Collins does a Frostgrave board

And I’m done! all including the pisstake totally legit hill are at a state that they can be played on.

What I hadn’t noticed and don’t know why its occurred is that the roads are whiter than the other boards. I have no idea why this is as exactly the same paints, flocks, glue, processes were used for all the tiles in the same way so im somewhat flummoxed.

im not gonna fix it though, this is a rough and ready gaming table which will be used for playing games and then be thrown in the garage after we’re done. its not a special bit of art… its functional and colours in the background for my models.

mission success!

now someone please make a decent suggestion to replace the 90’s hill

Following the terrain tutor’s video gets results… instead of using silicone however I used ‘Clear Fix’ because I had that in the house already.

It is left overs from the stormtrooper water project in 2021. so yeah, it was dried out to heck, that meant I had to take a hacksaw to the tube to get at some uncured product. extreme measure but hey, I needed it and it would only end up in the bin otherwise.

Gerry has been ‘encouraging’ people to do a hill in the 2024 terrainfest challenge.

I have delivered one… from the 80’s or 90’s high school Warhammer club.

I took a few books close at hand from a shelf and carefully arranged them into a rough pile to simulate weathered rocky outcorps.

Then I made sure to appropriately label it so it does not cause confusion in gameplay.

the final touches was to add snow flock just like the buildings, however, to ensure the primary function of the book is not impeded I first laid down a very thin plastic film cover. This allows for the books to be read, but also for a summer version of the table to be used, thus increasing the versatile nature of this single tile threefold! Genius!

here ends my work for 2024! see you all in 2025!

this was snowed up in exactly the same way as all the others… problem being that I made this mixture a bit too wet by using too much glue. this means that it doesn’t hold its form very well and levels out easily.

I will see how it turns out and if I need to fix it I’ll simply add more on top!

I decided to add a different shade of brown to the roof, you know, to spice it up a little.

The tiles looked remarkably like shingles to me so they got a coating of skeleton horde contrast paint. a lot of the time they start as a lighter wood colour and then silver relatively well. it also makes for an aesthetically pleasing difference between the beams and the tiles.

all just in time to be doused in black wash and snow texture

as mentioned I am short on time, this evening I found some time to throw a bit of contrast on the last two buildings.

I found it to be easier and better than the craft acrylic and to be honest im not really a fan of the contrast method on models atm so it is a good way to use up the contrast paints.

Haven’t shown the steps for this house as it is simply a repeat of the others, just with added wooden beams.

I did go heavier on the snow fall for this one, the roof with the tiles etc lent itself well to deeper snowfall, then I got a bit carried away with putting snow on almost all the surfaces, including the bricks sticking out etc. even put a snow drift build up in the corner of the room as if it was blown into the house and got stuck.

been in a proper blizzard this one.

Using the normal gloss mod podge and snow flock (x2) mix I added snow to the walkways.

I put it heavy on the outside of the walkway which would not have had any overhead cover and then I also piled it up against the wall swell. This made it look good and somewhat a travelled route… something for the wizards exploring the frozen city to explore in and discover what is going on at the top.

This is so easy you could do it one handed, with it tied behind your back, blindfolded…

all it really needs is confidence just to give it a go.

I firstly bent wire to a shape that was roughly how I would want my water to instantly freeze in the terrifying plunge into the deep cool down of frostgrave.

Then I ran 2 or 3 beads of glue down the wire to pad out to the shape of the water. I was careful not to make it smooth and kinds ‘dabbed’ in places to make it irregular.

When cold I then removed it from the wire using some persuasion and a little bit of scalpel. Chopped the top bit so it would fit in the water spout nicely.

Then, came the bit that all had to happen quickly so didn’t get chance to take many photos (cooling and setting time is short on cool melt glue!)

I put some hot glue in the water spout and on the tub end of the water spout and just rammed it into where I wanted it. I took a split second to make sure it looked ok, then I dumped the rest of the glue stick through the gun and flooded the basin with hot glue to make sure it all bonded as one and looked as if it was one piece of ice now. Finally I took some of the two types of flock I had and sprinkled them onto the hot glue before it cooled in the hope it would stick and hold. It did.

I’m happy with how it worked out, and now I have a frozen fountain of youthful knowledge to use in scenario one of the main rulebook.

Running out of time for this competition and I am working over Christmas too so don’t get any hobby time then either!

Still have 3 buildings to do and I need your input for the last tile which I haven’t figured out what to do with yet!

should I just do a hill to stop Gerry from being upset? take one for the team?

When I played my first game of frostgrave my friend had this tower and I thought it was so very super cool with the exception of one thing… the walkway.

As you can see the wooden floors are very thick and the 3d sculpted walk way struts were very thick, not a full wrap around and were more stepping stones from tomb raider or crash bandicoot rather than something out of Skyrim for example.

