Tag: d&d terrain

Hello again! Here I like to share with you one of the main crafting parts of “Dark Woods of Gajen”, which are the Trees. There is a number of them. And each got its own nature, shape, fill.

But to the point! You will need few nice parts of foam. Since we like to have trees standing on 2×2” base you should find styro. with around 2” thick.

Cut those into cuboids with height between 2” – 9” – depends on how big tree you like to have.

And now quick jump. I will show this in more detail on my video. In general you have to cut foam to shape tree. So first shape a cylinder keeping in mind that you will cut a hole at the bottom to put LED light.  Then use some kind of chisel and punch bark texture. This should rough so no worries, it can’t go wrong.

And here how it looks from back side…

I’ve added white sticks with hot glue to emphasise old age of those woods. Don’t try to have very similar looking tree faces. I’ve good once with horned kind of head and many different.

How to shape the face? I’ve got no idea.

What I did it was very simple quick decision that I like to have something looking like old thinker. What is good here, those are trees, right? So it really doesn’t need to look like perfect cute face.

Keep in mind you will also need some pure trunks. Maybe with hollows and mushrooms. So cut them as well.

So you should end up with a number of those kind of sculptures.

Here you should try to put LED light inside of those, which may be enchanted. One important thing – do not glue LED light inside of tree! You will need first to put base paint inside. Then you can glue.

I strongly recommend to use burnt umber as base coat.  It looks very nice. And even without additional layers it is already playable – at least for me

You will need to wait some time until base paint dry. Then suggest to use dry brush technique with lighter version of this brown color.

Keep in mind to put a bit of a paint inside of tree holes. It will look very nice later.

And basically here you have it! Enjoy!

In dark woods of Gajen there are places when shadows fills the air. In the night strange things moves between the trees and you pray to make the campfire long. Just to don’t go into the darkness. Don’t go to meet eyes of nightmares.

Let’s build a safe place for our heroes! Lets light the campfire!

We are starting with common LED lights, which you can find in markets. First you have to remove the cover of light. If you’re lucky, it will be easy. I was and it has been very quick job, so I could start dealing with foam and glue.

You will need a number of small polystyrene foam blocks – those will work as stones around central fireplace. Try to glue them leaving little space around LED diode.

 

During stones cuts you will probably find some foam trashes laying around – don’t throw them away! Take you hot glue gun and create nice layer around LED. Then drop those small bits around. This will show up later as embers and ash.

Now you can also take some nice and very small sticks. Glue them over embers to shape central part of your campfire.

Time for base paint!

I decided to paint everything (except the diode of course) with black base. You could try to use burned umber as base on sticks, but really you can add it as a layer on black base later – no problem at all.

Now make a coffee, take a walk, find optional quest in local bar.

When you’re base paint is dry, take dry brush. For stones I’ve used two layers of grey – first dark one and a little bit later lighter version. It was almost white to be honest. For planks / sticks I’ve took burnt uber with a little drop of white paint.

The very crusial bit, was regarding warm yellow highlight. And you definitly should try do the same. So when you stones and burnt wood looks nice take a little drop of warm yellow color and apply it with dry brush. Do that on LED diode, central part of sticks and even on stone edges exposed to light outbreaks.

You will end up with something like this…

Happy? I hope you are! And your players will enjoy campfire in Dark Woods of Gajen!

Trick or threat?

I definitely prefer trick. And in next couple of days I like to share with you my fantasy setting called The Dark Woods of Gajen. Welcome to the evil forest, where anything you see may turn into your worst enemy.

I like to start with crafting tutorials, so you will be able to find out how to make your own campfire and evil wood. I also got some marshes bits and the central stone of ancient force hidden inside of it.

After ages broken force circle caused this ancient dream creature to wake up and bring Raktahalm nightmares again to this old forests.

Yes adventuress, your enemy is an ancient stone hidden deep in to cursed woods. Beware! And be brave! Fight is coming!

     

 

 

Looking for nice base plate for your play ground terrain? Take pin board and turn it into two nice lands. Lets go to the forest. Find a cave. Then go deep to the Underdark!

First look at this scary dark board adds fear of falling right here:

This darkness around gives you focus, makes you stronger as a Dungeon Master!

Concept of dark base which gives you this nice perception of void comes from Drunkens & Dragons – cheers Hankrein, You are great man!

