Friday, January 29, 2010

Volcano Update

Getting black Paint into a lava slope is very time consuming chore of going back and back and back, fortunatly I had poured thinned black paint over the entire piece, over a large baking pan to stain it all "kinda black" before I started painting. Textured brushable caulking filled in some of the craks between layers nicely.

So top left, black stained foam gets textured caulking spread over alot of the corners and flat areas that figures will be placed on. Same with thetop right pictures. Bottom picture shows black paint applied liberaly over the entire board and the start of a lava channel in the lower left of the picture. The beautiful yellow glow on the black is from the neon light reflecting on the wet black paint unfortunatly..

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Paint Table General Progress Update

So Ive been busy with doing bases of finished and unfinished figures with the arrival of more textured brushable caulking! Decided to get them all done and out of the way.

Lots of  Badies getting their bases finished and ready for the game table. Synthetic Kong is also coming along with an easy to identify figure that I was lucky enough to fight a mech right hand to go along with the mech left hand! Pops coconuts 2 at a time.. or heads.. Took the tip from one of the LAF boards to pop over to pet smart and get the bottom piece at a PET SMART.  Bought it as you see it, ready to use. Might pop back and grab another to partly demolish for "fallen" parts. This is saving me a lot of modeling time that I can divert back into more figures and playing time :)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Lava Monsters Await

Got to work on the Magma Brutes I recieved today. A blade and glue resolved the All in The Same Pose, and with just a tiny bit of fill work as I cut into the shoulders and rotating left little to fill.

So, on the right are the figures as recieved. Enamel Orange and Enamel black or shiny black plastic. On the left are same figures with a dark yellow dabbing, polyurathane coating to make it shinny , then flat black on the "cooler" sections. I decided to work up the bases and will probably cut round metal disks to fit under for the magna stick boxes I use to travel figures with.

And there you have it. Lava Men ready to defend the Volcano.

Creatures vs Adventurers

Shipment of creatures arrived, taking a break from the encounter placard grind;






Now for some fast paint touch up on some of them completed already, not all of them!


Thats nuff for now. Back to painting.

Dungeon and Dragons Game Night

Thought Id post what goes on Tuesday nights; D&D! Sticking to first names;

From the left, Chris, Rank DM! "fear me", next is Mark; Male Elf Druid with pet Boar (or is it a badger..), then Allison; Female Dwarven Bard, Tina; Female Halfling Cleric, Brian; Male Barbarian Warrior / Caster; Rick Male Barbarian Warrior, Debbie; Female Half Elf Ranger... with pet Riding Dog, where the heck am I, doh, picture taker.. Female Elf Rogue.





Here is the DM standing his position behind his DM Screen, the pictures are moveable placards for Initiative order. Here is the source of much groaning! I attribute all my bad die rolls to the wall of "omg" Im last again....



Doing battle! Dice are for the Klik Insect tribals lending a hand on some really tough Troll Like Giants...
Ah here I am, keeper of the lore, wondering where the Rangers bow fire would end up this time? would Brians Barbarian get another feathered shaft in the back?? Or would someone else get the fumbled arrow??? And that, besides Pizza, Bread Sticks, Preztles and lots of drinkables filled the evening.





Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Volcano Encounter Placard Start

So with out much Ado:





Stacked Styrofoam with hot glue to hold it together for the side of the volcano. Choice of realistic looking or game encounter playable, had to go with playable so its Layered rather than sloped. Bottom picture has some raised blocks added to sculpt so it breaks up the stair step effect some, caves added of course, maybe do a lava flow out of the bottom one.. to lead to the lava field!  Shaping, tried to use a lighter.. switched to a soldering iron that for the most part never touched anything, though the occasional whiff of smoke, had to air the place out some. More tommorow Im sure.

Lava Field Encounter Placard

Thought to sum up all the updates into one article for the archives. So started with a floor tile, 12 x 12 inches. The object of the piece was for a very dangerous setting for tropical island or anywhere there would be a volcano that the Adventurers might investigate. Hot flowing lava is certainly more dangerous than cold blackened fields are. So first photos:


Styrofoam cut and hot glued onto the to tile to start, left over foam and the tile is like 75 cents. Left shot shows the way I chose to round the edges of the foam, with a BBQ lighter flame. Have to move it constantly, or it will cause a spot to catch fire. You could shave the edges with a xacto blade or similar and then pound on the foam with something to give it a mottled shape, but I chose to risk life and limb with the flame approach. Piece is ready for textured brushable caulking.




So once the piece was textured, using smooth untextured on the "tops" of the islands and on the off board edges of the foam to make them more durable , I primed it all with white spray paint, the brushable caulking, Kel Seal, have been smoothed over the entire piece. As it turned out there were a very few small spots that did not get covered but did add some very nice detail of jagged surface areas. Moving on, on the right, first coat of dark yellow paint in the lower channel areas, hottest. Then Dabs of Burnt Orange paint applied where I was going to spread it, saving time not having to move brush from a pallet to the board and back.


Orange and Brown paints applied. I did wait for each coat to dry before applying the next coat! I was just posting updates as something to do while waiting for the paint to dry :) No special work done to this point, just apply and brush or pat paint where I wanted it. Drag a little dry brush around with the dark brown in the lava channels for visual effect. I like to use at least 3 colors in an area to bring it to life, as 2 colors makes an area look... bland or something.


