More Sci-fi Terrain

October has been a bit of a sci-fi month for me - both in regard to the miniatures I've been painting, and the terrain that I've been making... and in this post I'm going to focus on the terrain (I'll talk more about the mini's tomorrow).

Anyway, I've been meaning to make some 'pipes' for a while now - you know, big industrial looking pipelines that can be scattered around the table to create some line-of-sight blocking terrain - and also to make things look a bit more... well... industrial :)

 

- an early prototype -

So, as you can see in the above picture, I set to work on making these with empty toilet roll tubes (as I do try to keep my crafting materials as simple as possible)... and I had to watch a couple of 'plumbing' style videos to figure out how to get the T junctions to work :)

I'd also realised that the table tennis balls that I got for the 'dungeon box' build were the perfect size to fit into the end of those toilet roll tubes...

...so I thought that needed to be taken advantage of as well :)

And, after a lot of trial and error, here's what I came up with:

 (you can find the accompanying pdf file over on DriveThruRPG)

Anyway, despite being a 15 minute long video (I don't like making overly long tutorial videos - as I think too much information can quickly get a bit overwhelming), I still had more ideas that I wanted to try out - like these bases to rest larger pipes on top of... and the steps that go over the top:

And, as you might have guessed, that led to a second video...

 ...plus another pdf file (as usual, they are both pay-what-you-want downloads ;) ).

And, as I say in the video, if you combine both of these with some of the other sci-fi stuff that I have available, you/we should be able to make some pretty interesting layouts... something like this perhaps...

...which should work well enough for several different games and settings :)

So yeah, that's what I've been up to terrain-wise this month... and it also marks 99 video tutorials over on the channel (there's actually closer to 200 videos when you include the tips, build along projects, and so on - but only 99 'proper' episodes). And that makes me think I should maybe do something special for the 100th episode (or a follow up video after it)... so I need to get my thinking cap on I suppose :D

Dungeon in a Box Extravaganza!

As some of you might have noticed, it's been a while since I last mentioned any of my terrain projects here on the blog... and that's because the latest batch of videos kinda follow on from one another in a similar way to the 'build along' series. And, as such, I wanted to wait until I'd got everything finished before talking about them here.

Anyway, the idea was to build a basic self contained dungeon adventure (and everything you'd need to run it) that packs away into a small box (making it ideal for the traveling GM - or for someone that might want to run a one-shot at a game store or a con for example).

So the obvious place to start was with the dungeon itself... and  here's what I came up with:

And, as you can hopefully see, despite having to overcome a few issues along the way, it turned out rather nice (at least in my opinion).

So, if you'd like to have a go at making something like that yourself, then the YouTube tutorial can be found HERE (there's a link to the 'pay-what-you-want' pdf file in the video's description).

In addition to the dungeon - the adventure also requires a few player handouts in the form of some old copper rings and a rusty amulet...

...well, I say 'requires' - you don't really need any of this stuff - so they're not essential, but they are fun to have. Therefore, there is a second video HERE that shows you how to put them together (with another pdf file to go along with it).

But a dungeon adventure wouldn't be much of a dungeon adventure without some monsters to battle (at least in my opinion) - so  I had a go at making those too... starting off with some ghostly creatures...

...and then with some slimy oozes:

So, as you might have guessed, there are video tutorials for these as well. One for the GHOSTS and another for the OOZES.

And that's pretty much two months of video updates condensed into one blog post :) 

However, in the first video, I did say that I would try and tidy up my adventure notes for this dungeon (once I'd run it a couple of times - once for my online group, and once for my in-person group), and share them online... and so that's what I've done.

But like I said at the beginning of this post, it's not meant to be anything special (in fact that was the complete opposite of what I was trying to achieve - as the aim was to have it be a simple one-shot that could be run with minimal fuss), so please keep that in mind. 

Anyway, HERE is the link to those notes (it's just a google doc at the moment).

So yeah - that's my little 'dungeon in a box' adventure that I've put together. I'm not gonna lie, it is quite a bit of work to make - considering it might only get used once or twice - but I enjoy the whole creative process of putting this kind of thing together, so it has been a fun project to work on nevertheless (plus I now have a little boxed adventure to run if I ever get the chance to do something like that at a con, or a store, or similar).

