Initial Game Room Photos

   Here are some photos of the game room. It has actually advanced a good bit since this point, but I haven't got those photos handy at the moment. I will see what I can do to remedy that in a few days.

Custom table for RPGs in progress.

Each side has cupholders, drawers, and a power outlet for a tablet.

Also, a storage shelf underneath.

Fridge and armchair

 

Built in shelves

WIP shot of the stonework going up

Faux stonework done

Length of the room

The World According to Gruntz

   This is not the Official Gruntz Helioscape Map.

   No, this is a map I did up last night to illustrate the major power blocs of Earth in the wake of several future history events:

• The Jihad - established the Caliphate State
• The Incorporation - established the Corporate Federation
• The Tsarist Restoration - established the New Russian Empire
• The Paris-Berlin Agreement - reorganized the European Union into Paneuropa
• The Great Asian War - expanded China, created the Great East Asia Hegemony and the South Asian Alliance
• The Grande Guerra da Unificacao (Great Unification War) - created the South American Confederation
• The African Wildfire - created the Pan African Union

So, the key:

• Gold/Yellow: Corporate Federation
• Pink: Paneuropa
• Purple: Kingdom of Greater Colombia
• Light Green: South American Confederation
• Dark Green: Islamic Caliphate State
• Brown: Pan African Union
• Red: Great East Asia Hegemony
• Orange: South Asian Alliance
• Light Blue: New Russian Empire
• Gray: Switzerland

Two Wins! LPL Rounds 8 and 9

   I finally got a couple of more wins in the Lead Painter's League, in Rounds 8 and 9.

Road Hogs: Round 8

   The Road Hogs entry was inspired of course by Fury Road, the latest "Mad Max" film. I put the Mad Max in quotes, because, well... Max isn't the main character. It is, however, a two hour long car chase. Which is pretty cool. The cars are repainted Matchbox, the motorcycles come from Games Workshops' Dark Future game from the 80s. I added some antennas, grill-work armor, and a few wheel blades, a head on a pole, that sort of thing.

FSA Fleet: Round 9

   These are the capital ships of my Federated States fleet for Dystopian Wars. One dreadnought, a battleship, a 'heavy' battleship, and two carriers - one a double-decker!

   So that puts me in at, to date, a total of four wins, five losses, with one week remaining. Out of 32 contestants, I am in 21st place. I think I may win this week as well, with my final entry. That would put me at a respectable 5-5 record. I'll take it!

Terrain Mat Photos

The Jungle Mat

   This is a 6' x 9' canvas tarp, dyed with a variety of greens and brown, and then misted with water to get the colors to bleed into one another just a little. Basically, I used a spray bottle with RIT dye in it to color the cloth, changing colors as needed, and then following up with a bottle full of clean water. If you do this method, DO NOT OVERDO THE WATER. I tried washing the first mat after dying it, and it was a disaster (see the other post on mats)!

                                   The Martian Mat

   This is a 5' x 9' piece of good quality canvas from the fabric store. It took the dye better and I think will last longer than the tarp. As mentioned previously, this was the first and suffered a series of mishaps. I am pretty happy with the results I came out with, considering all the mistakes I made. I think it looks Mars-y. And definitely more durable than the old felt mat.

   I'll be making two more mats in the near future: a European fields mat (5' x 9') and a smaller gray concrete area mat (3' x 5'). The smaller mat could be placed on a large mat for an urban area. It is going to be designed for a Car Wars autoduelling arena, however. I even have a neat idea for some bunkers to place on the mat, and gate markers. The concrete bunkers will get advertising posters on them! I may even get really ambitious and do up arena walls for the outside edges of the arena. I have some old styrofoam that woudl be close to perfect for that, and then I could build the gates into the walls... Sliding steel doors? That really slide, of course!

   One last photo for tonight, of some random jungle scatter I have been making:

That's a GW metal stegadon for WFB in the background, and its all on the new jungle mat. Just aquarium plants glued to fender washers and static grassed. Nothing fancy.

