Henrix makes Bushido terrain [A tree! Gorintōs [Updated: finshed]]

[Henrix]

As I'm in the process of making a Bushido* demo table I thought I's start a thread and show what I've done.

I did start a bit with my Tu-Torii-al, wherein I made a torii.

My plan is to make an abandoned shrine in the forest. A little derelict and partially taken over by nature in that Japanese way.
It'll be separate terrain pieces on a mat, as I prefer being able to use them in other constellations and for ease of transport.


* That's the new-ish miniature game, not the old FGU RPG, good though it was.

Well, enough preamble, on to the meat (fish? rice?):

Part 1: Instant bonsai tree - just add flock

Part 2: Gorintōs for the gods!

I bought this plastic bonsai cheaply a couple of years ago, but never got around to fixing it up. It was a pain to get loose from the pot, but otherwise was a treat. I based it on a big sturdy washer and made some stones from milliput. Drybrushed the tree a little, and glued some flock and stuff to it. That's it, really.

Wish I could find more of them plastic bonsai trees.








(Ichiro included as he a) likes trees and kodamas; and b) gives sense of scale to the whole. He's about 32mm tall.)

[OSHIROmodels]

Someone has been watching Ghibli films 

Looks good but I think it needs a coat of matt varnish to get rid of the leafy shine.

cheers

James

[Henrix]

What do you mean, Ghibli films?
But seriously, I really like the scenery in Mononoke Hime. Very suited to Bushido.

Some matte varnish seems like a good idea. Didn't even notice the shinyness till I took the pictures. (I also had the leaves detached while working on it.)

[Thargor]

Very nice. 

[Centaur_Seducer]

How about a gentle wash on the foliage? Or maybe the varnish might help to take away the shining (or "shajning" for us football interested swedes)?

[Henrix]

Yep, I'll fix up the sides of the base, some moss'll do, and spray the leaves with some dullcote (as jimb said above .


I need to make some serious plans of the demo board. Perhaps even playtest it.
Thankfully it's just 60x60cm.

One problem is that I can't decide how much I should make it easy to play tournament scenarios* on, or just make it pretty and specific. Or go halfway and make it good for some scenarios but not all.


* Very much like, and indeed some of them the same as, the old Confrontation 3 scenarios. A little bland, board-gamy and generic, but fun to play.

[Henrix]

And here's a little teaser for what comes next. There are a few small pieces more than this, and some putty, but not much. One marble, for instance.




Whoever guesses first what it'll be will receive one (1) bonus point.

[Centaur_Seducer]

Some Japanese sculpture-thingy with blocks and round-thingys?

[Henrix]

That was rather... vague, SilverS. No bonus point for you, at most a honorarium-thingy.

[Skrapwelder]

I was thinking, perhaps, a lantern thingy?

[Henrix]

Sorry, Skrap, no cigar!

[Centaur_Seducer]

That was rather... vague, SilverS. No bonus point for you, at most a honorarium-thingy.

Bah!

[Henrix]

Part 2: Gorintōs for the gods!

Here's the next WIP. The other two have also gotten the dots filled, and the rightmost has lost the top as I wasn't happy with it.



What I'm doing are gorintōs, a sort of Japanese stupa, sort of a memorial stone.


Like these:




They come in a variety of shapes, but generally five shapes on top of each other. Mine are a bit atypical, as I've only found a fairly limited supply of easily accessible shapes to play with. I might make some more shapes later.


So both SilverSixx and Skrapwelder were pretty close, but not really there. I'll have to save the bonus point for later use.

[Henrix]

I, uh, seem to have sparked a Gorintō-off over at the Bushido forums. A competition with prizes and such.  

Anyone want to join in and try to out-gorintō me (and the others)?

[Henrix]

So, here's a bit of an update. Haven't done that much. Having a wisdom tooth ripped out really puts a damper on your creativity, as well as a hole in your mouth and wallet.
 

Being the madman I am I decided to make a load of little gorintōs. Like a whole graveyard full of them.

So I made some easy moulds in oyumaru. That stuff is really amazing, it took me no time to do them. I had to redo a couple, but that's no problem. And I got some more expertise in mouldmaking.

Here are some of them:



 

And then I cast a couple in newly bought stone plaster.



And when I say a couple I mean about two dozen. It was like eating crisps, I couldn't stop.

So, there I was, with two dozen gorintōs. My plan was at first to make them rather simply, basically just base them and paint them, but now that there's this gorintō-off going on, so I'll have to come up with something really clever. (Or, at least, something clever for being me.)

One reason I wanted to cast them was so that I could roughen up the texture a bit too look more like weathered stone. Good idea. Except that I used that newly bought stone plaster which turned out to be to hard. Hitting it with the business end of my steel brush didn't do much.

But I could maltreat it somewhat to get some sort of structure -except the topmost and middle bits. So, onto the next plan!

I decided that as the different pieces represent different elements (and/or Buddhist tenets), and those are represented by different colours (which seem not always to be the same in different sects/times/etc.) - why not build the thing out of different sorts of coloured stones!

Thus I tried to make different textures on the different pieces. Like this:


 

Next I'll paint it. And start on the next, there's still four to go!