Again, haven't made anything crazy for a bit but we just finished our second arc so I made a poster for it. Most recent session was easily our best yet, the players are all really settling into their roles and had so many clutch rolls or creative moments. Fun stuff

Rob Apple!

Back to crafting post-move!

I made what they call "dungeon stackers" aka cliffs. A certain kinda cliff though. The top is kept unrealistically flat so you can use them to hold terrain board and such. Basically it just helps give you height which is something I've desperately needed

I had two chunks of packing styrofoam which I dont usually use but it as okay for this. I do kinda regret using the big ones but they're still gonna be nice to have

Used two new materials that Ive been wanting to try out for this. The first is SPACKLE. Packing styrofoam sucks for crafting so I coated it in cheap spackle to help smooth it out. This had...mixed results. I loved the spackle texture on the top flat surface but it didnt smooth out on the rocky cliffs as much as I had hoped..and that was the whole reason for using it. I might try plaster next time instead

Steps in the pics below. Cut up the foam. Spackled it. Painted it black and then watery brown. Dry brushed in a heavy gray. Brought it all down with a black wash. Then a final gray to white dry brush, then flocked it

The other new thing I tried was crafting with....grape stems! Or vines, whatever. I had heard of people using them as roots so I gave it a shot. Baked them in the oven for a bit to kill any bacteria, coated them in glue to seal it, painted it a better brown. Added a few of these sticking out of the cliffs, I think it worked well enough to break up the sheer cliff faces

Spoiler	+

Final pics next

These are fun because they have quite a few uses. In the pics below I smooshed the two together to form one singular cliff, used them to form a valley, cliffs along the shoreline, and the final pic is one way I can use them as dungeon stackers for elevation, but that's not really how I plan to use them dungeon stacker wise that's just all I had atm to lay flat across them. Similar effect tho





















Ignore the terrain on top of the last two pics that was just a pile of stuff not set up

Not perfect but I know how I’d make it better if I made more/made smaller cliffs. There’s a few things I wish I had done differently. Eager to try out the spackle to texture things going forward though

Ignore the bridge I didn't make that. A rope bride might be my next project, thatll look good connecting the two cliffs

That's so cool!

Curtis @ 18/10/2021 20:09

Ignore the bridge I didn't make that. A rope bride might be my next project, thatll look good connecting the two cliffs

o I was just about to compliment that (:

rest is cool too ofc

Boc @ 18/10/2021 23:54

Curtis @ 18/10/2021 20:09 Ignore the bridge I didn't make that. A rope bride might be my next project, thatll look good connecting the two cliffs o I was just about to compliment that (: rest is cool too ofc

My pal was over and wanted to craft so she made the bridge based off one I made that broke, but the scale is off on this one, it’s wayyy too long so I never use it

Fighting pit hidden underneath floorboards

This is something that my upcoming story required but initially I wasn't gonna craft it until I found the perfect piece of trash, which led me on a craft binge today

My players are gonna be checking out this creepy culty type group that meets in a church but they're gonna discover that they're only shady because they're an illegal underground fighting pit group etc, the details don't matter. I wasnt gonna craft the fighting pit because its gonna be close ranged combat so there isnt much of a reason to show distance etc, but then I found the piece of styrofoam below that I was about the throw out and thought it was perfect

Even though the foam was perfect for the concealed pit, I ended up having to do a lot more steps than intended to make it work. Process pics in these tags show me having to set it inside of a box and cut out different thin pieces of cardboard to attach the wooden planks to. Last two pics show the pews (just benches really) that I made out of one of those wooden brainteaser games and an altar I made out of foam. The finished pictures further below shows some tiny candles added to the altar, those were fun to make

Spoiler	+

The gist is that once prying eyes aren't watching, this group rolls up the aisle carpet and reveals the false floor and lifts the whole thing up to reveal the bareknuckle fighting pit. All pew tossed to the edges to become stadium seating as they place bets and cheer on the fighters. Should look better once I print out figures to fit the scene instead of using these stand-ins

