them out!

There is a wealth of people creating these printable heros and monsters! Part 2 of the series will talk about the supplies I use to make mine, as well as some alternatives. Once we have all of our supplies together we will see about putting together some of these creations!

Until then, keep it weird!



The above post contains affiliate links, using them will give this blog a small commission on the sale.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Miniature Scale Comparisons.

"How well do they scale?"

When people talk about miniatures from board games(BG) this is one of the first things that comes up. It is probably second only to people wondering how good they are.

Scale is a common concern among miniature gamers, and it gets asked about different figures from different companies all the time, it is not just asked about BGs.

I recently got my pledge for "Mythic Battles: Pantheon" and let me say, that I love these figures.  I was asked almost immediately about how well they scaled with Conan.  This blog post will attempt to compare and contrast a fairly decent range of figures including Bones, Bronze Age, Conan, Mythic, Wizkids pre-paints and the new line of unpainted figures from Wizkids.

One last caveat.  We are not scale modelers in my opinion.  We use our miniatures and our terrain to make our battles or rpgs come alive with cool ideas.  The figures and terrain we use are seeds to our imagination and serve to keep each of us playing more or less in the same frame.

Starting with  a group shot of all the figures.
Bronze Age, Bronze Age, Pre-paint, Bones, Bones, Bones, Deepcuts, Conan, Conan, Mythic, Mythic.

The last Mythic figure I simply included for fun as it is the "god" scale for the game.


These two images show a Bones Conan-eque figure next to some Bronze Age figures, both are your pro-typical barbarian figs. I think they are pretty similar in scale, with the Bronze Age figs perhaps being more physically proportional. Either way they will work fine together on the table.

The two males next to each other show the proportional differences much clearer. Despite these I still think they will work fine on the table together.
Here we have that same Bones figure next to one of the pre-paint figures. I think she is from the "Rise of the Runelords" collection, but I can't recall for sure. Again the scale is pretty good. She stands at a human height next to our hulking barbarian. He might even look a little short if their bases were the same height. But again I have no issues using these two figures together on the table.
This is a scale comparison between one of the Conan BG figures and our Conan-eque Bones figure again. Again we see more of the same. Decent scale, easily useable on the same table, even thought the Conan BG figure is a little talled.


Same scale we saw in the Conan BG figure, this Mythic BG figure is slightly taller than this Bones figure, but still useable together on the same table. I would also like to take this time to point out the excellent detail on the Mythic figure.
Now lets look at a few non-Bones comparisons. We have seen these two before, Conan BG vs Bronze Age. I think they stack up pretty well together. If I had to make a critical note on the scale differences, the Conan BG fig makes the Bronze age fig look like he has a giant head. From a tabletop perspective though, I think they will be great together.


Comparing one of the new Deep Cuts figures (or Nolzurs I can't actually remember which) to the Bronze Age figure. I think these two are a pretty good fit. She is smaller, but generally in fantasy (and other generally heroic and idealized) art women are drawn with smaller frames.

Not surprisingly the Conan BG and Mythic BG figures both scale very well together. Probably the most similar sized strong dude to strong dude of the lot.


To be complete here is the Bronze Age figure next to the Mythic BG figure. Nothing new here, pretty much what we saw when comparing the Bronze Age to the Conan BG figure.






One final shot of a Bones, Mythic God and Mythic Warrior....



This Bones Paladin is in a pretty similar stance as the Mythic Warrior, and has a base of about the same height. He stands nearly a head shorter. This is getting to the point where they might start to look funny in my opinion, but then again, maybe the Paladin is just a short human or an elf?

Are you more of a scale perfectionist than I am? Do some of these figures not work for you when placed together? Why not let me know what you thin and drop me a comment below?

Monday, February 5, 2018

New video up!

I finally managed to get the first half of a craft video up this weekend!

Hope everyone enjoys it, tried a bunch of new ideas with this one.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

John Carter of Mars: Adventures on a Dying World

"Instantly the scene changed as by magic; the foremost vessel swung broadside toward us, and bringing her guns into play returned our fire, at the same time moving parallel to our front for a short distance and then turning back with the evident intention of completing a great circle which would bring her up to position once more opposite our firing line; the other vessels followed in her wake, each one opening upon us as she swung into position. Our own fire never diminished, and I doubt if twenty-five per cent of our shots went wild. It had never been given me to see such deadly accuracy of aim, and it seemed as though a little figure on one of the craft dropped at the explosion of each bullet, while the banners and upper works dissolved in spurts of flame as the irresistible projectiles of our warriors mowed through them. "
-Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars

Modiphius is bringing another piece of classic pulp fiction to the tabletop.  This time we visit the dying world of Barsoom with it's Red and Green men.  With the constant war between peoples.  With it's Airships and hordes of Tharks.  With it's mighty cities like Helium and Zodanga.

It is currently LIVE! on Kickstarter right now!  It has more than met it's desired goal and is cruising through stretch goals.

The game uses a skill-less based 2d20lite system.  Instead of skills you will combine 2 attributes to determine the outcome of your action.  If you desire to run into melee combat with the Thark about to kill your lover, your GM will probably tell you to roll against your attributes of Daring and Might.  Daring deals with movement and Might physical combat.

Check out the cool character sheet!

I've not seen the whole system, but what I have seen I find exceptionally interesting with a lot of potential to increase narrative story telling.  I look forward to the quickstart rules arriving soon!

If you want to get in early on the community stop by the google+ group, it currently only has 14 members!

