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A foam cemetery from Games Workshop made in the early 2000s that finally got some detailing. How it originally looked, here being fought over by Witch Hunters and Ghosts. ...after a repaint, flocking, and leafing.

It feels like an age since I last posted a terrain build, my last build journal (still unfinished) was actually in October of last year, so it has been a while! Anyhow, my circumstances have changed and I have found myself with more free time to enjoy my hobby, and so this week I was able to sit down and start a new build, another photo backdrop, this time a cemetery (sorry no build journal this time, I just wanted to enjoy the project). This one had been on my to do list for ever, the gravestones, coffin and the wall are all Reaper accessories. I had a lot of fun with this one. On another positive note, I've now got some time to go back and revisit my 'Post Apocalyptic Suburbia' build journal. I'm sure many people don't even remember it, but leaving it unfinished has really been bugging me, so hopefully that one will have a much overdue update by the weekend!

I finished the Obsidian Crypt from the Bones 3 kickstarter. I looked at lots of photos of old mausoleums for inspiration. Now, I just need to finish the fence and all of the main cemetery parts will be finished. Then just ghouls, golems, worms, etc to do to complete the entire expansion. I had fun flocking the crypt. I resembled Oscar the Grouch by the time I was finished! I put a couple flickering LED candles inside the crypt to emulate torchlight/candlelight and thought it turned out pretty cool!

Painted up most of the gravestones from the Bones 3 Graveyard expansion. A few others are primed and waiting. Here is what I finished so far. I thought about putting my players' characters' names on a few but thought that was mean!

I finished painting my cemetery fences from the reaper 3 kickstarter. I painted them up generally following the same approach as my dwarven forge dungeon tiles. Here's how I painted them: - I primed the pieces with krylon black camo primer - I then painted on a heavy drybrush of Pokorny Base Grey on all the stone parts - I then picked out some of hte stones with Pokorny Earth Stone - I then did a light drybrush with Pokorny Olive Dry Brush - I then mixed together Pokorny Base Grey and Pokorny Stone Edge Dry Brush and did a very light dry brush - Now I worked on the metal - I painted the barts with Americana Ebony Black - I then drybrushed the upper sections of the bars only with Americana Midnight Blue to provide a little color variation - I then did a light drybrush of the bars with Pokorny Base Grey, followed by a similar mix of Base Grey and Stone Edge Dry Brush - I then did an overall wash with Agrax Earthshade I then sprayed them with Testor's Dullcote. It was a quick paint job and should look good when I use them for terrain in my upcoming Deadzone game. BTW I had previously magnetized these and you can see the howto I wrote up here: Here are a couple of pictures of the finished fences.

