My MalcyBogaten-style FG build with dominoes and Jenga blocks

[Coopdevil]

Hi all, first time poster etc. etc.

I was talking to Lead Adventure denizen MalcyBogaten at the Penkridge show a few weeks back and we got to talking about what we were scratch building and from what we were doing it. I mentioned a project to build a modular Gorkamorka fort based upon Jenga blocks and Malc told me about his pulp lost city build that used Jenga blocks and he had some thread on a some gaming forum somewhere or other...

So a couple of days later I had a Google at trying to find what he'd mentioned and about 20 minutes after finding this...

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=75481.0

...I was in the car heading for Poundland for cheap domino sets and more and more Jenga blocks.

Nothing I've made is very complicated or detailed, but it is all very, very cheap and very, very easy.

Raised Walkways

The first thing of Malc's I copied was the the idea of a raised walkway made from dominoes.



I couldn't find the ramekins that Malc used his support columns so went for some plastic shot glasses from Poundland. Happily the height of four standard sized Jenga blocks is pretty much identical to that of the glasses so that was the staircases sorted. All the sections are 8 dominoes long which is a measurement I chose simply because Malc had already done that.



Like a muppet I made a T-piece before realising that meant I had to produce three sets of stairs.

So, 10 sections each a very handy 6" long gives me 5 feet of raised walkway to play with. From memory 3 boxes does 2 sections with a couple of dominoes left over. Domino sets are 2 for £1 at The Works, or 1 for £1 at Poundland but that one does come with five 12mm d6 which have gone into the dice box.



Statues are two Jenga blocks mounted on a base of two dominoes, round MDF base from the bits box, and Citadel Empire State Infantry. The upright Jenga blocks are wrapped with the paper labels for "fake" cyclopean stonework.



All ten sections. Some corner pieces and "distressed" examples.

Coop

[Coopdevil]

Colonnade runs





These are made from Jenga blocks with paper labels, and some wooden cotton reel things I found in the craft section of The Range. I have absolutely no idea what these things are used for in the craft world, and since they make great no-effort cheap columns I don't care much either. Note the first one I made before I realised that adding a "floor" of cardboard to the blocks would make the upper ones align in a much more professional style.



Have run out of cotton reels so had to stop at the three sections for now. The sections add up to 56cm and can be arranged at right-angles for that traditional wargames staple, "The Corner Ruin".

[Coopdevil]

Waste not, want not, the wooden boxes the dominoes came in get recycled into FG terrain too.



One of the things that struck me about Malc's build was the "building block" nature of it. In his layouts there are a lot of plain shapes but jumbled up so that they create the illusion of a lot of detail. Very much like playing with childrens' building blocks in fact where you always end up with some form of gloriously impractical folly Gothic cathedral (more on building blocks later...)

So I textured up the boxes. None of these look very impressive on their own but with some free-standing detail, and the ability to stack on top of each other, butt up to one another to create larger areas of solid building/monolith etc. plenty of these on the table should start to work well. Breaking up line of sight, creating multiple levels etc.

That little archway section is from a £10 box of wooden building blocks. It's probably too small to provide the top of an archway for 28mm figures but as a free-standing piece it creates a nice sewer or culvert outlet.

As illustrated here



Then I found some wooden puzzles in the sale at The Works which provided some abstract shapes for what could laughably be described as "detailing" hence slanty shapes on the building here.



And they stack for much heightness



And the flat tops can be broken up with freestanding bits of detailing. All crude and very "representational" but I like the building block aesthethic.

[Coopdevil]

Magister Manfred von Reichs-Pudding, late of the October club's Mordheim campaign, and Claudiolanges the Conjurer(*) attempt to puzzle out the mysterious artifact of the Old Times that has recently been exposed by the retreating glacier.

(£3 from The Works).

I might rebase this so that it is hovering/floating slightly above the ground.

In the spirit of recycling the rubbish, the road sections are the sliding wooden lids of the domino boxes. But I think they might be too prone to warping to be of much use.


