Frostgrave Scenery Project - Trees

After a couple of rather long projects I have a couple of quicker ones to show.

First up we have some trees.

I bought a couple of bags of wintery trees from an Ebay dealer in China. The trees are supplied with the snow already on them, but just pieces of wire coming out of the trunk. For the two packs they cost around £16.

To base them I cut and sanded some random shapes out of some scraps of 6mm MDF. The edges are sanded down to the table level with the plan that they will look like snow drifts once complete.

I drilled 2mm holes where the trees were to be placed and glued them in with PVA woodglue.

Once the trees were firmly stuck in place I moved on to finishing the bases. Normally I would add sand at this point, but as they were snow covered I skipped this stage. I simply applied a nice thick coat of white emulsion paint and while the paint was still wet I sprinkled Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow over them.

I will give them all a spray coat of matt varnish to hold the foliage and snow in place.

A nice simple little project that took very little time at all...

Frostgrave Scenery Project Part 09

Part 01, Part 02, Part 03, Part 04, Part 05, Part 06, Part 7, Part 8

The grout that I painted over the outside of the tower set very well and I am pleased with the results. The seems i the tube are still visible, and I should probably have added another coat to totally hide them but I am happy with the results now. A quick wash with watered down burnt umber and then dry brushing with a couple of tones of grey an I am happy with the final distressed look of the tower.

I also dry brushed the roof tiles with grey which finished them off nicely too.

Time to tart work on some of the wintry aspects of this build. As an urban scene there isn't much vegetation, although I will add some dead leaves to the base. I do want to add ice and snow though. The first stage is to add some icicles. I cut the basic icicles from blister packaging and super glued them to the spots that I thought would look most dramatic, with out getting in the way if players need to reach into the models.

 I went a bit over the top with the stone bridge and added a solid line of icicles under either side.

The damaged floors only got a couple (for effect).

This is all a bit off an experiment, so I was not sure how successful it would be. The blister plastic gave the basic structure and I wanted to add something to give the organic shape of the icicles. I use Z-Poxy two part epoxy adhesive for a lot of things and it generally dries totally clear so that seemed like a good option. I mixed up some of the Z-Poxy and smeared it over the blister plastic.

My Z-Poxy has a 15 minute set time (you can get 5minute or 30minute too). This was not too bad although it did try to run and form drips a little. I think if I was to do this again on a big project I would get some of the 5 minute set version.

I am happier with the look of the individual icicles on the timber bridge and the 3D effect that the epoxy gives works well.

As you can see from the photos the epoxy has not set clear. My Z-Poxy is old and well past it's normal shelf life (a couple of years at best). I am assuming that this is why it is cloudy. These photos were taken within an hour of it setting, so I am hoping that with time it clear a little more.

Overall I am quite pleased so far. I will add some dead foliage and snow next, which I can use to hide a few imperfections and will hopefully tie the whole model together.

One more post on the blog should see this build finished and my moving on to the next Frostgrave scenario. I have started planning the next build which will be the mausoleum. A much simpler model, they are all simpler, as I started with the most complex one...

Frostgrave Scenery Project 01

As I stated in my last post, over the next couple of months I am going to be building up a series of terrain pieces to use in our Frostgrave campaign.  I started by going through the rulebook and listing all the specific piece that are used in the scenarios, which are as follows:-

Square Mausoleum Building, 6" per side with a door in each wall.

Ruined Wizards Tower - at least 10" high with three floors. This tower must have a building either side of it with a bridge or ladder allowing access to the upper storeys.

Underground Library- The table must be covered in multiple decaying book shelves and rubble. There should be a door or entrance point on each of the four sides of the table.

6 Statues in a 12" square ruin.

Haunted Houses - Six small stone monks huts with no roof!

A Well or Fountain

Four 2" diameter discs to act as teleport points..

6 Columns or ruined columns.

On top of these specific pieces we will need a selection of generic ruins.

The only one that I have decided to avoid is the Underground Library as I think the work needed in making a mass of book shelves to fill the table, would have limited re-usability, as it could only be used for the one scenario. The rest will hopefully be usable for other fantasy games as well as possibly historical one too.

Thee four discs for teleportation points should be easy enough and even if I can't use them too much, I am sure they can be used as objective markers in future games.

So, first up I have decided to go with the Ruined Wizards Tower.

As this piece has to have a tower and a ruined house at either side of it I used one of the 40x20cm bases that I had made.
I took a length of heavy duty cardboard tube and marked it out where I needed to cut it!

The tube is 4 or 5mm thick, so to tough to cut with a knife. I decided that for speed I would use my Jigsaw. This is a bit dangerous as trying to cut a curved tube can be tricky, I have 30+ years experience as a professional model maker, but for anyone not used to using these saws I would recommend a fair bit of caution when trying to cut tube like this! I also used a 6mm drill to drill some holes that I will shape into windows.