HOPING for a fun moment at the table when the false floor is revealed, but I'm a bit unhappy about the way the floor fits into the groves right now. The planks caused the false floor piece to warp so it may be a bit obvious that something is underneath, but I'm gonna fix it and make sure its concealed better


Also ended up being pretty unhappy with the stone on the pit itself, ironically the spare piece of trash that launched this whole thing. I thought the texture would look a lot nicer than it does once painted up but oh well, I might end up adding sand and making it a sandy fighting pit instead, tbd

I’m gonna attempt a stained glass window today to tie it all together. And maybe a couple of statues, I’ve been wanting to try statues

Quick one from today, took me like twenty minutes minus drying time. Nothing fancy

SPIKE GROWTH. My buddy who plays our ranger recently got this spell and is using it a lot already so I figured Id craft the spell effect. Havent crafted a spell effect yet but I thought it might be nice to have and plop down on the table to help visualize the area it covers etc

Process pics. Real easy, just hot glue on a base to simulate some vines and roots. Then coated some twine in flock and added them on top

Spoiler	+

Another quickie from today. I decided to take some of my oldest stuff and remake them. I went through my like, day ONE crafts and picked out a few that aren't quite up to snuff or I never used or just made as a test or something

BEFORE



A few ladder tests, table tests, sheet of wood that fell off of something else, and those finger tip things you slip on while going through a stack of papers, I thought those would make fun little slime enemies but never did anything with them



AFTER












Nothing flashy but easy improvements either way. Added iron banding to the table now that I have silver paint and painted the table up a bit better. The ladders are obviously far better, those original three were material tests and I never used any of them in game. These ones Ill use for sure, they're much more in scale too. I scrapped some of the cardboard and popsicle sticks from the other ladders and that wood sheet piece to make those two new piles of wood since rubble is always useful. The one I'm most excited about is the slime. Just drizzled some hot glue over it and painted it up in various greens then gave it a glossy finish, looks way better in person. After using them as slime enemies I could probably repaint them and reuse them as some nasty creature eggs too

Fun to revisit this small stuff now that I have more paint and material and knowledge. I think Ill pick out some other, more interesting older stuff and do this again soon

Definitely one of the funnest things to make so far, a MECH

Might feel a little advanced technology wise for a fantasy dnd campaign but plenty of campaigns add mechs/automatons/steam punk type stuff. I decided one location in my world is gonna lean closer towards that and one of my players tied it into his backstory so this'll eventually be his rusty old mech that he dusts off and uses for an arc


Really fun process. Ive been collecting bits of plastic for ages hoping to make something like this and it was satisfying to finally use so much of it. I wish I took more pictures during the plastic construction process, it was fun to try to fit different pieces in different spots and see what worked

First pic I have is after it was all assembled. I made this dirty gloopy texture paste out of a bunch of stuff and slobbered the thing with it to give it a good rust base





Spray primed it which immediately helped tie it all together



Base coat of a rust color



Stippled on green but made sure to let the rust show through, then dry brushed a tan to pick up texture



Gave it a brown wash to dirty the whole thing up and picked out different parts to paint silver



Another dry brush to finish it up but the lighting in these next pics isnt the best












The second one here is one that my player was making alongside me just for fun




There's thing about the pose that I wish I did differently to make it look more dynamic but for my first "scratch bashing" project as they call it, I'm v happy with it

I'm printing out a new mini for the player and its gonna go inside that center hole so itll be operating the mech. I asked him before hand what he wanted the thing to do since hes gonna be using it to fight giant creatures and he wanted a clawed arm, a grapple arm, and a magic missile launcher since he knows Magic Missile. The shoulder launcher is so cartoony and way too MISSILEY but I love it

Might end up adding some moss and vines to it eventually since hes gonna find it buried in some overgrowth

Not a craft, but after my players hit lvl 5 I updated their d1 Heroforge characters to reflect what theyve been up to so far and photoshopped them into scenes from our game (background art was largely stolen dont tell the police)

Passiontrain, my man.