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I'm working on the year's retrospective, and realized that the vast majority of this blog and my all of my posting here on Dakka was in the year 2018. Near the end of page 2 was the beginning of 2018.

Things I completed in 2018:

I competed in my second LoER terrain contest and won with remade furniture for Hero Quest










I created a modular trench system for another LoER terrain contest (26th)




Made a scratch built dreadnought tutorial


I finally completed painting some very old scratch built chaos vindicator tanks:


This year I also got back into Dungeons & Dragons for the first time in around 20 years.
Here is all the terrain I made for games:


And here are all the finished minis for D&D:


And finished the year but completing this cistern fountain for Dungeons & Dragons for the 27th LoER terrain contest

That is a great year! I particularly like your caverns from a utility standpoint, the heroquest stuff from a nostalgia standpoint, and the fountain for art! Great job all around.

All fantastic work. Lots of Inspiration and good solid ingenuity,. Really have enjoyed watching you this year. Looking forward to this one.

Really impressive stuff in your blog here Syro.

Remaking the Heroquest stuff is a brilliant idea and really looks great. I'd love to do that with all the old Warhammer Quest tiles etc (its on the do to list ).

Your latest entry is very well done, I really like the subtle ripple effect you and managed with the water.

I had not seen or had forgotten about your HQ stuff, really cool!

You've really made a lot of terrain and so on this year along with some impressive scratch builds. I am really hoping to do the same.

One of the most impressive things I think you did was your awesome Purple Worm, but I did not see it in the retrospective! I think you did a great job on it.

@kestral: Thanks so much kestral. I love the nostalgia of Hero Quest too. Speaking of which, if you're in the mood for more, Da Boss will be doing some Hero Quest stuff on his blog later this year. About the caves, I'm realizing how little actual dungeon tiles I have complete, this is just a single cave complex from the starter campaign, I don't have anything else for my players to explore yet, I need to get moving.

@Camkierhi: Thanks so much Cam, I'll try not to disappoint in 2019

@Midget Gems: Thanks Midget Gems. And if you do get to remaking the Warhammer Quest stuff make sure to let me know.

@Da Boss: No worries Da Boss, it was from the very beginning of 2018. i think that was before we discovered each other's blogs. And thank you, the purple worm is one of my favorites too and I'm very proud of it. I only showed pictures of things I fully completed (except the nothic) in the retrospective, so since I haven't quite finished the purple worm yet, I didn't show it here. I hope you do get to do more terrain and scratch builds, I've really enjoyed the stuff you've made in that manner.

I decided to post the irresponsible side of my starting D&D. These are all board games and minis I bought to use as D&D minis, starting with 40 Lord of the Rings Heroclix back in January (center). I also have 38 grey plastic dwarves in the baggie, the 5 Magic the Gathering board games, and the board game Lion Heart

(Spotting a full airbrush set) Now that should be something to watch for!

Happy New Year, and may it bring even more fabulous, insane and tantalizing stuff to Your table! Yep, I too miss that worm in the review.

(Paint-and glue-marked) thumbs up!

That's quite a collection!

@Wirecat: Thanks, and happy new year! I actually might be getting back to work on the worm soon to try to finish it.

@Commander Cain: Thanks! A lot of it I was able to get at nice cheap prices. The extra of the first Magic the Gathering board game I grabbed for $12 for about 34 cents per mini

I should really be working on dungeons tiles and terrain for D&D as that's what I really need, so I picked up some moss from the dollar store and starting making twig blights instead





I didn't get as far as I would have liked, but it's a little progress. The goblin is just there to help me with scale, as they are both size "small" creatures.

 Syro_ wrote:

It looks a bit illegal

Not where I live!

What dungeon tile scheme do you use again?

And yes very dodgy bag of "moss".

@myszopek & Camkierhi: Heh heh heh, I didn't notice before but totally see it once you mentioned it. Do you think when these twig blights take fire damage in game that they should release a cloud of smoke that players have to save vs. confusion against?

@Briancj: Thanks for stopping by. I hope to compete against you in the next LoER contest too.

@Cam: Calling it a scheme might make it sound like I have things figured and planned out more than I actually do. I don't make actual dungeon tiles, I'm just not sure what to call them. I make modular pieces using a double layer of cardboard based on DM Scotty. I mostly cute the grid into the cardboard fill in edges with hot glue, and paint grey.

I'm been very busy and craving craft time, but I squeezed in a little bit of work on the twig blights

Cool little twig blights! I didn't know you could buy bags of moss, might be slightly easier than drying some out in the shed!

I liked looking through your year review, your D&D pieces are really neat and I bet it must be fun to play a game with them on the table!

Thanks Tyranid Horde! I have been enjoying playing with the pieces. My players really enjoy them too, and apparently hassle other DMs that they play with, for playing theater of the mind because of how much they like my minis and terrain

It was a very busy day, but I wanted to work on the hobby at least of little to relax. Here is the progress of the twig blights

I'm getting very close to finishing the twig blights


The guy at the far left reminds me of an Imperitor Titan from 40k

I've been pretty busy, and adding layers of glue to my twig blights hasn't been that interesting to share. Here is a group shot of some of the mess of projects I have running in parallel for D&D crafting.


My twig blights have 3 or 4 layers of 50/50 PVA glue and water to toughen them up. I've started to use spackle (filler) on the sides of my sarcophagi to hide the expanded polystyrene, I'm filling in the base of the statue of the spear wielding female warrior I made to give it more weight, and I've started constructing orcs for the Wyvern Tor mission.