I plan to use Foamcore board for most of the construction work in this series of builds. Foamcore, as the name suggests, is a sandwich of foam with a layer of thin card on both sides. It cuts easily and accurately, and the thickness (I have both 5mm and 3mm sheets) is great for representing ruined walls.

First up I have cut three discs that will be used for the floors of the tower. I simply placed the tube over the foamcore and drew around the inside of it. I am not aiming for perfection with the cutting of the pieces as the ruins will be covered in rubble and this can be used to hide any imperfections...

I cut sections out of the discs to show where the side of the tower had collapsed. Then glued them into the tube.

Next I stated work on the ground floor of the two houses either side of the tower. To hide the edges of the foamcore I cut away the inner side of one edge, removing the inner card and the foam. This leaves a strip of card which can be stuck over the edge of the wall that is glued to it.

I glued the two ground floor buildings on either end. One I had cut open as a ruin but the other I had left intact. I also cut some rectangles of foamcore to build up a staircase to the towers entrance which was raised above the ground.

I decided that both outer building should have open damaged walls on the ground floor, so I used a sharp scalpel to cut the intact one open too. I then repeated the process of building the four walls, to add the first floor on to them. I also cut a rectangle of foamcore for the floor of each house.

I cut windows into the walls of the buildings and also a doorway on one of the first floor walls where it will lead to a bridge into the tower.

It all looks fairly crude at the moment, but as these are all going to be ruins anyway I didn't feel it was necessary to spend to much time making it all neat! Next up I will move of to adding some balsawood and spuce strips to give the buildings some detail and character!

Some time to think, planning future projects... Frostgrave!

This summer has proved to be a very difficult one for my model making projects. Earlier in the year we went through some family health issues which led to a bereavement. While dealing with that I found it impossible to concentrate on any model making or sculpting work. Due to this I had to back out of a sculpting job that I had been really enjoying, and that would almost certainly have led on to more work.

On top of that, in my day job we have just moved to a new building, which has meant creating a whole new model making workshop and also taking on a new guy to help me out... The move is more or less complete, however we are still waiting for all the new workshop machinery, which will hopefully arrive in the next couple of weeks.

Stepping back from the sculpting work gave me a chance to consider where I want to concentrate my sculpting. I have decided that I am going to restrict myself to personal projects that I have been planning for some time and not take on any sculpting commissions for a while (although I am still taking on commercial model making work). I have a couple of ideas that I have been working on and it is about time I took them in to 3D. I can't reveal what these projects are at the moment as I want to get several pieces sculpted before I do the big reveal, consequently I doubt that I will be doing many sculpting articles for a while, so the focus of this blog will be on my model making, for a bit.

On a personal level, once my gaming pals and I have finished our Star Trek: Attack Wing campaign,  we are planning to start playing Frostgrave (from Osprey Publishing) and this has inspired me to start a new terrain building project. I have gone through the rulebook and listed all the terrain needed for the scenarios. This is the starting point for the project as I want to make terrain  that can be used for these, but will also be useful for more generic games too.

As a terrain heavy game that will have wizards and their followers fighting through the ruins of a long dead city, it means anyone running the game is going to need a fair bit of terrain. I hope to be able to show that this is not too daunting a task, and that you can put together a lot of reasonably good looking terrain quite quickly and without spending a fortune!

I have started the project by cutting a series of boards that will be used for the bases for the terrain pieces. I cut and sanded a number of 20cm x 20cm pieces and also several 20cm x 40cm pieces. Each base will hold an individual ruin and once they are all brought together they should give the feel of a ruined city. Also by using this modular system it should be possible to generate different tables every time we play!

In my next post I will look at the first ruin I am building, A wizards tower!

Step by Step Sculpt Part 05!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Slow and steady with the detail. It makes for fairly boring posts but it is what really takes the time...

 I have worked up some detail on the right arm, building up the fabric with some bunching and folds. I have also started work on the "plates" over the right shoulder. I have scored in the divisions between the plates and once I have cooked the clay I will sand them down to achieve a more "plate-like" feel to the area.

 As I rotate the figure, I often jump back to parts that I had worked on previously. Slowly refining the detail on the fabric, or smoothing out areas. This is one of the great advantages with the polymer clay, as until it is cooked I can keep returning to the same area over and over again.

I have also done some work on the coat under the  right arm. Adding some folds into the fabric. The brief from the client (Wild House Models), has allowed me some creative input, letting me take the design sketches and develop them into the 3D form with some flourishes of my own. So I have added some more extra flow to the fabric, and broken up the smooth lines a little, I feel that this adds to the overall detail of the figure, and add some realism, without removing it too much from the original concept...

Next up I started to work on the fabric where it is fastened at the front of the coat. Adding littll stresses in the fabric, where concealed fastenings are pulling at it...

 I have also started to add the seams to the left side of the coat.

In these photos they are at a very early stage, literally just scored into the soft clay.

At this stage it is relatively easy to correct errors, if I get the lines in the wrong place... However, I am reasonably happy with the positioning, and I will move on to smoothing them and shaping them a little more next.

