A couple of pieces I have put together over the last couple of weeks.  The skull on the shrine is made using a Fossil-iced Ice cube tray. The only issue with casting is demolding it at the end as the big hole towards the back of the skull really holds on tight. There is also a stegasaurus mold, but after casting it, I dont think it is near as good as the T-Rex.


 

 

first up is one more CD terrain piece




Next up is another pice for the Mayan/Lizardman complex.

 

 

been playing with mold 83 some more and assembled 2 more pieces (will be posted later). While doing so I found a paint combination I like for the stone.

You start by priming the plaster with a latex house primer like Kilz to make the piece a bit more waterproof. You will want to do this if you plan on doing any washes, otherwise the paint just bleeds and doesnt pool in the areas you want. after this is dry hit it with black spray primer.

Now it is time to paint, for a base coat I use FolkArt "Asphaltum" this will not give a solid or even base coat with one coat, but that is fine. second up is a heavy drybrush of FolkArt "Mushroom". Next is a light drybrush of FolkArt "Vintage White" to capture the highlights. lastly you do a very light wash of Reaper's Master Series Brown Liner.

Here are some CD terrain pieces I put together using the Rock Cavern Root Mold #83 from Hirst arts. I think they are also useable as regular aboveground terrain like Badlands.

 

Overall it took 12 days, Construction consisted of 350 460 linear inches of 1" x 1/2" x 1/2" gothic blocks (mostly from #40), luckily many of those blocks are grouped together in 2" & 3" sections. there is 144 square inches worth of floor tile (mostly from #201), 11 skulls (#70), and various bits from #54, 80, & 85. It comes in at about 10lbs, and it is based on a 15x18 piece of 1/4 plywood.

 

 

My latest project is a Step Pyramid for the tabletop, the base will be 12x12" + an additional 1-1/2" for the stairs that outcrop on the front, the overall height should come in at 7".

I figured this would be a great centerpiece for my lizardman army... then I realized I dont have a lizardman army...

Pictured below is the initial "temple" and the top two steps, the walls to the bottom step is glued together and drying as I type this.

Update: Fully assembled, ready for paint

I'm quite happy... I managed to pick up another Ertl Cowtown for a reasonable price.

Other pickups were a batch of figures from Superfigs, mostly figures that can be used in a pulp style game... my favorite? the Monkey pilot, he will be the first one I start on when I fire back up my weekly painting schedule.

 
 

... and probably last for a while, unless I see a Lledo vehicle I havent seen before...

In an upcoming pulp campaign, I thought it would be interesting to include some scenery like automobiles into the mix. There are a few miniature makers that produce their own that come with a hefty pricetag... more than I wanted to spend anyway. Remembering that "O" scale railroad scenery can be comparable to 25mm miniatures, I started digging around. Three lines of products came to light. Matchbox "Models of Yesteryear", Ertl, & Lledo "days gone"

Below is a 1930 Packard Victoria by Matchbox & a 1930 Chevy delivery truck from Ertl with copplestone figures for comparison.

Each vehicle cost about 5.00 + shipping

Treasures & Trinkets - has a bunch of neat ideas on how to make candles, gold bars, books and more to fill up your dungeon

with the exception of some plain hallways and some accessories, the dungeon is ready to use!

As I mentioned earlier, I swapped molds with a friend of mine, here is the finished result from the second mold

I am almost done with the initial setup of the dungeon Im working on, I finished painting several pieces last night and have a couple more pieces that I want to build leaving any "filler" pieces to round it out. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Next thing on the list is painting the drawers and drawers of lead I have collected over the years. I finially got to play with the new Reaper Pro Paints and they are fantastic.

 

This is mostly for those who do not use foam core as a base for your models, but cereal boxes instead. Ever run into a situation where you want a pool of water that isn’t very deep and has a flagstone floor? You could raise the height of the model by elevating the whole thing and using steps and lay out the flagstone tiles, or you could hand paint in each stone or you can do this:

This is a variant based off of tip #16, Making antique foil doors.

Items needed is a mousepad, heavy duty foil, your pattern, a ballpoint pen, glue, and a section from a cereal box big enough to back your project when finished.

Step one: sketch out over your pattern the size of the area you are going to use. no sense in tracing with the ballpoint pen any more than you need to.

Step two: lay the heavy-duty foil down over the mousepad (fabric side up), make sure it is smoothed out, being careful not to crease the foil. Then lay the pattern down on top of that. If you feel the need to tape everything down, then go ahead.

Step three: trace out the pattern on the paper, using just enough force to cause the foil to indent, keep your hands outside of the pattern area.

Step four: remove the pattern, and then remove the foil, being careful not to cause it to crinkle or crease. Turn foil over and put glue on that side to make the pattern permanent. Let glue dry completely then glue the cardboard back down.

Step five: turn the floor over and prime it. I primed mine black and used a lighter gray acrylic paint to drybrush giving it a stone look. The black will be down in the cracks between the stones.

Step six: glue floor down into finished piece, and fill with Envirotex lite.

The piece below is 4" x 2 1/2"

 

Late April I swapped out molds with a friend of mine for the sole reason to try out some new molds to see if they were something I would be interested in purchasing at a later date. One of the molds was for the Egyptian tower, which I finished last night. All-in-all, I’m glad this project is done, as it has been sitting there mocking me that it took so long to complete (the ruined fieldstone tower took only took 1 week from first cast to flocking). I’m not totally happy with the results, but its good enough for a tabletop game.

Here are a few things I discovered. You have to be precise with your blocks; it’s not as forgiving as fieldstone. A short or long block can cause all sorts of problems. I pained it up using the color "Sands of Time" which we had left over from painting out living room a couple of years ago. I then stained it using a dark oak finish, which took about a week to dry. I can see some other applications using the foil door technique, like built in wall murals (priming and painting them instead or staining)

FYI, the molds I borrowed were the Dragon's Teeth Accessory Mold, Egyptian Tower, Basic block mold (#100), Egyptian Weave Floor, and the fieldstone bridge, of those the field stone bridge will be the one I’m most likely to get in the future. Anyway, it is done, and now I can get back to the dungeon full time (after I’m done with the fieldstone bridge).

 

Here are a couple of pieces that I have done in the last 6 months or so, I intend to keep putting up new pieces, both in plaster and lead as I get them built as opposed to waiting so long.

This piece is from the ruined fieldstone tower mold, it has been a suprisingly usefull mold for both giving things a ruined or cutaway feel and for its differnt arches. This is the first "big" project I have done. (12"x12"x9")

this is another piece for the dungeon Im working on. and my second piece using Envirotex lite for the water.

what have I been up to? not a whole lot to be honest, I built a new 'puter, and Ive been casting plaster and assembling the pieces from molds I purchased last August. here are pieces for the dungeon Im currently working on.

This is the church mentioned below, I still have to do the stained glass, but it would not be visible in this shot anyhow (for those interested, Im going to use metallic blue and green on index cards to get the desired effect). the door had a red printed piece of cardboard however there was a nice sculpted door underneath. other than the windows and attaching a cross on top its finished. The model is an O scale Plasticville church, and it was a little rough, some of the plastic has snapped off (see the bell tower) and the original owner "glued" it together with a soldering iron. All-in-all Im happy with the results

I just purchased these from Ebay, this is the "before" shot, Ill get the "after" in a week or so.
 

 Outbuilding from the Ertl Cowtown set, I figured the building that they had as the Sheriff's office would work better as a bank or general store, the tree is from a game called Weapons and Warriors, I picked it up for the Castle, but the trees can be used anywhere, even if they are a bit flat.