Thanks for stopping by

Are the twig blights keeping their shape well when you apply the PVA mix?

The sarcophagi are looking good too, will the filler stop the polystyrene melting when you prime it?

Liking the twig blights, interested to see how they turn out.

@Tyranid Horde: Thanks. The twig blights are holding their sharp pretty well. The longer horizontal pieces drooped a bit, but over all pretty good I think. The filler should protect the polystyrene from melting if sprayed, I was mostly doing it to cover up the texture.

@monkeytroll: Thanks monkeytroll, after 4-5 coats of watered down PVA glue I've moved them to my painting station.

I had a nice day full of hobby time. I feel like I should have more to show for it, but things always take longer than I expect.
A Dungeons and Dragons group that I'm DMing for starting up last week with character creation. Most of the players are from last year's group but some are new. Since we didn't get very far last year it was decided to restart the campaign for the new members but move through it more quickly because the returning players will be more experienced. To surprise them, I've decided to start with a short one-short adventure as the adventure hook rather than the normal "Lost Mines of Phandelver" hook. This gives me a lot of work to try to finish by Thursday, but I think it will be really fun if I succeed. We'll be playing "Dibb's Wagon of Doom" an adventure where a band of goblins led by Dibb attack a town using a wagon that they have converted into a mobile fortress/war machine.

I'm planning to try to make the area of the town the battle takes place in, some merchant stalls, a green park area. This will also be a good reason to paint up my villagers that I got for Christmas.
These are other minis I am preparing for the adventure:


Over the holidays I was also given two bookcase kits (I believe I've already mentioned them). I built them a few days after Christmas, but I still had the big boxes they came in cluttering the area. A big chunk of hobby time today was spent cutting these boxes up and saving the cardboard for projects. Below is one of the boxes still whole, with the other cut up. The tape measure is at 24 inches for scale.


Thanks for stopping by, I hope this post wasn't too wordy.

Can I play!? I'll roll up a character!

--B.

PS: My 4 Ikea DETOLF cabinets came with a LOT of really nice cardboard. So much, I don't want to bother cutting up the boxes.

I wish you could play with us Brian

I've remembered that I never finished making the mini for one of my players last year, so I started working on it again this weekend. The Tabaxi rogue is close to complete



I've also continued plugging along with stuff for the one shot/adventure hook. Here are some carts and market stalls I have been making

One time, I was > < that close to setting up a bluetooth speaker and microphone in a 40K Dreadnaught, and playing that character via remote, with a webcam pointed at the table.

Carts! carts and little village things are always nifty.

I wish I was closer as well, gods I would be a near permanent fixture. Love the work you are doing, I am mucking about with some "vintage" wheels as well myself. That Tabaxi is brilliant bud, great pose and feel of movement to it.

@ Briancj: That sounds pretty amazing

@amazingturtles: Thanks! I've been wanting to do some village stuff for some time, so this has been a nice excuse.

@Thanks Cam! I've said before that I wish all us Dakka members lived closer together. You would always be more than welcome at my gaming table. I am happy with how well the tabaxi is turning out, I tried to make a dynamic pose, and even though the cape is molded from another figure I think it really adds to it.

A big thank you to Martin Luther King Jr. for everything he did for my country, but also for getting me a day off that I spent crafting. I spent the majority of today on projects as i'm trying to get an entire one-shot adventure built in a week. It's been fun.

Here is Dib's wagon of Doom so far. I really liek how it is turning out. It was a lot of fun to build.



And a scale shot

This is made almost completely from craft sticks

Dib's wagon needs stuff to destroy other than the carts, so I put together these stacks of crates from balsa wood

There is a circular green space park that Dib's war wagon drives around during the encounter, this is it so far.


That's all, thanks for the kind comments and I hope to hear from you again soon.

Nice carts and wago, not to mention that cat... rogue? Bolters aren't the best for assassin, You know.

Sticks and stones (glue, Sir!) for the win!

Thanks Wirecat! I have to agree with you on the Cat rogue, but I made the mini exactly as the player wanted including equipment.

I caught a cold on Friday so I haven't done any crafting, but I'll at least get around to updating on what I finished last week and didn't post yet.

Last week was a rush trying to get a whole one-shot for D&D built to a playable standard. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but we were able to play, and that's the important part.
I finished the "tank"



I finished the carts (but didn't finish painting the boxes that go on them)


I finally got back and finished the warrior statue


This culminated with us being able to play "Dib's Wagon of Doom" from "Prepared 2!: a dozen 5th edition on shot adventures". Where a goblin "tank" assaults a market square.



I had all the players just briefly describe what brought their characters to the market square that day. Then they heard screaming and a stream of towns folk came running through, followed by the goblin tank. The players acted exactly as I hoped, all leaping into action to stop the goblin attack. The NPC who asked/will ask them to guard the wagon of supplies for the start of Lost Mines of Phandelver is also in the market square. His wagon is damaged in the attack, which I decided is a good explanation of his decision to ask the heroes to guard the wagon during the trip while he goes on ahead (now the wagon needs to wait on repairs before leaving). Seeing the PCs' heroism against the goblin tank is also why he asks this group of people who don't know each other to guard it. In the original "Dib's Wagon of Doom" a suggested reward for the PCs is a few days free food and lodging, which works perfectly with them waiting on the wagon's repairs. I really like how well these two adventure match up, and my players are really enjoying the first adventure and especially the goblin tank model I made.

Brilliant looking tank, and fun marketplace battle. That brings back memories !