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I love DMScotty, that lot is the inspiration I am having for Spacehulk style and Deadzone style terrain, as well as D&D which I will force my kids into if it kills them. Hotglue is the key. Though I also expand the materials to way beyond cardboard, using foam core, styrene, switch it up a little and go mould and resin or dental plaster. Recently directed a fellow Dakka who wanted to do terrain on a budget to DMS.

Anyways, your city looks awesome bud, game looks like real fun. Sorry been lurking, watching though, always watching.

Hotglue is amazing. I had heard of DMScotty but hadn't made the time to look at the youtubes, gonna have to change that.

I don't put my nose up at cardboard, but there's a lot out there. Foamcore, insulation foam, sprue, and so on. Haven't started casting meself but I like your results with it.

I'm a bit of a lurker myself these days, but I keep up to date as I can, always cool stuff over your way.

Foamcore works in all the applications DMScotty uses for cardboard, and has the added bonus of easily being textured.

Moving toward some fantasy stuff?

Much to my families changrin, I have sat all day on many Saturdays with DMScotty playing on the TV whilst modelling, it is a very good way of getting piece and quiet to model!

And fantasy would be good, though to be honest, I am close to producing time generic scenery, many of the buildings and ruins I have done lately could be used in a fantasy setting. Only falls down when you stick an aquila on it. Just needs a little thought.

I dunno. I am on kinda of a dnd kick but its not liked I'd get to play. Maybe I could set up a mega dungeon at the library game day but beyond that...

Just always wanted to make some stuff like this.

Some of my modern stuff is pretty game versatile, and that cabin works in a lot of settings. Some good old fantasy sounds fun though.

Been online looking up dnd scenery and trying to find a style to emulate or at least to use for inspiration. Thoughts?

"WTF do I do???"

Looks like you've got some ideas, so just go with it dude.

EDC

Gotta find the best idea though

I guess one unlisted option is 2-3" high walls, like the bottom one but obviously taller.

Why not make the fighting arena?

Are you talking about the round one? Technical ally that's just a badly drawn cave..but an arena could be sweet.

A little proof of concept for dungeon walls. Two sheets of foam core glued together with the paper removed from the outsides. Hot glued to insulation foam. It works, there's a little melting but the double paper center helps the wall not disintegrate, and using just enough keeps the floor from going away. Reinforce with white glue probably. Neither texture is sustainable in terms of effort. Ill have to make a stamp or something.

2" height. I think that's just right. 3" would be too tall.

Hmm foam core is being a pain in the butt. How about a dungeon out of these project bricks?

 GrimDork wrote:
A little proof of concept for dungeon walls. Two sheets of foam core glued together with the paper removed from the outsides. Hot glued to insulation foam. It works, there's a little melting but the double paper center helps the wall not disintegrate, and using just enough keeps the floor from going away. Reinforce with white glue probably. Neither texture is sustainable in terms of effort. Ill have to make a stamp or something.

2" height. I think that's just right. 3" would be too tall.

Have you tried doing the initial design with something shaper than a pen, like an Exacto knife ? Then go over it a second time with a pen, to widen up the cuts.
I'd also suggest drawing larger stones/bricks.

It is labor intensive, but the results look great, when done well.

Damn I swear I responded to this yesterday.... Anyway...

I'm pretty much incapable of cutting straight lines even if I do everything like you're supposed to. Add evenly spaced and I'm screwed even more.

Gonna take some advice from a facebook terrain group and try to fashion a couple of tools and see if that doesn't work. Maybe I can get the results a bit more consistent with such things.

You'll be doing good walls soon, I know it.

Does it need to be consistent? I mean even in our day and age a brick wall has that lovely unevenness as bricks have lost corners.

Uneven is ok but I tend to cut whole rows of bricks a different size than the next. Looks bad to me.

Could cover the foam core in Spackle...

That looks good! Spackle it ! leave some spots of exposed "brick/stones"

Yeah, looks great. And if you're going for crumbled plaster over the top, you can just do the stones underneath in strategic little areas, since the rest would be covered over anyway.

Yeah only have to get vaguely even bricks over 0-20% of the surface for each wall.

You have seen mine. Sometimes mine are straight sometimes not. And you will have seen my leaving bricky gaps technique and my toilet paper technique. Use the TP technique, but instead of wallpaper make it a bit rougher and add some sand to the pva . Not sure if will be more cost effective than stucko , might be quicker though. Also rough stone walls but don't leave the gaps between the stones. Just pen it rock to rock. Water down you stucko for pointing the gaps.

Really you need to look at casting bud. You make one tidy wall section then mass produce it in dental plaster. Can easily make a mould in plastacine if you put a little thought into it. I have done this. Make a brick. Stick it on a stick. Press it into some flat plastercine. Repeat to form a section of wall. Pour in dental plaster. Usually can get 5 or 6 out before mould gets a bit ropey and you clean it up.

If you have more money than time for modelling, you might consider getting some textured styrene sheet. A quick Google search gave me this, even one sheet of which could save you a lot of time and heartache.

Wow huh. Looks like the model train scene is hopping for those. 6.50 for two 7.5*12" sheets. That's hmm call it four two inch strips if you fudge one. Per sheet. So 48"/sheet but half it as all but the exterior most walls would be double sided. So two feet per sheet and four feet of walls for 6.50? That...is not bad. One sheet could do the outermost inner face of walls enclosing a 2 foot square area...get two sets and you're probably good for a 2 foot area and all walls. So $13? I can avoid all this headache for thirteen dollars? Did i flub math somewhere?

I guess six sheets would do the floor of a 2x2 ft space. Minus an inch and s half that would need fudging. So 19.50 for a floor, though I think even castle dungeons aren't so unlikely to have natural stone or dirt floors.

Wow food for thought Josh...

As for your suggestions Cam, I would *love* to emulate some of your work. Definitely stuff I will consider, as the plasticard sheets are neither on hand nor so cheap as to be negligible. Casting could be awesome but its a whole new skill set and time is at such a premium. Not sure I could figure it all out and still have time to benefit ;D

Another option would be to buy one sheet, make a wall section and then make molds from that. It seems like it would be a lot of work, but so is building a whole dungeon layout...

Josh has the idea there. Maybe get hold of one sheet, make a couple masters from that and then mould. I know the whole casting thing is scary but once you have a go, for things like this,you will see just how easy it is.

What timescales are you working to on this. I am away on a course at mo, but would be happy to do an easy tut this weekend, or if you have a couple weeks I could make you something. If you can wait a month I will make you some moulds and send them over. Then all you need is dental plaster.

Grim, here is a cheaper solution. I paid a few bucks, but having a supply of sheets/rods/tubes, etc from a supply source I found is cheaper than the model train retailers. I bought a ton of sheets of varied thickness and still have a huge supply left for projects!

Try here
https://www.iplasticsupply.com/

THanks for the link Shas, I'll check it out.

I'm sure casting can be easy, or it wouldn't be the way people make everything, but you are right the initial start up time is what's throwing me.

Cam, you are a generous soul, but I can't possibly impose upon your time like that. The project has no specific time frame, just something I thought would be cool to do eventually. If the methods were working I'd be on it now, but obviously I've hit some stumbles But I'm not trying to have it built in time to do anything in particular.

Dungeon walls with the spackle look really nice.

EDC

What sort of size bricks are you after?