A few photos of recent projects

Just a few photos of some of the things I have been doing. Once the Martian mat gets dry, I'll photograph it and show you all how it came out.

First up is the unobtainite deposits. Martian landscaping, blue crystals. Ready to play! Also useful for BattleTech, which my sons and I are getting into a little.

These are shots of two different rock outcroppings I just finished for Venus. The basic forms were given to me by Dan Martinez, aka Cacique Caribe, aka One Swell Fella. He was out of space and just couldn't bear to discard them, so he "Gamed them Forward" to me. What do you think, Dan?

All I did was paint them with flat black latex house paint, then spray with textured rock paint. Paint the base dark green. Once paint is all dry, I painted PVA all over the base and in strategic nooks and crannies and added static grass. The vines were done with a line of PVA riht out of the bottle, then some 'weed' green ground cover flocking was sprinkled on. Poke a few holes in the foam and glue in a few bits of aquarium plants and floral stems from Hobby Lobby. Spray all with a coat of gloss clearcoat and a coat of matte finish. Done!

If you look on the left edge of this photo, you can see the rocks 'before.' The blue foam is nice, but I like the way they came out better. Don't you?

Resin Minerals Painted

I bought a pair of pieces of Armorcast's resin "Pyrite Crystals" from a local gaming shop last week, and got them painted up over the weekend. Finally had time to take a photo of them and put together a few thoughts about them, especially as compared to my previous crystal project, the green 'handwavium' ones I made of carved pink foam.

My review:

• Nice quality casting.
• Good stronge yellowish beige resin
• Very little flash or pitting
• Nice lines
• Details okay, but not fantastic. Just a clump of rock crystals.
• Super easy to paint.
• Price: $5.00

What I Did:

1. First I used a sharp hobby knife to clean up the little bits of flash, mold lines, etc.
2. Then I washed the pieces with warm soap and water, rinsed and dried with paper towel. Let it sit overnight to air dry more.
3. Next, a little bit of superglue to fill the few small bubble pits. Let sit for an hour to cure.
4. Then I sprayed each piece with flat white paint.
5. Color on the rocks was achieved by using several coats of thinned Vallejo Intense Blue. Ground color was Ceramcoat burnt sienna.
6. Brush watered PVA glue on base (using 100 for $4 cheap-o plastic bristle brush), then dredge into my Mars ground mix, and let dry.
7. Next morning, two coats fo Testor's gloss, followed in afternoon by Testor's flat.
8. Will finish by brushing on a coat of water-soluble gloss onto the crystals to make them shiny.
   

Martian Insulae

Like many pieces of terrain these days, my Martian insulae (old style apartment buildings) start off life as packaging material. In this case, I got hold of several of these pieces from the IT guy at my school - maybe five or six of them total. Each will eventually become a block of row-houses.
Same packaging, spray painted. I used three colors in successive layers, then went back and lightly 'dusted' with the lower colors to keep the sort of mottled look I was going for. I like the texture of the packaging as well - actually, it was as important as the interesting shape when I saw it laying there, discarded, looking for a way to be recycled. Man, I feel the urge to hug a tree or something...

One of the nooks and crannies between the humps looked (to me at least) just like a walkway between upper levels. So I put in two doors and a railing. Of course, they need painting still, but you get the idea.
In this last shot (again, not a great picture), you can see the ground level entries for two homes, plus chimneys (the mushroom-looking things) and windows for upper stories. The windows need painting, of course, and the doors are waiting on a trip to the store to purchase framing pieces for around them.

So far, I think they look pretty good. Thanks to a brief discussion with my friend Eli, I have some ideas for rooftop patios or gardens as well, with lattice gratings, maybe awnings. Let me know what you think, and I will keep you posted as I continue work on this little project.

Just a quick shot of the telegraph poles in use! This is a VSF setting, with a column of her Britannic Majesty's troops patrolling the line.

Hope you enjoy!