I am aiming to cook the figure again very soon, to set the new work in place, but before I do that I will do some more work on the coat and probably add some detail to the left arm.

The brief also requires that figure to have two alternate heads. So once I have cooked and set the existing work I will remove the head stump and work on the neck locating joint. Removing this part could be quite tricky as the the core of hard epoxy and copper wire may be difficult to cut through. I want to do it at this stage so that I don't damage the figure after I have added to much detail around the neck...

Step by Step Sculpt Part 04!

Part 01, Part 02, Part 03.

Not much progress in the last few days, I have had a few health issues and they have meant I haven't done much sculpting.

I have done some more work on the doctors coat, which is starting to take shape quite nicely. I have also started to work on the arms, but more on them in the next post.

I am not totally happy with the smoothing of the polymer clay, and I have read that a soft brush and some oil (possibly baby oil) is good for this. I am going to have to do some more research before I try this as I don't want to ruin the work already done.

Step by Step Sculpt Part 03!

Part 01 |  Part 2

The first bake seemed to go OK, the legs have set well and it means I can hold them while I work on the upper torso.

I started off by filling out the torso to get the anatomy more or less correct. Then moved on to adding the doctors coat. It sits at a jaunty angle, and initially I was a bit concerned that it would look out of place on a male figure. However, I think that this will be resolved once I get more of the outfit in place.

I also felt it was time that I added some supporting epoxy putty (ProCreate) to the head area.

 As I approach the shoulders it is apparent that I need to get the arms in position so that I can work on the fabric around the shoulders. Using my scale template I cut the arm wires to length and belt them at the elbow joints. Once again, I applied some ProCreate to the arms to bulk them out a bit and give a surface for the polymer clay (Super Sculpey) to adhere to...

I have also done some more work to the doctors coat and added some of the armour like plates down his left leg.

As my confidence grows with the polymer clay I have decided to leave further bakings at this stage as I am finding  I am happy working on the miniature in it's soft state at the moment.

It is interesting to see how the polymer clay tales details, I had really considered using ProCreate for the plates on his leg, but the Super Sculpey is working well at the moment.

Just as a side point, I usually sculpt at a couple of different places and carry my tools and sculpts with me. This has never been a problem as I could just drop my set sculpts into a plastic box and they would be safe. However, with the change to polymer clay I have to carry un-set sculpts, and rattling around inside a plastic box is liable to destroy all the detail before I can bake it.

However I have manage to get around this by using some foam to secure the figure, so that it is suspended within the box and is securely protected during transport...

Look for another post over the next week or so, as the figure moves on, and I hope to start approaching some more of the detail!

Step by Step Sculpt Part 02!

 Part 01

 In part one I looked at the construction of the armature. Now I am ready to start some of the actual sculpting work.
After filling out the armature with a hard epoxy putty (Sylmasta A+B), I also used a little ProCreate to bulk out the feet. Once this was set I moved on to the polymer clay. I have never used polymer clay for a professional sculpt before, but I am aware that it is used by a growing number of European sculptors, and looking at their work it is hard not to be impressed...

I have used polymer clay once or twice for simple crafty projects, for example, the year before last I made this Santa for my sons school project out of Fimo...

I had had this Fimo lying around in the workshop for at least 20 years, and I was surprised that it was still relatively workable! However, for this new project I wanted the best quality materials, so I decided to look at some alternatives. Around a year ago I was given a block of Super Sculpey to try out and this seems like a good place to start. I also ordered up a couple of packs of Bees Putty, as it seems to be getting good results too.

Having done a little reading I understand that there can be issues with getting the polymer clay to stick to the armature. I left the epoxy putty I had underneath fairly rough and this seemed to work well.

 I like to build up my figures with basic anatomy before I move on to clothing them. This is a good practice as it helps to ensure that the proportions come out OK. I found working with the polymer clay to be very enjoyable, slowly adding more clay and working my way up the legs and lower torso. Having an unlimited time to work the sculpt, rather than being restricted to an hour and a half as the putty sets, certainly is a refreshing feeling and removes a lot of the stress of the sculpting process. As it turned out, the removal of the time restriction, didn't actually lengthen the time spent on each area, but it doest make for a very different approach over all.

Once I was happy with the basic shape of the legs I started to add the drape of the fabric of the trousers. Now, obviously, as the clay does not set, it is very important not to touch or damage finished parts before baking them. For this reason I decided to finish the legs, and bake it, before moving on to the upper torso.

Some of the drapery and folds on the figure look a little odd at the moment, as there are, for want of a better word, "armour plates" to go down the left side of the figure, as well as various other bits of detail that will push the fabric around (his boots for a start).

 I am happy with the legs at this stage and I don't want to work on them any more, so I have baked it. It is important not to over bake the polymer clay as it can give off fumes. The clay on this figure, at the moment, is very thin, being around 1mm at it's thickest, so 15 minutes at 130 degrees centigrade was perfectly adequate.

Next post will see slow but steady progress up the torso!