So they got right in the bin (or rather, environmentally did not get printed)

So much better, looks more realistic and allows for better gameplay too including allowing for fights on the way up to the tower.

I will add some snow fall to the edges of this to try and blend it in a bit more when I next mix up a batch. Right now it looks very much like an after thought and a sit on piece so a bit jarring, but still better than what the original designer intended, which I expect was due to the limitations of modelling a pretty complicated wrap around twisting crescent moon shape thing. I certainly wouldn’t be able to model that in 3D.

did anyone see the witch?

dead short update because I am struggling with motivation.

I utilised my modpodge flock glass beads mix to add snow to these buildings.

I was careful to not put any under overhangs but also I tried to put it on top surfaces including windows.

one thought I have about it is that I used gloss modpodge which might have been a minor mistake for this purpose… we shall see when it has dried

A quick and easy update for you now.

I chose to go with a different method for snowing up the trees to the first one I did. This is because I felt that a dusting would look better than a doloping of snow.

I simply painted on mod podge and then sieved on the snow flock leaving it to dry in its own time. easy and simple.

Well they turned out well didn’t they!

the snow and gloss mod podge mix worked really well on the cobblestones and also surrounding the fountain where it looks like it have been trodden in really well.

I did go a bit OTT on the graveyard but nevermind, a lesser trodden path…

I had some left over so I dumped it on a tree and fence to see how it would work out. Looks fine but I think I’ll go with a different method in future.

Put a layer of matt mod podge down on the white base areas then I sieved on the snow flock. it leads to a solid flat area of snow. not overly realistic but absolutely fine for gaming.

for the paths I use gloss mod podge which I then saturate with woodland scenic snow flock and a bit of the AK glittery snow flock (basically glass beads) in a ratio of 5:4:1 (glue:snowflock:glass). it is then stippled over everything that I want to have a glossy icy snow layer to it.

We shall reconvene on this one when everything has dried to see whether or not the plan works as intended!

this evening whilst I had an hour to myself I painted 2 half tiles ready for adding trees to and then decided to put the whole lot together to make a 3×3 table.

It’s nice to check in every now and again to check progress and see how well you’re progressing. It has felt slow going so far due to not having much time to work.

I’ve just been too tired recently with work and the baby stealing sleep.

still got to figure out what I want to do with one of the tiles. If anyone has any ideas please shout up. I’m half thinking about making an encampment but could easily just 3d print another building, it is a city after all and I already have 6 non-building tiles out of 16. I would quite like something interesting with a bit of story to it though.

Gerry wanted hills so I have provided mounds…. of muddy snow.

Sculptamold was dumped on the tiles in sausage shapes, L shapes or simply blobs.

then once dried it was painted using the same brown and white acrylic paints as noted before.

Ive done this so that when the trees get added it will hopefully give the impression that the ground is protected from the snowfall a little bit.

I have also printed off a village noticeboard for our wizards to post up ‘wanted for hire’ notices for all the followers, after all thugs and thieves are ten a penny and entirely disposable muscle so there needs to be an ample supply…

the trees are simple heki model trees. I have been impressed by the previous deciduous trees from their range. these however are less than impressive and the bigger they are the more spindly and unimpressive they become. £30 for a box of about 24 so they are cheap and so much more efficient than making them myself, just in comparison they’re not as good as the deciduous range.

To mount them I took a 3mm drill straight to the now dried sculptamold mounds. I just eyeballed it to be honest, no measuring, after all nature doesn’t measure anything so why should I?

when I come to do the snowing I shall glue these in properly and spray with tacky glue to get them slightly dusted by snow flock. im undecided on whether to add ice and stuff the underneath first though. probably should.

This was clearly an extremely scientific test with all the rigours and double blind exercises that go with it. as such I can declare it a success and not at all semi confirmed guesswork.

all in all, the constant move of cold air helped ‘air’ out the moisture from the clay rather than bake it and did it very quickly. It also didn’t warp the boards at all as noted below which was a concern I had.

Basically 8.93/10 would repeat

In this update I have targeted the half and quarter sized boards.

These are getting put in-between all the others and used to pad out or represent the roads etc.

The easy way to achieve this is to go to the old school methods of DAS modelling clay and the greenstuff world rollers.

I have two types on hand, the cobblestone one and the wooden plank one. in the end I elected to only use the cobblestone.

with long and thin boards that have no reinforcement (remember back to entry 1) you need to be careful with the drying not to warp the boards. when adding heat to the boards to help evaporate the moisture they do indeed warp. but so far I have observed that if you get a simple fan and point it at the boards the product dries out but doesn’t warp. granted I’ve only tested this on layers of paint and some sculptamold so we shall see what happens with the DAS clay which is prone to shrinkage