Observatory

There isn't a whole lot to show for WIP on this one because I had given up on it about a year & a half ago. I've since been convinced to finish it and didn't document any of the process after that. But I will show you what I have so you get the jist. I started with a slab of insulation foam, penned in lines for stones. Then, pushed in random stones to give ti variety.

For the observatory tower, I attached Pringels cans to the stone base. A regular size can was too tall, so I glued together 2 snack sized cans.

I wrapped some heavier paper strips around the can to hide the seams & to make it look like they were made out of panels instead of one large tube. Then added dots of PVA glue for rivets. Gathering supplies for the details, I bought a lot on ebay of random gears that I think was supposed to be for remote controlled cars. I also needed a gear track to go all the way around the Pringels can so the top of the tower could rotate. So, I found some corrugated paper meant for scrapbooking and cut a strip off, and wrapped it around the top of the tower.

I cut the main walls for the building from foamcore; the rod attaching the peaks was added to support them. Repeating the process for the foundation, I made a set of stairs to the entrance.

I also made a lightning rod by glueing small bits of plastic rod to different sizes of rubber gaskets and a jewelry jump ring.

The rings were attached to a metal rod with a large bead at the end.

(Not shown is the spring around the rod I attached from the largest ring.) I covered the roof, stairs, and borders on the walls in heavy paper to be sheet metal.

On the back of the building, I put together a silly gear box just for the sake of having an absurd amount of gears in one spot.

The original intention was to have the observatory dome partially open so you could see inside; so I whipped together a telescope using various types of pen parts & casings. The legs & eye piece of plastic rod.

This is where I got to before all hell broke loose:

That dome on the tower had been giving me grief the whole time. I had used a plastic shell that a little toy came in... Well, whatever was in that plastic, my super glue did not want to stick to. Instead of being smart & trying some other kind of adhesive like an epoxy, I just kept using more super glue. I thought that I surely had a sufficient amount on this time so I took the leap and attached it to the tower. While working on another part, the building took a little 1 foot tumble from the arm of my sofa to the cushion of the sofa. Not only did the dome break again, but it peeled off the paint job I had done for the floor of inside & broke a couple other things as well. I got irrationally upset about it, threw it in a corner and ignored it's existence. Fast forward a year & a half of ignoring it -- I was given the opportunity to have a table set up at the largest tournament in the state and sell some of my projects. So, I started looking to my abandoned projects because A) I would get it out of my house and B) they're already half done. That brings us to this:

The rails on the roof were made from rabbit fencing with cocktail skewers on the ends and the ends of clock hands on the corners. A new dome was made, except I kept the plastic shell in tact this time.

Thanks for looking everyone. If you have any questions, just ask. I know this wasn't the most comprehensive walk through ever.

Captain Midnight Dice Game

Attention dice enthusiasts! Do you need a fun and easy game to break out when people don't want to read a whole army book to play? Some friends of mine designed a dice game that they're trying to get funded. Check it out, it doesn't take much to get the whole game as your donation gift.... also, feel free to admire the artwork because that was my job. ;-)

See the full donation information here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1141913215/captain-midnights-treasure

Basing Video

Hey Everyone.
I put together another quick tutorial video on ground cover.
Here is the YouTube linky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH4iz_ypnPQ

May of the Dead Mummy

Wooo! Today is my day! Welcome May of the Dead carnivalers and other table top terrain enthusiasts. My undead contribution will be Egyptian themed. Because if anyone knows how to treat their dead, it was the Egyptians. Basically the idea was to have a mummy busting out of his sarcophagus.






To start I found myself a dead Egyptian from Reaper miniatures, and crinkled up some aluminium foil large enough to realistically fit his body if he wasn't so gun-ho. The foil is just going to act as a place holder for the cavity of the sarcophagus.

Now for the casket itself, I pressed some Sculpey oven bake clay evenly around the foil.

Added a dog head to it for a more Anubis-y feel.

For the head dress, I rolled out a piece of clay cut it to shape and added the lines before adding it to the main box.

A pair of arms were added with decorative sticks, then I shaped in the details of the face & some hieroglyphs down the body.

Once I had everything satisfactory, I baked the sarcophagus in my toaster oven according to the Sculpey directions. Then taking a sharp paring knife, cut the clay in half all the way around deep enough to hit the tin foil. It took a couple passes, but the clay released easy enough.

I took my mummy & chopped off the box he was standing on so he would fit better.

Next, it's time to paint my dude & his fancy box. I wasn't too worried about the right arm & leg because they would end up hidden by the cover anyways.

For the floor, I took a piece of foam core, removed the paper cladding, and drew on some more hieroglyphs with a ball point pen. 

 After painting the floor, I attached the bottom half of the sarcophagus. Also, no respectable Egyptian gets buried without their riches, right? So using this handy trick I learned at TerraGenesis, I laid the foundation for some gold piles using hot glue.

After brushing on some PVA glue, I dumped on gold glitter to cover it. Ideally the glitter would be perfectly round & not the hexagons I have, but whatevs. No one is going to look that close.

Using that same idea, I took some more hot glue and added lines for a mass of scarabs escaping for the sarcophagus as well. 

My buddy Neil has some awesome examples of using grains of rice as maggots, so I thought I'd check out using split peas or lentils as scarabs. Unfortunately they were both far too large. Fortunately, I had some plastic beads that were easy enough to crack in half that were a good size.

I attached the bead bugs to the trails of hot glue & painted them.

Then it was just a matter of getting my dude glued in & the cover glued on top of him. I added a couple more bugs by his foot for good measure.

There you have it folks. Here's some final pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks everyone for following along! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Also, check out the rest of the May of the Dead participants. They've been gathering all month long for your one-stop-resource for all sorts of undead articles for gamers.