Frostgrave from the North

[Avidwargamer]

Any chance of finding out how you made the terrain?   Looks awesome!

[majorsmith]

Great terrain!

[Tanzwut]

Great terrain!, I would second any input in how you went about sculpting it.

[M.O.T.N]

Thanks folks!

I'm planning a second round of terrain making (walls, towers, bridges, etc.) so I'll try and do a little tutorial at a later stage! It's all quite simple but pics and step by step stages will explain it better.


My initial painting has been a bit of chore and I struggled with some of these minis. I'm also having teething problems with a new camera I bought on Friday (in truth I need to take time to calibrate it to my light tent). These pics are all still WIP, few finishing touches and refinements required, then I need to figure out how I'll do the bases.

• Trolls and husky are form Copplestone. I bought 8 huskies and will make a husky sled for the Sigilists!
  
• Wizards are all North Star.
  
• The ice demons things are from achtung cthulhu, I thought they would make good frost demons or ice elementals or something.
  
• Graveyard and bases are from Renedra.
  

[Plus Four]

Lovely work! Especially like the green you've achieved on the Sigilist Apprentice and the blue on the Elementalist!

I'm struggling to find the right combination of blues for ice and think my paint selection is deficient! Can I ask which blues you used?

[Daniel36]

Those icy guys are brilliant!!

[Admiral Benbow]

Very nice work here! I'm especially looking forward to your fantastic terrain creation process ... 

[M.O.T.N]

I'm struggling to find the right combination of blues for ice and think my paint selection is deficient! Can I ask which blues you used?

Lothern blue from games workshop, dark blue wash and white for highlights!

Few items to show here as I practiced photographing the set up, still not nailed it yet. By the time it's all finished though I should be good at the pics.

Snow effect was bicarbonate of soda, white paint and pva. I'll do all the terrain with it over the next week or so. Need to perhaps add some at the base of the terrain to transition it to the game mat better.


















Example of some boxes creating a hill, and the fallen tower can be made to appear upright but buried in snow... almost.







The mat itself. For the life of me I can't remember what it is, don't take my word for it but I think this is it http://www.dunelm.com/product/table-protector-rolls-1000041995?cmCategoryId=34102

The white fabric is the underside. about 4'/6'.



Some material that I'll do a small tutorial with..



I only have my Sigilist and 3 ice demons to finish up painting and phase 1 of the miniatures is done.

[Lamilvelo]

outstanding work! really looking forward to your tutorials.

[marcusluis]

very cool.. played my first  game of frostgrave on sunday and lost!!

[Jennifer]

Love that terrain and tips!

Best paint job I've seen on that snow troll / yeti mini.  I am ordering one of these and will paint with your's as a guide.

[Hupp n at em]

Wow, I really expected those to be from pink foam, not the expanded stuff. Extra impressive to me now. 

[M.O.T.N]

Best paint job I've seen on that snow troll / yeti mini.  I am ordering one of these and will paint with your's as a guide.

I've copied the colour scheme from the Frostgrave rule book!

Fur is bleached bone highlighted with white.
Skin base is a dark blue/grey with successive highlights of the base mixed with bleached bone.

[barbaric splendor]

Excellent work; love the terrain especially!

[M.O.T.N]

I'll come back and edit this post with the follow up stages..

This is part 1 of the terrain how to - building it.

Materials are very simple: expanded polystyrene, kappa foam and a 5mm sheet of dense polystyrene.

• These are leftover parts and I've simply played around with the the configuration until I found something I liked. The lintels/shelves on the vertical wall are purely there to pile up snow on and look interesting
• The brickwork is a steel ruler pressed into the material (I've drawn it in with pen so it shows up on camera). The kappa foam takes this very well.
• I've used PVA glue and some pins to hold it all together while it dries. The pins will be pulled out once its dry.

Part 2- weathering and texture.

• I've used a steel ruler to score in some cracks and bashed on the stonework
• The texture is simply sand mixed with PVA into a paste, and applied with a small spatula. I usually try to get it into the corners, as well as filling in the gaps on small rubble piles

Part 3- painting

This is the undercoat:

• First coat is some windsor and newton grey acrylic paint mixed with a little PVA
• A second coat of the same mix is applied, with a tiny addition of some painting textute paste

Washing

• Mix up a small amount of black acrylic paint with water. to make it almost the consistency of a watercolour paint. To that add 2 drops of washing up liquid to add tension to the mix, otherwise the wash wont stick and pool properly!
• Was the entire piece with the mix, good idea to put 2 or 3 kithen paper towels underneath to soak up the excess

Once the wash had dried thoroughly/over night, time for the drybrushing. I do it in 3 stages with the basecoat grey as the main colour, and each stage with a successive increase in white.







Next stage will be the snow...