(*) All of my Frostgrave crew are named (even the followers), with names taken from Wikipedia's list of Formula One drivers who have attempted to qualify for a Grand Prix but never managed it. (Such a thing actually exists on Wikipedia). This is following a tradition we have of naming all characters in a warband or army from lists of things or people or names on Wikipedia. My 40K 2e Silver Skulls army has all heroes and squad leaders named after the pseudonyms of Scandinavian and Greek death/black metal musicians. Trust me, this does make perfect sense.

[Ogrob]

That's really quite clever. Looks great. Some more bits and bobs lying around would really complete the illusion I think.

[MalcyBogaten]

Great looking stuff. I am really jealous of the childrens building block idea!

It never occurred to me to get any! Yet there I was mentioning it in my own thread.

Love the cotton reel collonades! I will be looking out for similar reels and have 2 boxes of large Jenga blocks now standing by!

I picked up that Wooden Tangram Puzzle as well cos the bits looked interesting. Will probably do what you did and have them as an add on part to structures!

Also Love the way you have scattered walkway sections on the walkways! Again never thought about doing that.

My domino backs with the Dragon on are not as defined as the ones you have. Yours lok far sharper relief detail!

Brilliant

 

[Coopdevil]

The dominoes are a bit hit-and-miss quality wise, some have some good embossing/stamping on the backs with plenty to drybrush and others look really faint. Still the latter type look nice and worn with age and what do you expect for 50p? I bought a set from Tiger in a bigger box and the quality is absolutely dreadful with mis-cuts and broken corners but therefore absolutely perfect for what I want them for!

Building blocks - got three hypostyle hall columns on the painting table made from the cubes and cylinders in the set. Just needs the drybrushing finishing.

Coop

[jp1885]

A deceptively simple idea which you have executed brilliantly - bravo!

[MalcyBogaten]

Gotta admit I didn't take the time to look through my dominos for the best embossing.

Like you said though they are a bit "hit and miss" but at the much cheapness price. Who cares?

The other stuff you are working on sounds like it will be ideal for my own add ons.

Can't wait to see what you do.

[Coopdevil]

In the FG background Felstad ended up frozen in ice when someone ballsed up a spell or ritual.

Well, a recent archaeological survey to the frozen city has turned up a statue which is believed to represent the individual who messed everything up...





Some of the older Disney Infinity toys were reduced to £5 in my local toyshop.

I also got hold of a statue of the patron saint of Frozengrave or whatever the bloody hell it's called, she is now primed but not drybrushed up yet.

[Coopdevil]

Treasure tokens. I have some of the official FG ones that came with the original Nickstarter but decided to make some of my own as well.

Ages ago, back when we were playing Mordheim, I found a jar of crushed green mirror glass in IKEA amongst the flower arranging stuff. A-ha! I thought. Wyrdstone! (Or Warpstone as I call it - I never understood why it got renamed from it's original WFB/WFRP era name).

And then I lost interest in Mordheim as I decided I didn't actually enjoy the game and so did absolutely nothing with this stuff. Recently found it at the back of the cupboard though and decided to do Warpstone-style treasure tokens for FG.

WIP



Finished Articles

[Coopdevil]

This obviously isn't a Frostgrave pic but shows the height of the chunks of glass that I've used on the treasure tokens.



I realised after posting that the top-down nature of the tokens pic didn't show off the true shape of the glass bits. So here are three Deadzone Not-Squats and some worktable mess.

[Coopdevil]

Hypostyle columns

Made from some of the contents of this -



Each being a cube and the cylindrical blocks mounted on two dominoes. And yes, the ramshackle off-set cylinder of the left one is deliberate thanks.



I took some inspiration from an old holiday pic of mine from Hatshepsut in Luxor.



(That's from a couple of gig of holiday pics from seven years ago that I still haven't got around to sorting out and filing properly yet. Digital photography eh? There's probably lots of inspiration in there if I could be bothered to wade through it all.)

[Malebolgia]

Excellent thread and really inspiring. Gets me itching to do something similar...

[MalcyBogaten]

Nice! I will be looking for Building blocks now.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice has a lot to answer for!!