I've played a bit with Hirst Arts and the like back in the day making some D&D walls and catacomb bits for a game I was playing in, but never really got deep into wargaming terrain. More recently, I've been trying to build competency in 3D modeling and digital sculpting to which end I bought a Formlabs Form 2 SLA printer. When I discovered Frostgrave I was really excited about the mini/terrain agnostic aspects as while painting and finishing minis and terrains is fun, I'm really more excited about the idea of being able to build stuff from the ground up. I've tried styrene and scratch building and DAS clay and other things over the years, but the results always seemed crude and cartoonish. So I set myself the challenge of trying to design and build pieces for Frostgrave, starting with the first scenario in the core book.
This is the first pic of the Mausoleum table centerpiece I'm working on. Above is the WIP shot of my first take on the centerpiece (with a 3D printed 28mm figure for scale).
I found inspiration/reference in a mausoleum (I think the actual structure is in North Carolina) that had some gothic elements and a design that seemed to work well for the requirements - at least 6" square on a side, a space at each corner for a treasure objective. With inspiration in hand I started modeling working out the structure first in Fusion 360 (which I don't think I'll go back to going forward - I'll likely switch to something like 3DS Max) and then switching over to ZBrush for detailing (this step was actually the worst part as it required a bunch of rework based on the limitations of Fusion 360's export hence the switch).
The build platform of the printer is decent sized, but in order to orient things for best printing and to fit the whole structure in there I needed to cut up the model into a few different parts. I've finally gotten almost everything printed (I need to still design a door for at least one of the arches (or two) so there is an entrance/egress point. Here's a few dry fit images of the parts:
The printouts have been pretty solid so far (the Form 2 is kind of an amazing machine) but I have had a few parts that I need to correct. Here's an entry arch that had a print failure on one of the columns because of the way I setup the supports and a replacement column that I need to do some surgery on:
I've had a chance to do a bit of a paint test and I think I'm leaning towards a limestone look for the building with some bronze patina accents for some of the architectural details. I think that the weathering is helping to sell the thawing state of the city without it being too explicitly "ruined" in the actual building itself. I guess in my head, parts of the city have probably collapsed, but having lived through multiple midwest US winters, ice and snow tend to preserve things. You can see in this photo that the detail on things like the runes are pretty clear (even through a multi-layer paint job as I tried to find the right effect for the stone).
I'm thinking that I want to build out a board specifically for the scenarios (starting with this one) so I've also been doing some trials and boning up a bit on my hand sculpting as I don't want to try to print everything (gutters, cobblestone streets, etc.) but I do want to build a dimensional board with some up-and-down to it. Here's some of my test pieces there (both carved DAS clay skinned onto foamcore or styrene):
Anyways, I'm excited to have found the game and an excuse to indulge my hobbies a bit and look forward to interaction with the community, you all seem awesome. Definitely open to criticism and suggestions as I'm new to terrain (and Frostgrave). I've got it in the back of my head a bit that if this comes out well I may try to put together a garage kit for it but I'm not sure if that sort of thing gets done.
August 31, 2015, 08:11:18 PM