In the first update in my series on creating 3D terrain for Keep on the Shadowfell, I talked about getting supplies and learning how to use the foam-cutting tools and materials. I made the base for the King’s Road, as well as the road itself. Now I’m ready to show off my first completed project. I’m still a novice, but I feel like for a first time it turned out pretty good, and I’m excited to use it in play!
These are the large rocks as well as the piles of boulders and other stones that are littered across the map. If you look closely you can see the three gravestones for the graves by the side of the road. I cut them, like all these rocks, out of spare bits of foam…this one in particular looked like a loaf of bread, and I just cut these three slices off of it!
We didn’t get an engraving tool in our first hot knife set, so I went to pick one up so I could texture the rocks. I learned a few techniques by trial and error, and I’m proud of some of how some of it looks.
Getting back to the road, I painted the entire surface tan and then made a green wash, which I dabbed on in a circular pattern with a painter’s cloth. Then after it dried I sprayed the green surface with glue and sprinkled on a liberal amount of dark green turf. The picture you see below is the unshaken version, before I shook off the excess turf to make it look more blended and natural.
Next, I added all the different terrain elements. The bushes are a technique I came up with…I made a “skeleton” out of Woodland Scenics green polyfiber which is what you see in this picture.
The rocks look pretty good, and I managed to shape the polyfiber to conform to the map’s foliage areas. I’m sure some of that foliage is supposed to be trees, but I’m not too worried about it here.
The next step was to carefully pick up the polyfiber bundles (I broke a paintstick in half and used it like chopsticks) and get them ready to apply foliage. I held each one up and sprayed a thin layer of glue onto one side. Then I set it down on a paper towel, grabbed two pinches, one each in dark and light green, of loose foliage foam, mixed them together, and applied them to the top and sides of the polyfiber skeleton. I let it dry a bit so it would maintain its shape and then picked it up and placed it back on the map. The large sections of foliage around the outcroppings had to be torn into several pieces and then reassembled. The finished bushes are fairly durable, and there was no need to glue them down, so now I’ve got a ton of ready-made bushes (as well as rocks, which also aren’t glued down) to use in other terrain projects!
Here’s the final version, with the map again for reference.
And finally some character’s-eye shots of the road.
A cleric and a ranger walking into an ambush of goblins led by a bugbear…but, who’s ambushing whom?
A dwarven cleric beseeching aid from the guardian of the road.
But, he was so busy supplicating he failed to see the airborne threat!
Next up in Part Three it’s on to the Forest Lair. The outside of that map is going to be done on its own base like King’s Road was, as I can reuse a river map over and over again. The inside will likely be setup with Dwarven Forge instead of carving it out of foam.
Hope you’re enjoying a look at the process of my learning to cut foam in order to make my first (and possibly only) 4e game memorable!
4:42 pm on June 23rd, 2008 1
Dude, that is 10 kinds of cool. Grid maps crush creativity. Plus you can use this map to play Warhammer or the fantasy minis game of your choice!
4:13 pm on June 24th, 2008 2
Wow. That is all kinds of awesome! The thing I was liked the most about Warhammer was the modeled terrain. It’s very cool to see that concept brought to a traditional RPG like D&D.
5:11 pm on June 24th, 2008 3
Thanks guys! I’ll be posting another terrain update soon! It’s quite the fun little hobby, and thanks to paint drying time and the quick setup and cleanup, I find I can do bits and pieces in the spare time I have, making it that much easier to finish projects.
8:44 pm on June 24th, 2008 4
Awesome. How long is this taking you? I’m jealous of your players.
10:27 pm on June 24th, 2008 5
Well, gamefiend, there were 18 days between posts, but that post sat for a couple of days, and many days went by when I didn’t touch it…I’m mostly doing it a spare hour or two in evenings and weekend. I’d say that not counting gathering the materials, I probably worked on King’s Road for about 8-10 hours. Things will go much more quickly now that I have some reusable terrain and am more proficient with the tools. I’ve only spent about an hour on the river so far, and I’d guess another two to three hours will see it finished. (Of course, those hours will be broken up over several days…I hope to post it next week.)
9:58 am on June 25th, 2008 6
ok. I’m sold. That’s awesome! Beautiful, gorgeous work you’ve done there
5:38 am on June 27th, 2008 7
Heh, same idea I had, looks fantastic.
You’re being more ambitious than I am though. Right now I’m only constructing the final room of the keep
1:07 pm on June 27th, 2008 8
Rock and Roll! This is just the sort of gaming showmanship I like to bring to the game table, too. Please add creativemountaingames.com to your friends of the dome links, or to the Roleplaying Games links if it is more appropriate. Her’s a little something I put together from the Paizo Free RPG Day offering -
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=232865
9:13 am on July 3rd, 2008 9
May we make use of the images of your fine work for use in our own running of Keep on the Shadowfell?
9:30 am on July 3rd, 2008 10
Absolutely! I didn’t think about that, perhaps I’ll take some extra photos that might be useful for people using it as a reference.
9:47 am on July 3rd, 2008 11
That’d be great, although I think I personally have what I need in the third “completed” pic. I plan to try the module on Second Life and am building a games room with a whiteboard showing maps and illos as needed. If anyone wishes to see the progress and has an SL avatar, my landmark is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scotland%20Plarmigan/28/151/22 Visitors welcome! (I’ll post some pictures of my game set-up when it’s ready for public consumption for those who don;t have an SL log in). Thanks again for the wonderful work!
9:50 am on July 3rd, 2008 12
Cool, thanks! If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to post the pics in my blog when you’re done. Shoot them to me via email, thegamerdome (at) gmail (dot) com.
11:05 am on July 3rd, 2008 13
Photo on the way!
6:31 am on July 9th, 2008 14
What a ^!&*% waste of time.
7:19 pm on July 18th, 2008 15
Okay, what are you going to do with these after you use them? Sell them, I hope, to someone else who’s going to run…that way they can keep going and being useful for years.
12:54 am on July 19th, 2008 16
Hey Calion, thanks for the suggestion!
Are you offering to buy them?