Lead Adventure Forum
Other Stuff => Workbench => Topic started by: Centaur_Seducer on September 04, 2010, 05:43:08 PM
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This forum is such a great inspiration when it comes to board building and terrain making and this is my modest contribution :)
The base of the idea started out with me reading the great zombie threads by Uti and Vyper (and probably a couple of more, sorry if I forgot your names!). And after playing some Left 4 Dead 2, with a swamp level, I decided that it would be great to do a zombie game based in the strange outbacks.
I also have a large collection of Darkest Africa minis, so I thought I should have a great season finale with chasing dinousaurs in some unexplored swamp in the middle of the jungle. And obviously a Chtuluesque game with isolated villages and all that stuff.
Since I'm one of those idiots that prefer the boards to have integral terrain, I decided directly that I needed to do a board with modular pieces of terrain.
I started out with the first board (out of 4) so I could get some feeling of the build and to minimize mistake-damages (screwing up one board instead of 4 due to bad planning and stuff like that).
So, with a great "This is going to be awesome"-feeling in my chest, I went to the closest DIY-store.
Unfortunately, they didn't have to usual pink foam, so I had to settle with some Styrofoam. But hey, it was cheap...
My initial plan was to buy one sheet that was 30mm thick and then a second one that was 20mm thick. The 20mm thick was supposed to be cuttet up and glued directly on the other board to form small islands and the river system. The DIY-shop didn't have these thicknesses, so I settled with a 50mm board as I thought that I could easily cut out the system by hand. I mean, how difficult could it be?...
Once back home, I started the rather stupid task of trying to dig out the contours.
That was just difficult, and I just ended up with small white pellets all over the room...
So my solution was to get one of my scalpels that have a blade which is 20mm long and do a lot of horizontal and vertical lines so I could peel off the small cubes by hand.
That did work, but it did take some time (about one hour at least) and didn't really add up to a positive experience at all.
But, I did in the end actually manage to scrape out the contours needed for this board.
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/1.jpg)
Than I slapped on some filler mixed with water to keep down all the white pellets that tend to fall of from time to time.
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/2.jpg)
First a second layer of filler, then came the fun part of marking out all the terrain pieces and where the should fit (not even 30% accurate in the end, but hey).
The brown painted part was originally the size of the hill/cliff that I wanted near the water to break up the board a bit. It turned out to be tiny, so I decided that big is great, so I did it 4 times larger in the end.
About this time I decided that I need trees, and that I should use the great tutorial done by Lt. Hazel
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/3.jpg)
A close up on the "action" encounters I'm integrating onto the board directly. In the modern zombie setting this will be a downed helicopter with crew and zombie virus...
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/4.jpg)
At this point I had come to the conclusion that the board would be really difficult to move or transport, so I needed to make the trees on bases. So I ordered 30 or so 30mm bases to base the trees on (I've so far made 25 trees, and I've realised that I need about 50...). As I want the pieces to fit well with the board, I started to mark up where the trees and bushes should go. I also finished the first of the cliffs (the other one was later on cut down to a minimal as I did really underestimate the thickness of the cork bark).
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/5.jpg)
So at last, time to throw on the concrete-mix. Its a mix of filler, PVA glue, sand and some paint so I could see where I was painting. All credit goes to Captain Blood for this :)
Now the board finally starts to take shape!
I realised that my major mistake (so far) was that I've cut the swamp to deep. And that meant that I couldn't put extra filler, as the weight would probably break it in two if I moved it...
So, I decided to sand half of it an make the larger part a river and thus ensuring that I was clear of using 4 bottles of Water effect (which is heavy as well).
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/8.jpg)
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/7.jpg)
I'm a lazy sod, and as the club is home to macho men with a soft side for loud toys, I bought a paint gun and hooked it up to the monster known as the club compressor...
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/11.jpg)
And than filled the board with paint. The whole operation took about 3 minutes. Then I obviously needed to go over the stuff again quickly with a brush to make sure that everyting was coloured. I also painted the cork by hand.
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/9.jpg)
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/10.jpg)
This is all for now, hopefully I'll get some more pics later this week (I've done some more, but forgot to take photos).
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Looks very nice right now, like it :-*
Would also be great for some "Southern Comfort" type szenario.
