Hirst Arts Water Caverns for D&D

Hi, folks. In the last post I ended with a teaser pic showing our Hirst Arts Water Caverns. Ever since I first saw these I've been wanting them. There's even an excellent step by step tutorial on making the Water Caverns. It's a very thorough tutorial, covering everything from casting the pieces, through assembly and layout, painting, even has sections on making water for the river pieces. Well worth a read and full of useful tips, even if you aren't  making a water cavern right now. :)

As I said I really wanted a water cavern, but I didn't own any of the molds. It takes 5 molds to make these which cost $140. Bruce generously offers 10% off for orders between 5-9 molds which cuts the cost to $126 plus $7 shipping for a total of $133. A decent deal, I almost went with that. The problem would have been all of the casting I would have had to do. The project plans say:

Cast Mold #81 ten times
Cast Mold #82 ten times
Cast Mold #85 six times
Cast Mold #281 thirty times
Cast Mold #282 twelve times

That's a lot of casting. And I didn't have a lot of time available. This is where Naloomi's Workshop comes in. He offers a complete Water Cavern Set, already precast, of all of the components you need, plus many extra pieces. Saves a great deal of time. And at $120 it's a steal. So that's what I did. I bought Naloomi's Water Cavern set and then Mark and I constructed it following the Hirst Arts tutorial. Shipping was fast and almost everything arrived perfectly intact. A few of the longer cavern wall pieces were broken in transit. But that wasn't from poor packaging. I have enough bubble wrap from the packaging to start my own packing company. And the few broken pieces were easily glued back together.

Thanks for bearing with me through the text. I wanted to give credit to Hirst Arts and Naloomi's Workshop. Pic time :)

 Here's the Water Cavern set layout connected to the Gothic Dungeon.

This is the broken wall section in the Gothic Dungeon which connects the dungeon to the Water Caverns. That's one of the Orcs from the Wrath of Ashardalon boardgame. You get 42 unpainted plastic D&D minis with the set. We are slowly painting all of them.

 This is from the river opening out into a lake. The room to the right has a treasure pile across a deep chasm. Think that bridge is safe?

 Overhead view.

 Continuing west from the treasure cave.

 Another shot continuing west.

 The river mouth with dock and a bridge.

 This shot from the west shows the connection between dungeon and caverns. The hall with the blue and yellow floor tiles contains the broken wall section entry.

A different shot of the broken wall section.

 This shows the rope bridge. Sir Kaeleth essays crossing the span. I wonder if he noticed that lever behind him? 

 Another shot from the eastern section.

 A shot through the Southern entry arch. Sir Kaeleth is almost there. "Somebody pull the lever!" :)

Thanks for looking. This is a great set. Mark and I had a good time building it. Another nice feature is it is modular and can be laid out in many different patterns. 

Some Dungeon Pics

I've been playing 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons with my sons. I've primarily been the Dungeon Master, but my son Bob has also DMed. We've had some great times playing and my son Mark has helped me make dungeon terrain from Hirst Arts molds. We made some of the Gothic Dungeon set following Bruce Hirst's tutorial from the Hirst Arts website. Here's some pics of the Gothic Dungeon.

 The shot above shows one of the rooms being raised on pillars. The pillars were made from Keurig coffee K-cups. I noticed that K-cups looked to be about the right size to use to raise up rooms in the dungeon for multi-level play. So I cleaned out used K-cups and poured excess plaster from when Mark and I were casting the Gothic molds for the dungeon. They are very strong and almost perfect height for the stairs we made.

Another shot showing the elevated room using K-cup pillars.

A detail shot of the elevated room. It has been dressed with mostly pieces from the Unique Inn Accessories Mold #59, but there are a few other pieces as well.

Another view of the elevated room. This shot shows the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. I made that from Sculpey polymer clay and am inordinately proud of it.

 Dungeon from a different angle. The room with the blue and silver floor tiles has Knight statues in the alcoves which were purchased from Naloomi's Workshop. I've always gotten great deals and great service from him. He sells pre-cast Hirst Arts bricks and many very nice accessories. More about him later.

Another angle.

 Some of the rooms got special floors, mainly because I was running short of regular floor tiles. :)

 This shows some of the corridor pieces. I tried to keep at least one wall low, for ease of play and visibility of minis.

 The room with the pillars and red and yellow floor tiles is called the King's Hall. The Elf Wizard mini in the King's Hall was painted by my son Bob. He did an awesome job on it. The statues flanking him came out of a Toobs Toys Egypt set. I got mine at Hobby Lobby with a 40% coupon.  The giant sarcophagus in the room with wall pillars (center)  is one I made.

 Another room and corridor with a fancy floor. The trapdoor piece is a custom job by Mark.

A different angle shot. The sarcophagus is another custom job by Mark. He's prolific.

Thanks for looking.  Above is a teaser shot for next post.