What we like to do here, is to extend the idea a bit, finding a way to have collection of base terrains like nice scroll-able box of vinyl records. It may help, when you don’t have much space in your home 😉

Fist we pick two-sided pin board. Go to some paper / office shop. You will find them in nice price for sure.

And those are two-sided right!

First we paint one side with deep dark color. Be careful, cork, which is a core material here, need to be painted with thicker layer of paint to hide cracks. Wait until it became dry.

And you have something like this:

x

Perfect and nice for dark places, caves, tunnels etc.

Ok, now flip it on the second side!

This one have 60 by 30 inches. Quite big one, you may have smaller for your collection if you like. By anyway this one will be our grass land for druids stone circle in the center. And we will have nice sword in center. Like Excalibur, from Legend of King Arthur. But this sword will be ugly. How ugly? You will see some day.

Anyway, to the point. We take sharp knife and add grid first. Very delicate. We don’t like to create holes, just to put a little lines, which will help us count moves during the game.

Now base paint. This time with a bit dark green color. Everything to hide natural cork color.

But this general dark green all around looks boring, right?

Fine, we will use sponge painting technique to add nice grass. Just mix green and white paint with a little grain of yellow ochre. Little grain means really little one.

Then we have to wait a bit until it dries.

Finally we have to deal with borders. I simply painted them with single layer of burn umber. And you have it my friend!

 

It is time for wooden floor for our D&D bridges and taverns!

And we make it two sided.

Preparation

First you will need to take sheet of polystyrene foam. I’ve have here one like ~20mm thick. For each floor part we will need two same size pieces. Here I got six 8×2 inc. parts.

On three of them I added flagstone cuts with my sharp knife. You can find also some breaks to show how old those road parts are. With sandpaper I also added another bit of destruction (it will look nice at the end).

Next step is to paint with base black paint them from all sides. You should have something like below.

Wait until it becomes dry. Then paint one side with dark grey and light grey layers. I’ve made this with dry brush. You will something like this…

Time to start hard work!

You have to cut second part of styro. into planks.  You can first cut into 1×1 inc. part. Then each of those parts need to be cut into 3 separate planks. This will allow you to create a mosaic. This shape will allow your players (and you as DM!) easily find hero position during battle.

Next step will be to paint them with Burned Umber color (no black base paint this time!) Light color of foam will be our base here.

 

Binding all of it together

You should finish with a number of these little nice planks and 3 parts for stone floor. Now you have to bind them with hot glue.

You take 3 planks and glue them into dark side of floor part. Keep eye on the sizes! 3 planks should fill whole 1×1” and no more. Also keep in mind to create mosaic from them. So 3 planks on one inc. goes horizontally and 3 on next goes vertically.

You should end up with something like bellow.

Time to play in tavern!

Every evil dungeon master need doorways to hide ugly monsters.

You don’t want to show them to the party at start. Give them time to eat in peace!

So the doors!

Preparation

For this little doors you will need two polystyrene foam parts, one 50mm and second ~25mm. Thicker one we will use to build door jamb. Smaller will go for door wing.

First cut 2×2 inc. piece of 50mm foam. Next you should draw door wing on  it. Then cut it using sharp knife. Do not throw away center part. You can use is as pattern on thicker foam part. Just put it on another 2×2 of ~20mm styro. and trace with pen. Cut again and you almost have both part needen. The last thing for this will be to add stone texture and wood one. Also very simple, just take pencil or other thin stick and push a little bit on the foam.

After that we need to add floor bit. And prepare 4 hinges for our door wing. For floor just cut 2×1” foam part (I did it using 50mm styro.). Drop single line for now in the middle with pencil or something.

Now regarding hinges, job is a bit harder, you will need first to cut thin layers of styro. And then cut the shape as bellow one. It need to be thin as a ham, which you hate (I hope you like ham anyway but…). At the end take pencil or knife and add little holes on each of hinges. This will simulate nails holes.

Painting

On door jamb, floor part and hinges we need drop a base black color first. It will add this nice deep for stone and metal parts. When it drys on jamb and floor I normally add one layer of dark grey and then light grey. On hinges I used citadel paint called Leadbelcher.

Regarding doors just one nice layer of burn umber. It will look like brow wood.

Glue

Finally glue! Hot glue (not too hot) works very well with styro. You need a little drop of it on the inner part of jamb and for hinges. Your last step will be to glue jamb to the floor so your door will stand up again and block reckless foes.

This is your doors!