Can't wait to see more
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Looks very nice right now, like it :-*
Would also be great for some "Southern Comfort" type szenario.
Can't wait to see more
Hehe, Southern Comfort is an obscure movie! Wow, I remember being so freaked out by that movie when I was younger. Great idea for a scenario.
As for the Cajun board, looking AWESOME!
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Wow, I remember being so freaked out by that movie when I was younger.
As for the Cajun board, looking AWESOME!
Me too ;)
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I just watched half of Soutern Comfort. Then I just couldn't take it anymore :D
No update of pics yet, but I've fixed a playlist for the game!
http://open.spotify.com/user/silversixx/playlist/4cKKOfqriEcadEvwA7ZN8Y
If you got any suggestions for really crappy and 80's cool heavy metal, just post :)
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What is it with you Nordlanders and Heavy Metal? Creedence Clearwater Revival or even Lynyrd Skynyrd is more Bayou-like. ;)
Looking forwards to seeing some further pics of this project though! :)
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What is it with you Nordlanders and Heavy Metal? Creedence Clearwater Revival or even Lynyrd Skynyrd is more Bayou-like. ;)
Looking forwards to seeing some further pics of this project though! :)
I got both Lynyrd and Creedence in the playlist ;)
But I was aiming for a corny feel, more akin to a 80's teen slasher :)
And new pics will hopefully show up on wednesday!
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Looking good!
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Good work! It's easy once you get stuck into it, isn't it ;)
Looking forward to seeing this take shape...
If I were you I'd go for the 'speared in' trees rather than leaving holes for the bases though.
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Good work! It's easy once you get stuck into it, isn't it ;)
Looking forward to seeing this take shape...
If I were you I'd go for the 'speared in' trees rather than leaving holes for the bases though.
Thanks Cap :)
Actually, my trees are 'speared' in. The whole is just 2mm deep or something like that. Then I mark each hole and a coresponding tree, and voila, speared in and removable :)
And I got the spearing from you, so cheers!
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Yihaa!
With a mouth full of glorious 'Göteborgs Prima', I started to do some more work on the board :)
And then, disaster when I realises that the filler on the side of the small cliff face had shrunk :( So an enormous, well at least big, crack welcomed me when I switched on the ligths...
But hey, nothing some good old flock, glue and cursing can fix.
Did the cliffs today.
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/13.jpg)
And started to test some paint combinations on the trees. Well, to be honest, I was really worried about the horse hair and if it was possible to spray it, and it worked. Although, the paint was almost like a wash when it finally started to settle in the rubber. Good practise, and thank god that I didn't try to do 25 at a time...
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/14.jpg)
(And Cap, this tree is not on its designated hole yet, just nail through styrofoam here ;)
And the tree before I sprayed it. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going with Lt Hazels' method of doing olive trees. However, since we apparently have different toilet tissues in the baltic, I had to settle for fillers mixed with PVA (about 85% filler, 15% PVA). The major reason was the shrinking abilities of the PVA which I was hoping for would give me some kind of texture. And I did cheat a bit as I took a round stick when it had dried for an hour and gentely rolled along the trunk. This gave it a nice barky texture. It doesn't really show that well on the pic.
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/12.jpg)
The pics turned out to be more red than they are in real life. I need to find some time to photograph it properly, but our club is situated in a half floor, so we don't really get that much light until dusk and that's when the polarbears start to roam the streets ;)
I'll try to get pics tomorrow of the whole board, forgot those today due to football :)
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Did some extra work on the cliffs and drybrushed the board lightly to bring up some contrast.
You can barely see any difference in the photos, but still, some progress has been made :)
And, I've also started to paint the trees, which is a pain in the arse...
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/15.jpg)
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/16.jpg)
(Note the difference in colour between the two photos. They were taken at the same time...)
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It's certainly coming together... keep up the good work! :)
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I think it does!
Thanks for the support, Jim. It helps a lot with some internet cheering :)
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It's shit mate. Scratch and do over. ;)
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I'm back on track once again after a long break from hobby life.
I've started a blog and here's a preview:
Once again I'm going over this project with sheer agony...
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/18.jpg)
Click here (http://gubbspel.wordpress.com/) for more info!