Zuzzy Flagston Paven Mat painted

Hi, everyone. I have not posted in a long time. But now I'm back. I've had a nice 2x2 foot Zuzzy Flagstone Paven mat sitting around for a while. Finally got around to painting it.

It was a quick, easy project. First I painted the mat with black craft paint thinned with Magic Wash. Then I followed the cavern floor painting technique described by Bruce Hirst on the Hirst Arts website. It uses an "olive drab" base color with a "khaki" drybrush. I then picked out 1 or 2 rocks in each square with a different, brighter color. I'll probably use the mat in D&D for a town or city setting, maybe a cavern.

Thanks for looking.

Hasslefree Post-Apoc Scoobies & Jayne Cobb

Hi, friends. I recently got the Hasslefree Miniatures Post-Apoc Scooby Gang and got them painted up. My son Mark also painted a Reaper Mini version of Firefly's Jayne Cobb. I did a little work on it to finish it off. I love these minis.

Here's Jayne first. I love the way Reaper made him with the cool hat from the Firefly episode "The Message".

I didn't include a close up of Fred. I need to fix his face some more.

I'll soon be working on the Armorcast Mystery Machine but will give it a Post-Apoc theme.

On an unrelated note I got a Continuous Ink Supply from CIS Inks. I had heard about it over on Morbious' blog. I've been wanting one for a while and got it hooked up and running today. I've got a bunch Of Stoelzel's Structures I still need to build and this should help a lot with that.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope you have a great day out there.

Great Service from Demo's Laser Cut Designs

Hi, friends. I just wanted to share with you something cool that happened. I had recently ordered the Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. When I got the kit, I found a couple of small problems: the toilet seats were missing, a bookshelf was missing, the top and bottom for one of the gas pumps were missing, and one of the tabs for the bathroom divider wall had been cut slightly too high to fit the slot on the interior wall separating the restrooms from the rest of the store. Nothing real big, really, and nothing that I couldn't easily fix myself. However, I thought he would want to know in case there was a problem with the layout so he could fix it for future kits. So I sent him an e-mail describing the problem. This was on the 4th of July (USA Independence Day holiday). I figured I might hear from him in a few days. I got an e-mail response within the hour, and a very kind response it was. He said he'd be sending me something in the mail to fix it and a little something extra. A few days later I got this big package in the mail from Steve at Demo's Laser Cut Designs, just full of nice pieces of laser cut awesomeness. All of the missing parts were there, along with 2 new restroom walls. I would have been happy with just those replacement parts, but that's not all he sent. Steve also sent the following extras: a 7.5" x 11.5" mdf base for either a new building or weather shield, most of the components to make a whole new weather shield, and almost all of the components for all of the store furnishings, including 3 more gas pumps. How cool is that!?

As you can see, Steve sent enough stuff to fill an entire work table. Very generous and very cool.

That's all for now. I just wanted everyone out there in blogland to see what kind of customer service you get from Demo's Laser Cut Designs, the best kind. Thanks for dropping by.

Grocery/Big Box Store

Hi, friends. I recently played some scenarios for All Things Zombie wherein I had to go to a Big Box store and then a Grocery store as part of the Day One events. Normally I don't play a scenario unless I have the terrain finished and ready to go. That day I went ahead and played without terrain for the store. I just used a big box I had. It was still fun, but lacked the visual element so I didn't post any pics of those scenarios. I finally got around to making the Big Box/Grocery store. Just a quick job, here's pics.

Here's a shot of the Big Box store across the parking lot. In that scenario, LJ got owned by a bunch of terrified civilians because he didn't use his katana on humans, just tried going "mano a mano". Predictably, the fat squishy bastard got stomped. The scenario was over for him and he didn't get any goodies.

Here's a shot of the Grocery store across the parking lot.  As you can see I did a lot of work to differentiate the Grocery store from the Big Box store. :) The signs are stuck onto the building with removable double-sided sticky tape. Anyone recognize the name of the store? Anyway,  the Grocery store was LJ's next and last location. I did two things differently with LJ at the start of this scenario. One, I changed his attribute of Stone Cold to Brawler. Since it was Day One, I decided I'd pick a better attribute if I was going to survive the rest of the Apocalypse. The second thing was I decided that terrified civilians represented a significant threat and I took off the kid gloves. I would use the katana in melee. Worked like a charm. Between switching Attributes and using a 2-handed melee weapon, I had much better luck with that scenario. Even found a SAW, used it to kill a couple of gangers, shots attracted Zombies, which I killed with the Katana, for my first Zombie kills. That was so successful a scenario I actually got a Rep increase. So to memorialize that fight, I finished the store building.

A little about the store. It is 21 x 18 inches x 4 inches tall. It was made from an old Dell Laptop Computer box. I chose it because it had a little built-in box inside that could be used as an interior room. The walls are made from an old WorldWorks Games kitbash siding texture kit I bought several years ago. I went for a simple blue and white color scheme. I was thinking of Ikea's Blue and yellow. I used other WorldWorks Games textures for the windows and doors. Normally I use doors that open and close and windows that are open. This time I went for quick and just used the print-outs glued onto the walls. 

