Welcome to the Labyrinth

[hubbabubba]

Hello.

I've been playing around with a few ideas and wanted to show you what I'd come up with and get some feedback and ideas.

I'd been wanting an interior board for some time, but I was torn between a starship interior, underground vault complex, an evil lab layer or a more traditional dungeon/labyrinth.

I basically wanted something I could use for both Sci-fi and fantasy dungeon crawls.

I thought about it and in the end settled for the following base board as it seemed to me to be suitable for most of the above as well as a city board.



Before I actually made the board I played around with the idea making the walls out of expanded foam. Because the foam is very light I wanted some way of attaching it to the board temporarily, so I thought of sinking magnets into the surface of the board in a grid and sticking sections of cut-out beer cans on to the bottom of the walls, but it seemed labour intensive and cost prohibitive.

I thought about doing it the other way round, putting the magnets on the walls and the beer cans on the board but I didn't like the finish I got on the board.

In the end I went for the scribing method that Jack (the Lazy Forger) had posted in a tute. I'd already used it on smaller pieces and liked the effect. The results you get for the amount of time and effort needed are great.

I stuck with expanded foam for the wall sections, a) because I already had a sheet of it left over from making hills, and B) because I'd seen a tute by Theomar the Pious where he showed how to work it with a pencil to sculpt stone walls. I gave it a go and liked the result.

I overcame the weight issue, (the foam has very little weight so I thought it'd move around the board at the slightest sneeze,) by sinking three washers into the base of each wall section.  So far this seems to be sufficient to stop the walls moving around too much during play.

This is what I've got so far.



I reckon I need three times as many wall sections, and then I want to do some wall sections with doorways, some pillars, some arch sections, stairs, a well and something to reresent a trap door, and a stairwell down to the next level.

As of yet I'm stumped on the stairwell down, I can't think of  of a good 3d way to represent it, might have to go for a 2d representation.

Regards the doors, I've seen some by Pardulon and Fenris that looked pretty good, but my idea is to have them the same size as some Antenocitie's sci-doors I already have, so that by swapping the doors and other props, I can have a sci-fi underground complex or a fantasy dungeon. As a result I think I'm going to scratch a few timber type doors up and them cast them myself.
I figure if they're thin enough I'll be able to stick two together back to back to get a double sided door.

Any more ideas or if if I've missed something please let me know.

Thanks

[Marine0846]

Outstanding looking so far.
As to stairwells, maybe have a step or two up on part of a 3" by 3" platform.
About 1/2" high for the platform..
Then on the other part have it leading down.

[weismonsters]

Looks very good. And highly flexible. would love to do something like this too if I get the time.

[MalcyBogaten]

Love the look you've achieved here. (I've been using AD&D Dungeon Floor Tiles, there just aren't enough in a box though!)
The Walls and Floor effect is great!

A 2d, with some raised detail stairwell or pit drop sort of overlay, wouldn't look out of place on this table.

Do you have the feeling though that you'll never have enough walls, archways or doors though?

Smashing stuff!

Malc

[Andrew May]

Toyed with similar ideas myself, this looks fantastic!

[hubbabubba]

Thanks for the feedback folks

Outstanding looking so far.
As to stairwells, maybe have a step or two up on part of a 3" by 3" platform.
About 1/2" high for the platform..
Then on the other part have it leading down.

A 2d, with some raised detail stairwell or pit drop sort of overlay, wouldn't look out of place on this table.

Yes Ithink that's the best solution I've seen so far, I'll have a fiddle and see what happens

Do you have the feeling though that you'll never have enough walls, archways or doors though?

Most definately


I think it's a similar feelling to that of never quite having enough zombies in the horde.

As stands, I do need twice as much as I've currently got to give a decent 4' x 4' table.

Another idea I've had is of building some stand alone rooms, built on their own bases so they can be put down as features. These would also be good for randomly generated dungeons. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a card system, or dice rolls on a chart that would decide what's round the next corner or behind that door.

It's another way of doing things, a fair bit more complicated than setting up the whole table, but from what i've read it would bring a lot of fun and suspense to each game.

Anyway, some more walls added. Took two pics, one with flash. I couldn't decide which one was better so I've posted both.

[Dr. Zombie]

Very nice. I think I might just steal this.

[Jgutimar]

I like it, It is great

You could use too

http://www.hirstarts.com/molds/moldsfield.html

Mold701

Not so light or cheap but nice too

[hubbabubba]

Update, only took me two years....









I've still gotta make a few more wall sections

Perhaps I'll use a trap door, and make some stairs too.

The doors are from Foundry and Mantic. Dungeon dressing from Mantic.

Skellies from Bronzeage, butcheeks by Rackham.

I need loads more dungeon dressing, I'm thinking stores, desks littered with scrolls, a copper kiln type alchemy set up, treasure  piles and chests, corpses, a nice ornamental fountain, a couple of portals a la Witcher, some more barrels and crates and some broken / smashed up stuff, sacks, and some mission objectives (like magic weapons, chained prisoners etc) + anything else you might think appropriate.

I've got a few suppliers in mind, but I'd much appreciate any suggestions as to where I might get my hands on some of the above.

Looking forward to some feedback

[Andrew Rae]

Look great! Well worth the wait. The grey tops seem to blend the different parts together better than when they were black.

[FramFramson]

I just want to say that I love the painting on those skellies.

[Eric the Shed]

fantastic

 

[OSHIROmodels]

Looks good 

cheers

James

[Tactalvanic]

Awsomesauce.

Well worth the wait +1

Wish I could do that and wish I had the space so I could...

[Espritfigs]

you make us dream. it's beautiful, I am very sad not to have a big house