And now that I've got it finished... I'm in the mood for some sci-fi - so I think that's gonna be my focus for the next couple of videos - so stay tuned for those :)

 

- here's a quick example of the kind of thing I've been experimenting on this past week -

 

 

Miniatures Painted This Year (September)

If you've been following the blog this year, then you'll likely know that I've been keeping track of all the miniatures that I buy, and all the miniatures that I paint - with the aim of trying to actually paint more than I buy. So it's time to take a look at what I got up to in September!

OK... since (in the previous two months) I've started to fall behind a little bit, I thought I'd start with the 'bad' and list all the stuff I bought - the first of which were a few random board game pieces...

...with the aim of (maybe) using the one in the middle as a statue, and the idea of using the two mech-things as kitbash parts (for a future project).

Next up is this little fellow...

...which I thought might be cool to paint up gold, and stick to a small wooden plinth - to make some kind of trophy. I don't really know what the trophy would be for - but now I have it if ever I want to make something like that (like if a game has a session MVP or something similar - I dunno - it's a bit of a silly idea to be honest :) ).

I also picked up a few (40K) Nurgle things...

As I'm hoping to play a few games of OPR firefight (with a 40k skin). This game will actually be played online... but I've set myself the goal of only using models that I've got painted (as inspiration to splash some colour on some grey plastic).

And finally, these arrived in the post yesterday...

...though I was hoping they wouldn't arrive until later this week (so I could count them as October models) - but no - they're getting added to September's totals unfortunately. And the reason I picked these up is largely because of that 'combat patrol' magazine that I got last month. That came with a Terminator Captain and a Tyranid Prime model for £2.99 (so around £1.50 per model), and picking up these sprues (for £12.50) means that I can also have an 250pt Alien Hives (i.e. Tyranid) warband for OPR firefight for less that £15! (that's how I'm rationalising it anyway :P ).

And that's what I bought - now to see what I got painted...

So, I've been expanding my options for my firefight 'human defence force' with some more conscripts/recruits (which I'm using as penal legion troops)...

 ...the above being a few female versions. Plus a 'veteran' model (below)...

...using some bits from a variant weapon sprue (note that all four of these are from Wargames Atlantic).

Once those were done I wanted to make a start on some of my chaos cultists... and that meant finding a quick way of painting them - ideally using Sonic Sledgehammer's magic wash formula (HERE is the video if you don't know what I'm talking about). As such, I set to work kit-bashing a few test models from random spare parts that I had lying around...

...as the idea was - even if they didn't turn out great, I could still use them as generic bad guys in any sci-fi RPGs that I might run. However they didn't turn out too bad...

...though using the same wash over everything didn't really work as well as I liked - as the flesh on the first batch that I painted (the shorter guys) turned out too messy - so I had to redo all of the arms. But on the second batch (the guys with the pointy hats), I did a flesh coloured wash over the skin first, and then the 'sonic tonic' over everything else - and that worked much better (I also cleaned up the models in a few places with the same colour paint as I used for the basecoats once the wash was dry).

So, armed with a reasonably quick method of painting my cultists, I got to work on them...

...and for a relatively quick paint job, I think they've turned out nice enough (I'm happy with them anyway :) ).

And finally, I also managed to throw some paint at this guy:

And this has to be the first marine (albeit a chaos one) that I've painted in years - maybe a decade (it's definitely the first one I've painted since Primaris were introduced - so it's been a while).

He was painted in a similar way to the cultists - so...

1) All the base colours were applied.

2) The bones/spikes got a light brown wash, and the tentacles got a purplish wash.

3) Everything else got coated in sonic-tonic/marine-juice.

4) This time all the colours got 'tidied-up' with the same base colours (whereas I only did a few bits here and there on the cultists).

5) This model (being my leader) also got some actual highlights (unlike the cultists, that didn't really get any at all).

And, I have to say, it was a fun model to paint. I'm not sure if I'd want to paint a ton of these guys (I think I have two more packed away somewhere) - but he's turned out rather nice I think :)

* * *

Now if I update my totals for this year (counting the 'ripper swarm' that's on the Hormagaunt sprue as one model)... that brings me to:

104 bought

102 painted

So, despite getting quite a lot done in September, I still find myself  two models behind (i.e. the same as last month) - which is a little disappointing... but not entirely unexpected lol :)