TheTerrainTutor Builds The Fabled Realms

Hey Folks, Mel here with the start of an epic feature project to build The Fabled Realms campaign map. In this episode, I introduce what is a dream project for me and take you through how I plan to take you along for the ride here on Beasts of War.

In this episode, we tackle taking the landmasses from the Fabled Realms map and onto the board. We cover the techniques and materials used to get these crucial foundations right and discuss future challenges such as creating the mountains, the cities and what we're going to do next to the board.

After fixing the land masses down, it was time to tackle cutting out the rivers, sanding out the river valleys and smoothing out the coastline.

It's starting to really take shape now but the next stage raising the mountains will really bring it to life but you'll have to wait until Thursdays update to see how I tackle those!

In this episode, we tackle shaping the landmasses, their coastlines, the river valleys and we come up with a way to create the miniature mountain ranges.

I've reached the point where I had to frame the map up before I could proceed any further. A quick trip to the local timber merchant and a good chat with an old timer got me 2 8ft inch by inch batons of white maple for the frame, so that's my warping issues solved! Next stage is to tackle raising the mountains, shaping the countries, placing the locations and getting it to the undercoating stage. This part is the real creative challenge, so wish me luck folks!

Work continues on the map, slightly behind schedule but nothing a couple of good sessions in the studio can't fix. One of the reasons is that I realised that I didn't like the height of the coastline. So I decided to remodel them as I was shaping the landscapes, adding locations and putting in the foundations of the smaller mountain ranges.

I've also realised just as I was typing this post up that I don't like the look of the location markers, so I'll be ripping those up and embedding them into the foam tomorrow. It's a bit more work but I think the results will be worth it.

This weeks update vid will be out on Saturday, fingers crossed it'll be built and ready for painting by then.

Battling heatwaves, powercuts and minor family emergencies, the board gets built ready for painting. Next job will be to bring it to life with a bit of colour!

In this latest episode, we start to get the colour on the board. Watch as everything perfectly until the end where it goes terribly wrong, leaving me with one week to get it fix, finished and sealed!

In this episode, we start to add all the details to the map, bringing the lands of the fabled realms alive. Who would of thought so much little stuff could take so long, but then we added the forests, roads, rivers, sea and laser cut bits all ready to add our ocean in the final episode coming out later this week.

And so she is complete, now to deliver it to 4Ground and combine it with a trip to Bovington. Keep you eyes out for the final vlog at the end of the week to find out how I did the ocean, see 4Grounds reaction and the final project wrap up.

In this final update, we add the resin oceans and get it down to the guys at 4Ground just in time to make it to GenCon!