Check back often here and on youtube for updates as the kickstarter progresses and we get a chance to play the quickstart rules!

Monday, January 8, 2018

Fantasy Grounds extension for Conan 2d20 v3.3

HO Dog Brothers and Sword Sisters!

Many moons ago I set out to extend the beautiful Fantasy Grounds extension created by the Jolly GM.

I am far from an expert user of Fantasy Grounds, so I will direct you to an excellent blog post by the aforementioned Jolly GM where he describes where to get MoreCore as well as his Doom Pit.
http://thejollygm.blogspot.ca/2017/01/conan-2d20-theme-for-use-with-morecore.html

As I mentioned my extension builds off of his, and so builds off of MoreCore with a specific Conan Character Sheet, Conan NPC sheet and fledgling combat tracker. 

There is still much to do on the project but I will keep spending a little time on it here and there as I can.

The current version is V3.3
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Pg7wGnGcJA6IzsCgK6Z_LVHSSN3SqJCm

V3.4 is in the works
-Proper tab control on NPCs for easier entering. -Completed
-Selecting of NPC type (Minion, Toughened, Nemesis), and the setting of the correct base dice. -Completed
-Increased NPC sheet size to allow for larger buttons.

Known Issues
-Player combat tracker needs work.
-GM combat tracker has a few issues I would like to work on, but should be functional.

Future ideas
-Working/automatic Momentum & Doom Pools.
-Difficulty set for rolls.
-Further work on the Combat Tracker

Please feel free to download and give the extension a try in it's current form, and don't forget to drop me some feedback on what you think.

If you find this to be useful please feel free to buy me a coffee over here at ko-fi

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Pillar of Skulls!

New terrain project up on the YouTube channel. This week we are building a marble pillar adorned with 4 skulls and chains. It is a cool craft and great addition to any dungeon! Check it out!


Thursday, September 21, 2017

Episode 41: Portals of Doom!

New video on the youtube channel on building wall sections with removable panels.  I hope you find it useful!


Thursday, August 10, 2017

3d Printing useful or not?

Awhile ago I picked up a 3d printer from Gearbest. It was the Anet A8, an inexpensive/cheap acrylic frame printer below $300cad. It is a basic FDM model, a clone of the Prusa system.

I have printed in ABS and PLA, and frankly I have gotten nicer prints with the ABS, but it is trickier to work with and has nastier fumes, so I am now working largely with PLA.

My latest video is an overview of printing miniatures (I needed 8) for a scenario using statues/golems.

For me the answer to the question, is that it is useful, though not a replacement to regular modeling and miniatures.

Have a watch and don't forget to leave a comment.


Tuesday, August 8, 2017

The Unknown Isle: Skull peak.


With my next session only a few days away I needed to put together the central piece for what will either be the climax of the evening, or very close to it. I have known what I wanted from the beginning of this part of the campaign.

The players are essentially shipwrecked on a mysterious island. There are hints of magic, there is a giant stockade, a small tribe of natives, an ancient city, apes and of course dinosaurs. On the peak of this island rests a skull cavern.

I had initially sought to carve this from foam and got a decent way into the rough cut of that carving, then I was in Michaels, and being as Halloween is the next major holiday I got a foam skull for about $5cad. It's scale was close to what I was building and would allow me to just short cut around the caving of the skull I was working on.

I didn't have time to film the construction, but I thought I could take a few photos and build a blog post around it. I hope you all enjoy it and find it useful.

And ON TO THE BUILD!

You will need......

Tools
Razor knife or hot wire cutter.
Hot glue gun.
paint brushes.

Materials
A foam skull.
XPS or similar.
Tinfoil.
Papertowel.
PVA glue.




The Skull in question. Foam, ~$5cad at Michaels.
Take the XPS, trace the skull foot print and cut it out.
Bevel the edges and make a cut inwards for the cave.
The skull sitting on it's rocky base.
Using some scrap foam, cut out to boulder shapes.
The front of the skull cave.
Using tinfoil build up around the skull.  Glue it with hot glue.
Test fit the skull and make sure you are happy.
I could have used more tinfoil, but it worked out.
Using some paper towel, water and PVA I applied some body to the piece.
Generally, wet the paper towel, place where you want and brush watered down PVA over it.
After it had dried I added some more shape with tinfoil to make it more rocky.
The other side of the skull.
Add more towel and glue over the new foil armature. 
The more of this you add the stronger it will be, but the longer it will take to dry.
Once the towel and glue is dry, give it a nice black base coat. 
Mod Podge and black paint.
Next base the whole thing in whatever color of stone you want.
I used a dark brown here.
Using a highlight color sponge paint the entire structure to bring out the texture.
You can use 2 highlight colors here for more depth.  Sponge the first darker highlight
on about 60% coverage and the next brighter highlight at about 10-20% coverage.
Add fake greenery liberally, yet sparsely over the skull.  I also glued in a couple of
plastic crystal gems I got at the dollar store.
And the skull peak in place on a rocky plateau ready for some adventurers to come and seek it's mysteries.


This was a fairly quick craft. I managed to build it over a course of a week spending a few minutes here and there on it.  It adds quite a lot of character to the scenario and a dramatic center piece for your game. 

I hope you enjoyed the idea and found it useful.  Feel free to browse the blog for other ideas, or leave a comment below with your thoughts on this project.

And of course come check out the You Tube channel over at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvCRyMzJoQBnjb-Qq5Rng_Q

Keith