I wanted to use the cemetery fencing as terrain in wargames, and I wanted to be able to configure the fences any way I wanted, so I decided to try using magnets to hold the fencing together. I first had to decide on how to approach the problem. The straight sections were pretty simple... I could just drill into the ends and install magnets, with the polarity opposite on each end so they can be chained together. For the short sections with a flat on only one end I decided to do do half with one polarity and half with the other, so I would always have an option as to which to use. But for the columns, I had to think a bit. I didn't want to have magnets visible on the outside, and I couldn't figure out how to arrange the polarity so that it would maximize what arrangements would work. Finally I came up with the idea to simply install steel rods in the middle, and then they could attach to the straight sections with either polarity. The gate structure could also be done with steel rods. I measured things out and decided that 3/8" rod would work for the columns and for the inner posts of the gateway piece, and 1/4" rod for the outer portions of the gateway piece. So here's what I used for this: 1mmx6mm neodymium magnets (lots) 3/8" steel rod 1/4" steel rod Straight Sections These were pretty straightforward, except there wasn't a lot of room for the 6mm magnets. I had to make sure the holes were accurately placed. I usually use 1/4" drills for the 6mm magnets but because this was really tight I decided to use a 6mm drill. When I need to be accurate, I usually start with a tiny hole and use a pin vise to get the hole centered right. I then drill larger and larger holes. This is because with the larger drill bits, the drill often catches in the plastic and draws itself in, potentially ruining the piece. It works much better if I only take out a little bit of plastic each time. So here is a shortened sequence of the hole drilled (I actually used 8 drills of increasing size for each hole). Here is how it looked inside after drilling it out: And then I glued in the magnets with super glue. I decided to use 8 magnets in each end which is probably overkill but these magnets were pretty cheap... And here's how it looks from the end: Columns Now the Columns were a little tricky. Here's what I finally ended up doing. - I drilled down through the top with a 5/16" drill bit and went all the way through the bottom. This insures that the hole in the bottom is centered. I had to hold the column with pliers to keep from wrenching it out of my hand. I used leather to keep the jaws from marring the surface but cloth should work fine. - I enlarged the hole in the base with a 3/8" drill bit. This was really tricky since as I said before, with large bits the drill tends to catch in the plastic and draw itself in so this must be done with care. What I ended up doing was to drill in just a little bit, then reverse the drill and repeat, doing this several times. This way the drill bit would only carve out small sections of plastic at a time, then when the drill was reversed that divot of plastic would break off. Then when it goes forward again, it would take out a new piece of plastic, etc. I have a cordless VSR drill that I use for this that has really good slow speed control. I wouldn't try to do this with a power drill that didn't have good slow speed control. I only needed to drill in about 1/2"-3/4" deep. - I cut a 1/4" long piece of the 3/8" steel rod. I used a file to clean up the burrs, otherwise it would be much harder to get into the column. - I forced the piece of steel in the hole in the bottom of the column. I had to inset the steel piece about 2mm to get the pieces to sit correctly. If the steel is in too far, the straight section will not sit evenly on the table. If it isn't inset far enough, then the column won't sit evenly on the table. Gateway This also was a little tricky. I had to drill out through the bottom with a 1/4" drill and a 3/8" drill. Here's how it ends up looking: Again, I had to adjust the depth to get the straight sections to sit flat on the table. I didn't bother gluing the steel pieces in for the columns or the gateway since they were pretty tight fits. Here are all the pieces with steel installed: So now I can configure the fencing in many different ways, and it's resistant to accidental bumps. Here are a couple of configurations: I'm leaving the columns with open tops for now since someday we'll get cool new tops with Reaper 4. I hope this is helpful!

So, not too long ago, I was GMing a table of Pathfinder's Silverhex Chronicles at a convention called GameCon. I had a plain map on which I'd drawn with marker and I had my minis ready to go. Meantime, two tables down from me, there was a fellow who had props of Sphinx-like statues, statues of Horus, 3-D buildings, a multilevel building, and generally, a while lot more than just a map. I stood there (I'm one of those standing GMs) waiting for people to come play while he relaxed and watched everyone who came by at least look over his table and his table had filled up and started a good half hour before I had my first player. Decision time came. I need props! Terrain pieces, to be specific. The Silverhex Chronicles start in a cemetery, so that's how I started. The first shot will show all the pieces I made yesterday. Following this, we have close-ups of the 3 burial plots, the tree (I was going for a baby Womping Willow) and the sarcophagus that opens, the 4 fence posts, and then a random crate that isn't actually part of this, but something that can come in handy as a terrain piece. I'll still be doing some smoothing and sanding on it which I think will give it more of a "used" look. I'll be using Green Stuff to add more embellishment to the sarcophagus and possibly the tombstones. I'll also use my mold-making stuff to create additional fence posts and burial plots. Enjoy the photos and feel free to offer compliments, comments, and critiques. EDIT: Just glanced over the pictures and realized how lopsided the fence posts look. They're on my daughter's hoodie (the red background) and I guess it wasn't sitting level. They do sit flat :=)

So, I have shots of this in my Silverhex scenery thread, but it's kind of become its own beast. I've never worked with foam board before, but loved what I was seeing done on this forum and figured I could try my hand at it. In the first encounter of the Silverhex Chronicles, there are two mausoleums (in addition to graves and such). I figured those could be my first two foam board efforts. At this point, I have the first mausoleum put together and am now working on painting and then a roof. Figured I'd include some of the WIP shots that got me to this point. For the second, I have the walls cut out and the piece I'll be using to make a dome. I'll be showing those later once I actually have something worth showing. Hope you enjoy my first foray into foam! Comments, critiques, and compliments are always welcome :=)