The tile floor is from the WWG Mega Mall set. The brown concrete floor in the loading dock area is another WWG texture. 

The shelving units and refrigerator cabinet come from Stoelzel's Structures Market, as do the register counters. The two gun cabinets in the loading dock are also from Stoelzel's Structures, I think it was the Modular Lair. The shelving is held in place with double-sided tape for stability, but I can reposition them if I want to. I left plenty of room between the shelves for getting my fingers in there.

Shot from different angle.

Shot from the back.

Scenic shot across the parking lot. How do you like the "Valdemart" sign? :)

This was a fun little project that I just sort of slapped together. I had printed out all of the paper textures a while back so I just had to glue them on. The box I used for the building had some dents and areas where the cardboard was different thickness. I could have done things to fix that, and did, a little, but there are still quite a few obvious flaws. However, for a quick job, it'll do. And, because it was made from an actual "big box", I can use it for storage. :)

That's it for now. Thanks for looking.

Filling Station

Hi, friends. I'm posting some pics of my mostly finished Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. This is a wonderful model with lots of excellent features. It comes with a playable interior, furnishings such as gas pumps, sinks, toilets, store shelves, even a big beer cooler. There's a nice weather shield over the pumps, and a huge marquee sign with the gas prices. There's a big 11.5" x 11.5 " mdf base upon which to mount the model. There are even free pdf graphics you can download for signs and cash registers. And it was all dead easy to build. The major pieces of the station are mdf, the furniture is on taskboard (kind of like thinner matte board. I made or downloaded some additional signage. Here's pics.

Here's an overhead shot featuring the marquee sign, weather shield, and gas pumps. I didn't use the big mdf base sheet and just set the models onto my city board table. I chose to use a blue background for the Station's signage and changed some of the wording.

Shot from a different angle. You can see a little of the building front.

The opposite side. The closest end of the building has two public Restrooms. I closed one door and left the other open. The doors are perfectly sized for the blue door frames. They have two hinge pieces that slot right into the frame so closely that they stay in place, even without glue. But because they are not glued, I can still open or close them. I really like the doors!

Here's a shot from the front of the station looking under the weather shield canopy into the store front. There's a WorldWorks Games ice machine and newspaper machine I made fresh for this build. The trashcans by the pumps are simple scratchbuilds. One is a plaster cast of the inside of a cover for a disposable plastic water bottle. The other is just a plastic cap from an empty tube of toothpaste, painted black and then drybrushed silver.

Just a different angle view.

View from the side along the front of the store.

View of the back from the side. There's an Employee's Only door that opens into the area behind the cash register/clerk station.

A view of the restroom side. The doors have the little male or female signs on them.

Speaking of restrooms. Here are the sinks and toilets.

An interior view. The floor tiles are from Stoelzel Structures Modular Urban Center Kit. The building is based on a vinyl floor tile. Against the far wall is one of the bookshelves that come with the Filling Station kit. In the middle of the floor is a 2-sided sloping shelf unit for merchandise. I need to make some stuff to put on the shelves. To the upper right is the big cooler cabinet, just below it along the right-hand wall is a paper ATM machine from WorldWorks Games. The long "L" shaped counter is part of the furniture that comes with the Filling Station kit. I have placed a couple of Hirst Arts bits on the countertop to represent a cash register and control for the gas pumps. To the left of the counter along the bottom wall are 2 video games from Stoelzel Structures kits.

 Another view of the interior layout. Even with furnishings in place there is still plenty of room for minis.

This shot shows the restrooms a little better and you can also see the video games slightly better.

Here's a shot of the front of the store with the weather shield removed.

This shot shows the awesome beer cooler and the ATM machine a little better.

The pic above shows some of the furnishings better. It also shows an Ohio Lottery sign. What's a convenience store without Lotto. The Lotto sign is also being used to cover the spot where the tab from the restroom divider wall shows on that back wall.

Pic above shows the two video games from the Stoelzel Structures Modular Lair Expansion 2. I screwed up the one on the right a little but I'll still use it.

This view is looking out through the store windows under the weather shield.

Looking down into one of the restrooms. Plenty of room. The toilet and sinks even have drain holes in them. How cool is that?

Here's a shot of one of the gas pumps. The blue graphic with the keypad and display is part of the free pdf download from Demo's Laser Cut Design webstore. I added the No Smoking symbol and the advertisement signs for the top of the pumps. The hoses for the pump handles are made from black wire from the Hobby Lobby jewelry section.

A view of the pump from the side. The pump handles fit into slots cut into the casing. The hoses and pump handles give a very nice 3d effect.

I just thought this was a nice scenic shot showing how well the filling station fits in on the table.

Well, that's all for now. I had a great time building this model. I hope you like it and will consider giving Demo's Laser Cut Designs a try.