Forestgrave

[Wirelizard]

Quick bit of filler scenery done in a few minutes here and there over the course of a day of work from home.

Scrap of 2" pink insulation, junk CD, some flock. I want to do more flowers and such on the base, but I'm going to wait until I have a couple more scenery bits done then do all the base detailing all at once.

Rolled a tinfoil ball over the surface of the foam to get the nice texture, painted it up black - grey - tan - pale blue - white, then edge highlighted with more white to emphasize the edges, which helps make it look bigger.

So simple I didn't even take a single work-in-progress photo, but can if people are interested as I intend to do a few more of these.

[syrinx0]

Simple but effective.  Your going to have quite a nice table for gaming.

[scatterbrains]

Looks lovely, I'm surprised by the pale blue in the paint list! Did you drybrishe it after tan and before white? Over the whole thing or just selectively?

[EndTransmission]

The giant rock looks great. I tend to add browns into the shading of rocks... I'd not thought of blues for more flint-y stones

[Wirelizard]

Looks lovely, I'm surprised by the pale blue in the paint list! Did you drybrishe it after tan and before white? Over the whole thing or just selectively?

That's correct, drybrushed after the tan and before the white over the whole thing but concentrated slightly on the edges. It's subtle but it gives a really nice tone to the rock, and if you go a bit heavier with the blue as I did on the stone platform seen earlier in this thread it gives a good sort of magic weird glow to the piece too.

It doesn't photograph well, but the final white edge highlight really, really makes a difference. It seriously "pops" the edges out, especially at arms length or greater distances (actual tabletop in-game viewing, in other words) and makes the dimensionality of the piece way more obvious.

[Bloggard]

could you share your formula for the basic grassy ground-cover seen on that last piece?

[Wirelizard]

could you share your formula for the basic grassy ground-cover seen on that last piece?

Not easily, no, because it's a semi-random mix of all sorts of ground foam turf, flock, and randomness that's been changing gently over the years. I have a big margarine tub with a few inches of the mix in it, big enough to submerge a CD in.

Woodland Scenic's mixed fine turf is the base mix, there's some GW bright green grass flock, some WS dark green fine flock, a couple of colours of WS coarse turf (medium and dark, I think?)

For scruffy looking ground like this, I put slightly watered down glue down on the base, sink the whole thing into the flock mix, make sure all the glued areas are covered in a generous layer, then leave the whole piece in the flock for at least an hour or two. That helps the glue soak up into the flock and gets a thicker layer attached securely to the base. Eventually I'll pull the piece out, shake the unglued excess back into the bin, and add a bit of extra very watered down glue to secure everything.

For less rustic turf, take the piece out of the tub almost right away and shake it off; you'll get  a much thinner more lawn-like layer.

[Bloggard]

thanks very much.

that's the kind of thing I had in mind - I have some similar WS stuff etc, and your notes are a great starting place.

[scatterbrains]

Thanks a lot for sharing! Great to be able to use someone else's experiences!

[Wirelizard]

Wrote up the new standing stone for the blog, with a couple of photos I hadn't put here, and included the rebuilding of the mushroom ring to make it more gamer-proof.

http://www.warbard.ca/2020/06/19/a-standing-stone/

[scatterbrains]

You going to summon DeafNala with that mushroom circle?

[Wirelizard]

You going to summon DeafNala with that mushroom circle?

He's an inspiration for sure, I don't have his talent or patience for all that sculpting and scratchbuilding, though!

I'm thinking of doing some giant fungus scenery just to add to the "weird Fae forest" vibe I want to aim for, and I'm very, very tempted by the Dark Fantastic Mills "Doomcap Shrooms" terrain, although they're not cheap. Might need to be my tax return indulgence...

[Wirelizard]

Decided to crank out a strange magical portal archway thing, so this was about three hours casual work with a knife, ball of tinfoil, hot glue gun, and some offcuts of dense styrofoam insulation.



Paint in the next few days, probably going to do some reverse highlighting to have weird magic energy between the stones of the arch itself

More photos and such over on the blog: http://www.warbard.ca/2020/06/28/a-fantasy-portal-part-one/

[scatterbrains]

Looks great, definitely something magical about it already! Probably because of how it defies gravity!

[Braz]

Kudos!. I really like the look of this - very different than the typical fantasy gate/portal