Here are a couple of final shots of the piece with a lost adventurer to leap from island to island. Last coat is black applied to the island tops and just a touch down the sides, cooled bits sliding into the channels due to the underlying heat. Not the best paint job, but totally new style of stacking colors for the final effect. The brushable caulking, even textured, did not give a rough enough surface for the "bubbling" lava to highlight the colors very well. Have to experiment with other materials when I tackle the Volcano piece.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Lava Field Encounter Tile

Never tried painting Lava before.. challenging, and having lots of tiny pits to take the yellow wash would help, but my textured caulking did not quite meet that challenge. Regardless! Onwards:




On the Left is the Red Orange, followed by Dark Brown, and a Final Black overlay.  This was a fairly easy board to make and I think I will do another with a mainly dark red / black overlay, very small cracks, to make it a fairly well cooled lava flow.

Underground Headquarters

Thought I would throw together a generic underground headquarters, roughed in the walls, providing inter connecting rooms. Stairs down , doors and some interior work to be done, but should provide an area for those "close encounters" . I made the walls thick enough that someone should not ask, "Can I shoot through the wall?"

Not a main line project at the moment.

Lava Field Update

Got some color on the encounter placard:


First Colors after a White primer sprayed on to the entire placard. Next color got dabbed on the tops of the raised chunks of cooler lava for easy application, rather than working from a palette on the side of the work.


So here is the burnt orange color spread about, next will be a dark brown followed by a black. Probably have to tweak the

Sunday, January 24, 2010

White Water effect for rivers

OK, so you want to show the direction of water flow and that the water is moving fast. Rocks in the river give useful visual info on that.

Three River rocks with foaming water swirling around them is the goal here. For my chasm piece these will allow me to place them when I want a water bottom to the chasm, or pick them up and put down my dry bottom piece I'm working on.

Lava Field Update

Launched the Lava Field encounter placard pretty well today:

The styrafoam is hot glued to the floor tile. Process to more time to cut the styrafoam that to hot glue it. Next, to mottle the surface I used a barbacue long neck lighter to wave a flame near the foam while it was upside down. Pay LOTS of attention when trying this, it catches fire if your NOT REALLY CAREFUL. Otherwise cut the edges down and then pound on it with something to rough up the surface.

Here I have applied both textured and smooth brusable caulking with the textured down in the channels for dry brushing, the smooth on top for the crusted hardened lava effect. When its dry I can start the 4 color painting to get it to the final stage for use.

Smaller Filler Paint Work

While waiting for Encounter Placards to dry, paint or caulk, I have started working on some of my cthuloid critters from the Monster Apocalypse game that I bought online. To the left are the former pale green and purple slug things done with Blue wash, new green dry brush and a few other detail colors here and there and on my flat metal bases.
To the right are the base coats over the generic green that all the Mons. Apoc. figures come in, working on red and dry brushing them to lighter red while leaving the tentacles the same purplish on all the figures to lend a uniformity of purpose.. they just want to be close to the human.....

Whats this??? Well, I do have around a 1000 medieval Fantasy figures... and then I'm involved in a D&D campaign where my barbarian friend is using an unpainted off brand line figure that looks like it was made from playdoh and a super sized sword thing stuck through its arm... This is a loner till he gets something done on his own :)

Saturday, January 23, 2010

White Water in the Chasm

Made a template for the dry chasm bottom, then got to work putting rapids down in the chasm bottom. Using what I learned on my river construction, getting the choppy water look of fast moving water was fairly easy, made a 2 inch wide spatula to pat the smooth brushable caulking after smearing on enough to cover the bottom, just barely.





Here is the first wet blend of bit of green and browns. Second coat of dark brown wash I think, then some light , very light brown to hit the choppy highs of the water, plus a couple of removable rocks to add some action.

Chasm 4, Nearing Rock Completion

Painting 95% done, bit of color spots to add around but not to much. The floor of the Chasm has yet to be prepped for removable pieces for it to be Water, or dirt, or Rugged Rocks though I could do it as Water with a rugged rock cover pieces... Hmm save steps...

So now for some touch up and lay out of the bottom gorge area.

Cavern Encounter Placard



Ok, got ahold of the smooth Kel Seal brushable caulking to smooth down some of the roughness that the textured caulking gave the board. So in photo order from start to where I am now:


12" x 12" Floor tile with stacks of Styrofoam hot glued to it. Next step was smearing brushable caulking to the Styrofoam to smooth out the edges and hide the obvious pebblely surface of the foam as well as the straight razor cuts. Some test smears of paint are the yellowish color. Most caverns when they lit with light are Not grey in color but a wide variety of earth tones, which is the approach my color choice takes.



After getting some Kel Seal Smooth brushable caulking and applying to the surface area over the textured caulking I dabbed on 3 shades of paint by simply squeezing the bottles of craft acrylic paint around the board. With a half inch soft brush that I would stick into a cup of water about every other brushing to make the colors blend and bleed, I proceeded to cover the board, going back and filling in white spots that showed after the paint started to dry.



Here is the final shot, not much loose rock in an underground cavern and I only hinted at Stalagmites (ground formations... Stalagmites have to hold tight to the ceiling..) though I could and probably will go and add them at some time. And there you have it.