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That was a joke...
Starting up on the project once more. I do admit that there's some agony involved as the thing I pictured in my head doesn't really look the same in front of me. Well, it's not even close...
But hey, that's the joy of building stuff, especially when it's more about the learning and experimenting experience :)
I've started to add the first layer of water effect. I almost choked myself when half a bottle of water effect did almost nothing, and I started to see my credit card on fire when ordering the stuff once more :O
But, then I realised that it looked cool on the table (disregard the plateus, they've been fucked up since the beginning) and that it actually looked like an realistic ebb :)
I'm adding the whole bottle in the end, so it'll probably be a bit "thicker" and look better that it does now. And by the way, a hairdryer is a great thing to have when dealing with water effects, it helped me move the effect along the table and did dry it up at the places where there were just splashes of it.
Its really difficult to see, but the cliffs are the breaking point between swamp and river, so the far side is just painted so far. Probably add some fallen trees and debris to break it up a bit more.
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/17.jpg)
As you can see, patience is one of those things that I don't really have, so I had to start some test flocking on the left side and below the cliffs. I also sprinkeld some thin flock into the water to add some more visual structure :)
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/18.jpg)
I also started to place some of the trees (Don't worry, Blööd, they'll get speared later on ;) ).
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/19.jpg)
And some scaling, used a miniature from Musketeer Miniatures.
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/20.jpg)
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Looking good so far - what are you going to be using the board for, again?
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Looking good so far - what are you going to be using the board for, again?
Zombie Survival, Darkest Africa and some Deep one hunting :)
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It's looking great, Skander. I can totally see a bunch of Belgians wading through that muck.
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Thanks, Hammy.
Might be played on a SLAM near you ;) Will add 3 more boards for the final table (of doom) :)
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I think it's looking good. Great foul looking swamp :)
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The gravy-waters are great. The veg floating about adds further flare.
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GREAT JOB!
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One large bottle of Easy water has disappeared on the board today. Can't really say that I've any changes to the height of the water :( Captain blood would probably build three large board for the amount of money I've spent so far...
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Great stuff man!
Also, Chaos In Cairo would be good there (wshen the Mummy moved to the Loisiana Bayou in the Universal series)
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Great stuff man!
Also, Chaos In Cairo would be good there (wshen the Mummy moved to the Loisiana Bayou in the Universal series)
That's on the to-do list as well ;) Imagine Mayan mummies being transported in the early 1910 and then accidently dropped in the swamp when the expidition got assaulted by Cajun Cannibals :)
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Do you think adding some blue wash/ink or dark wash/varnish would add some to the water? Probebly hard now after the flock…I like the water zoomed out but up close it look more like glue, hard to say on pictures. All in all I like the board, the cliffs are amazing.
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Do you think adding some blue wash/ink or dark wash/varnish would add some to the water? Probebly hard now after the flock…I like the water zoomed out but up close it look more like glue, hard to say on pictures. All in all I like the board, the cliffs are amazing.
I'll matt varnish the board later. The gloss will probably disappear.
And you'll see it in person next year as well ;)
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Would make a nice terrain for the FIW as well ;D
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Would make a nice terrain for the FIW as well ;D
Of course it would! :D
But, keeping in with the occult theme, at least one of the factions must worship the devil...
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Oooh, last update was the 3rd of October... Well, fortunately I've been doing some work between now and then (I mean some, not that very much) ;)
Had some issues with basing the whole board. I spent a lot of time finding some good flock that had the right colour. In the end I just had to do with Woodland Scenic Burnt grass. And it looked alright, but not perfect. And you all know what happens when you get disappointed with a board build. So into the closet it went for the winter.
However, I did start to test some new basing materials I got from a mate, so it all ended up with the board being brought into daylight again!
Since I'm a daft tit, I obviously forgot to take a photo of the board as a whole. Instead, I focused on the shed I've just built, and the two first trees.
I'm really pleased how they turned out, didn't except it to be that easy :)
(http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af354/silversixx/Cajun/bild.jpg)
I'm planning for the trees to brighten up the board a bit (its a bit on the yellowish side now). I've done 15 at the moment, just need to twin and paint the other 40 o_o
Hope you like it!