Search the Community

I decided to build some shelf organizers because real ones are $$$$ expensive. Hopefully getting stuff out of the way will allow for things to be out of the way of little grasping hands. Pics later. This one is for my terrain boards

I had waaaaay too much brown craft paint/ modgepodge so I rushed into doing some terrain tiles. I had some dollar store wood tiles that I sealed with the leftover paint mix, I think about 2.5x5 inches each. Then I cannibalized an old build ( trollskull manor, because it got squished) and I goued pieces down. Those weren't so nice with door and window cuts but were what I had handy. Then I let stuff dry 24 hours I beveled and trimmed the edges like Here's all 5 tiles And then I spackled them. I'll leave the tiles overnight, but they'll be dry to paint in an hour or so. After that fully seal the foam core. Then drybrush the bank and do some shadings the river bed.thrn I tape it all up and get ready for my test pour of pouring medium + ink. Shallow pour so it'll dry.

Recently Black Magic Craft on YouTube made some Underdark terrain using foamcore. I thought it was a very neat idea but I honestly didn't expect to ever make any, I guess my wife had other ideas though. This year she made goodie bags for the trick or treaters but since neither one of us would be home to actually give out the candy she made a sign with the typical "happy Halloween please take one" instructions. To my surprise this actually worked very well, though admittedly I'm not sure if that's because kids are better than when I was young or the low number of trick or treaters we get. As we were cleaning up that's when I noticed that she had made her sign out of dollar store foamcore. Apparently that's just the coincidental push I needed to make some cavernous scatter terrain of my own. I'd reccomend watching Black Magic Craft's actual build first as it's a great video. Plus I really only intend to give an overview of the build and the mistakes I made trying to replicate his pieces rather than the actual steps. After cutting and hot gluing all the pieces together I was feeling pretty confident, they didn't look too bad either. Unfortunately I left a ton of brushstrokes on the pieces when I sealed them. Everything looked a bit better after I applied some brown paint however. My wash was just too strong though and I basically brought everything back to the orginal black. So I once again painted them brown. I thinned down my wash and also used less of it which worked pretty well. I drybrushed everything with a lighter brown and they look pretty good. I can definitely still see a ton of brushstrokes on the pieces but they almost work in their favor, adding a bit of texture to everything. I definitely made some mistakes on this project but I'm really glad I gave it a try. My pieces aren't as nice and polished as a Pro builder but I certainly think they're passable. Plus once you add miniatures they look way better.

So I salvaged this bit of 16×20 particle board from a broken picture frame. I'll be using some of my foam core to make a city square/crossroads board with my foam rollers. Something for city games that isn't too time consuming, but is also good for a wide spread of genres with the proper buildings and scatter The tough part will be steaming off the paper and cutting down the various bits for rolling.

And so it begins... floorplans and foamcore. I couldnt find the post where I originally shared the link to floorplans, but a quick Google search turned up a version with BASEMENT! Now it all makes sense. I'll be doing a variation of the horizontal (top) layout with added stacks in the basement (and smaller lecture room). This will be the setting for my Gemma Files diorama. I will be doing fancy paper "wallpaper" on the inside. Stained popsicle sticks wood floors on the main, and concrete on the basement (tile bathrooms) with carpet in the staff and lecture rooms. I intend for it to be playable, with separate floors (and roof). I'm debating FANCY openable windows. Brownstone, with tar roof and stone trim. I went with the built in size constraints of the folding presentation board on purpose.

I will be building 2 custom 12*9*1 foam storage trays for my metal minis, using foam, felt, foamcore. Yesterday I applied felt to the first side of the foamcore base. Today I will apply felt to the other side. This will give a sturdy base and something soft for the minis to rest on. Second side is so that I can layer them and worry less about scratching. Total cost materials glue, 5$ foam, 1$ felt, 1$ foamcore. Bonus, I have trays that will fit in my fancy Muji storage boxes. Photos later.

So I'm thinking of building terrain "fronts" by taking some leftover foamcore, some photos of buildings, and creating some fold-out support ('L-shaped?) so that they will stand up. Has anyone ever tried this? I'm thinking of building fronts because a) more easily stored b) give me lots of flexibility to create mood c) my GNL mats will be used for layouts. d) faster than building full, playable bulidings I'm wondering about sizing. if I do 12 ft per story, that'll fit on an 8x11 paper? I suppose I should compare it to my existing 2 floor MDF stuff, but different eras. I still have no idea yet whether I can find enough photos at sufficient resolution to do this. I took one from google streetview (spoilered), which is also 3 storeys. I suppose I will test something out and report back. In the meantime, please make suggestions, refer to other similar projects/products you're aware of. Thanks.

I decided that I needed a shelf to put minis on so they stop cluttering up my work area. I needed a shelf of shame. I have a ton of foamcore, paper and WorldWorks Games products, so I knew a custom unit could be made. It probably took me 15-20 hours of time to build, but honestly a large portion of that was dealing with printer issues. Here is where the WIP starts: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/49824-talaes-wip-thread-of-everything/?p=901883 The final product: