More Jungle for my Jungle

My second batch of my new Jungle Scatter pieces, with Splintered Light Miniatures frogs stalking through them

After setting up and looking at pictures from my first game of Ghost Archipelago, I came to a conclusion about my terrain: I don't have enough! Now, I feel I do have plenty of temples and ruins, yes. However, the vegetation looked a little skimpy, in my opinion. Of course, I WAS putting out terrain for 32 square feet of board (8'x4' table, divided into two, 4-player boards). I do actually own more trees, so I'll pack another box, next time.

A rat patrol makes their way through my first, more colorful, of Jungle Scatter pieces

However, I also noticed in the photos that much of the terrain is simply bases -- I need more visual stuff down at table level at figure height. I have about a dozen jungle pieces I'd created awhile back for my 28mm Pulp games. But those don't go far on a 32' square foot board! So, I decided it was time to create more jungle "scatter" -- pieces to place on the board to give it more color, more 3-D appeal.

A close up of the frogs as they search for enemies amidst the vegetation

So, it was off to Michaels craft store to see what they had in the plastic plant aisles that I could use. Luckily, they just happened to be 60% off this week. I picked up a number of plants that looked like they might fill the bill, and stopped by Hobby Lobby for more of the wooden circular bases to put all this greenery on. Prior to making the trip, I'd dug out all my saved plastic plants and other types of vegetation (like the flowers and tiny, blooming trees from JTT Scenery Products).

Cleverly (for once), I created a prototype before going all-in and doing a dozen or so. I was happy with the prototype, but figured a way to simplify the work even more. Here are my steps for creating Jungle Scatter at ridiculously inexpensive prices:

Step 1: Wooden disks as bases

1) For bases, I used"Wooden Nickels" from Woodpile Fun -- though many other make similar pieces. These measure about 1.5" diameter. I use these soft wood ones because they are cheap, and easy to drill through, as you will see in a later step.

Step 2: Mount the bases temporarily to bamboo skewers with bluetack

2) Using bluetack and bamboo skewers, "mount" each base so you can hold onto it easily while applying the flocking.

Step 3: Flock the bases with Woodland Scenics Fine Brown Ballast

3) Paint the edges and top of each base with a 50/50 mixture of brown paint and white glue (I have a bottle of it premixed that I use for pretty much all my basing, now). Put it on heavily, then immediately press it down into a plastic container filled with Woodland Scenics Fine Brown Ballast.

Step 4: White glue and water mix painted on the surface, then sprinkling with Turf Earth

4) After it dries, paint the base with a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water (I also have a bottle of this premixed). Paint this on heavily, as well, and immediately sprinkle it with Woodland Scenics Turf Earth. It would probably work to press it down into there like with Step 3, but I find the glue will then clump up instead of giving a more even surface. When dry, this will be hard like sandpaper with a nice surface.

Step 5: Central piece of vegetation

 5) While drying, figure out what you want to be the taller, central piece of vegetation for each base. I use a mix of different types of plants and greenery: Flowering trees, ferns, various greenery from plastic plants, and so on. The more variety, the better. Some plastic plants are attached to stems with a tube-like piece of plastic you can use (such as the one on the bottom right). Others will be too long and need trimmed so all you are left with is a plastic stem. Either works. Take a hand drill and select a bit that matches the size you'll need. Drill it through roughly the center of the flocking.

Leaves trimmed from various cast off pieces of plastic plants are added to the ground to look like fallen vegetation

For pieces that have a tube, take a small section of craft sticks or similar, and trim it to be just larger than your hole. Force it through the hole from bottom to top, with just enough projecting so that the "tube" fits perfectly over it. Coat this projecting spike, so to speak, with Tacky Glue - also applying some to the bottom. Place the vegetation atop it and press down. Elevate it while it dries and make sure the vegetation is standing close to upright.

My first 12 pieces of jungle scatter -- after I finished them, I thought maybe they are a bit too colorful

For pieces that are just a stem, coat the bottom portion of it heavily in Tacky Glue. Put a blob on the hole, too. Then force the stem through the hole from top to bottom. Elevate it while it dries. Like with the tube type above, you will trim off this bottom piece once the glue dries.

 6) While the central pieces are drying, pick out the other pieces of vegetation you're going to use on the base. As you can see in the above, I picked out quite a variety from the craft store. I went back the next day and picked up even more. Use a mix you like. The pics in this post are from my original batch. I have since decided to tone down the color a bit. Make it more green and use the occasional color as accent, but you decide. It's your jungle!

I place a very large blob of Tacky Glue onto the surface of the base. I then press the plant firmly down onto it, making sure the glue has welled up around it. The flocking method I use above gives it something solid to grip onto.

My second batch of jungle scatter pieces -- as you can see, I toned down the brightness and made it more green

7) Cover most of the brown areas with grass flocking, and even some fallen leaves. First, I paint the brown areas visible between the plants with undiluted white glue. I sprinkle this with Woodland Scenics Blended Grass. To make it look even more jungle like, I have trimmed off various different leaves from plastic plants. I affix one or two of these onto the grassy areas for additional effect.

And there you have it! Jungle scatter that really takes VERY little time to do. They are easy to store, cheap to make, and add color and effect to your tabletop.

Aquarium Pieces as Ruined Temples

An Aquarium piece from Blue Ribbon representing Cambodia's famous Bayon Temple at Angkor Wat

One of the perks of the long hours and hectic schedule of teaching in a public school is that I often receive gift cards for Christmas or at the end of the school year, as thanks from appreciative parents. I'd accumulated a few Amazon ones this year, so decided to finally pick up some aquarium pieces I'd seen others using and I had been wanting for a long time. Specifically, the Blue Ribbon Angkor Wat pieces. My Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago campaign will be set in a post-Apocalyptic Southeast Asia, so they will go great with the scratch-built temples I made for my Pulp games a couple years ago.

The ruined Bayon Temple looms out of the jungle, encrusted in vegetation

I was able to get three of them. Number one on my list was the Bayon Temple -- the famous ruin with the heads which look out in four directions. The piece is fairly large -- 9 1/2 inches tall by 6 inches wide. The first thing I noticed about these pieces is how well painted they actually are. I had assumed it would be a cheap, assembly line paint job and that I would be repainting them. Instead, I decided to keep the paint jobs as is.

I was surprised by how good the "out of the box" paint job was, so decided to keep it, adding only flocking

The only thing I did was re-flock the vegetation on them. In this temple's case, I added quite a bit. First, I painted select parts of the temple with white glue, then I flocked that glue with Woodland Scenics mixed green. Once that was dry, I blobbed on white glue on top of the flocking and applied darker clump foliage by Woodland Scenics. This gives it more of a three dimensional effect, as well as makes it look more encrusted in jungle vegetation.

A giant Khmer head rises up out of the jungle

 The next piece I purchased was a giant statue of a Khmer head. All of the vines you see are part of the terrain piece -- the only thing I did was to apply actual flocking to the piece. I thought the factory artists did a decent job of dry brushing the brown of the vines over a black base coat. I really like how this one has a tumbled column in front of it. The size is fairly massive, too -- 7 inches tall by about 6 inches wide. The back face of it (not shown), is simply carved into stone blocks. 

A close up of the statue, showing the clump foliage and flocking I applied.

I thought they did a good job creating this statue, realistically showing the seams in the stones that were used to create the massive face. They also got the thick, Khmer lips and drooping ear lobes right, as well. Good research and nice sculpting.

A Kneeling Buddha rises out of the jungle, a relic of lost civilizations

The third and final piece is a kneeling Buddha statue, holding a broken column in its cupped hands. Strangely, this one was already covered in the factory's poor attempt at flocking. They used a tall, green static grass that looked very odd and unrealistic. I painted over all of this with white glue and re-flocked it all. This piece definitely required the most reworking. However, it fits well with the Southeast Asian theme for my archipelago.

All in all, a great addition to my terrain for my games. I can't wait to see my table layed out with all of the temples! Should be fairly striking...

Toob Lizards!

Touched up giant lizards from the clear plastic "Toob" creatures that you can find at craft and toy stores

I apologize for the very short update, but I wanted to post a photo of some more monsters I finished for my upcoming Ghost Archipelago games. When going through the list of wandering monsters, I saw the "Giant Lizard" category. I have one painted 25mm Iron Wind Metals Komodo dragon, but I hadn't thought to stock up. So, I needed more, in case more than one makes it way onto a board. I don't buy them very often, but the craft store Toob creatures can sometimes come in handy for miniature gamers. In this case, they had some that looked good, and would fit the bill.

I touched them up by dry-brushing them (light green for the green lizards, and pink for the red ones). I re-applied the speckled pattern, and touched up the eyes and mouth. Finally, I gave them a black wash and epoxied them onto a base and flocked them. I think they look pretty good for a little over $1 each.

Next up: Splintered Light Rats (which will be taking the place of the "Dricheans" on my South Seas Islands).

SE Asian Jungle Ruins: Staircases, Statues, & Columns

A row of statues of ancient warriors being slowly reclaimed by the jungle

Here are some more jungle ruins I created for my upcoming Furgrave (Frostgrave:Ghost Archipelago) campaign. I'm really happy with how they turned out.  I decided to do some research into what a temple ruin looks like when found in the jungle to get some ideas for small pieces to scatter here and there about the board. I pulled out a book I'd bought long ago about Angkor Wat called, "Angkor: Heart of an Asian Empire" by Bruno Dagens. This small paperback has a wealth of paintings, sketches, and photographs of the Cambodian temple complex when Europeans first stumbled upon it. I grabbed a post-it note, and began to leaf through the pages, writing down notes like, "Lion on pedestal," "Row of warrior statues," "Staircase," "Pools," and "Bridge."

This 1995 book by Bruno Dagens was the inspiration for this batch of terrain

Next, I went through the various boxes and ziploc bags of figures and terrain items, waiting for inspiration to strike. I had the Hirst Arts plaster terrain that my friend Tim had given me earlier this year, which included lots of stone pediments of various sizes and shapes. I got the idea to assemble a staircase out of these. On either side of the staircase, I would have a statue on a pedestal. Looking through my lead animals, I found a pair of Iron Wind Metals 25mm lions. They were rearing and striking out with a paw and looked perfect for the part. I needed to make the steps wide enough that my 1" figure bases could fit on them, so I pulled a bunch of pieces out and decided on three steps. I decided that the jungle had overtaken whatever the staircase led to and would simple glue on foamcore and set various plants into it.

Construction done on the ruined staircase

It took only an evening's work to assemble the staircase, simultaneously doing the other three pieces below. I used Tacky Glue to hold the plaster pieces together, and epoxy for the lions atop their pedestals. I like how building it up with various layers of the pavement pieces gives it a worn and deteriorating look. You can see the blue foam core, which I trimmed to a slop with an X-acto knife behind the statues. Once assembled, I spraypainted the entire piece matte black.

The finished ruined staircase - note the model railroad bushes (pink, red, yellow) glued into the ruins itself before flocking.

Since spray paint never seems to get into all the crevices of plaster or resin terrain, I coated the entire piece with a 50/50 mix of acrylic black paint and water afterwards. It sat out to dry overnight, sinking into all the recesses and shrinkwrapping itself onto the stone cases. This made it easy for the next step, which was dry brushing. First came a medium gray dry brush, then a lighter gray in highlight areas. Then I turned to the foam. I pulled out a handful of wire small trees and shrubs from the model railroad terrain lines out there. I poke a hole in the foam and then filled it with Tacky glue. The wire stems were inserted into there.

Another picture of the staircase - I love the way the lion statues on either side set off this terrain piece!

The ground flocking came next. I painted the areas that would be covered by grass with white glue, sprinkling on Brown medium railroad ballast. This was followed up by a 50/50 glue and water coating on the ballast, which was sprinkled with Woodland Scenic Turf Earth. The next layer was more Woodland Scenics blended green turf. Finally, various pieces of clump foliage were glued to the ruin, in cracks in the pavement, leading up the sides to represent the advance of the jungle, and onto various pieces of stone.

The two rows of warrior statues assembled

I really liked the idea of a row of warrior statues on an extended pedestal -- perhaps used to line a walkway to a temple? However, I had no suitably scaled SE Asian figures (all of my Ancient SE Asian armies were in 15mm). When digging through my various bins of unpainted stuff I found a bag of plastic figures of warriors from different periods from history. I think they belong to a board game called "Mythology," maybe? Even though they weren't technically Asian, I thought they'd look good as statues.

Squirrel adventurers explore a temple complex guarded by a row of warrior statues

Once more I assembled the pedestals using Tim's generously donated Hirst Arts plaster blocks. I decided to go with two rows of 4 statues. I would base them as two separate pieces so I could either have them facing each other in an entrance way, or create one longer walkway. I used the identical method to prime, paint, and flock the two warrior rows. I was really happy with how they turned out. Now, I'm thinking I need to make a row of paving stones to create an overgrown walkway alongside the statues to really make the piece jump out on the tabletop!

This was perhaps the easiest of all four of the pieces to assemble -- the wooden pegs make great columns, I feel!

Finally, I thought of creating some random groups of columns to show portions of temples or buildings peeking through the jungle. I had in my previously purchased boxes a half dozen wide, wooden pegs that look for all the world like fluted columns. I decided to take more of the plastic figures from the Mythology game and place them atop the pedestals on the columns. More Hirst Arts plaster pieces, and some smaller bits atop the columns, and this piece was assembled and ready for painting.

Looming from the jungle, a row of 3 columns marks the location of an overgrown building to be explored

Painting and flocking was done identically as above. I am thinking that it would be neat to have a number of these types of pieces for the tabletop. It would be especially cool to have some pieces with random, tumbled columns, or broken statues on the ground. Definitely food for thought! An added bonus is that I purchased nothing for these pieces -- it was all stuff I had sitting around in my collection, in various drawers or closets.

SE Asian Jungle Ruins

Splintered Light Miniatures with Hirst Arts ruins pieces flocked to represent overgrown jungle terrain

Earlier this year, a friend of mine, Tim Peaslee, very generously handed me a box of Hirst Arts plaster pieces of ruins, caverns, boxes, barrels, etc. I quickly painted up the boxes for this year's "That's My USAid!" scenario using my Wars of Insurgency modern skirmish rules. When I decided to begin my Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago campaign, I pulled the box back out and sorted through the pieces. I organized them by size and the full scale of Tim's generosity finally sunk in. There were a LOT of pieces, here!

A couple merged photos showing what I called the "Single Pieces" -- roughly 1 inch square

I decided to paint up some of them as broken down and overgrown ruins of various temples, palaces, or other stone buildings. There were three basic sizes, and at least two different styles within each size. There were what I called the "Single Pieces" -- small, square ruins pieces about one inch (25mm) square. First, I glued them to a square of styrene or bass wood. Then, I spray painted them flat black. Once dry, I went over the black thoroughly in a 50/50 mixture of glue and water -- my typical method for painting resin terrain. A dark gray then dark dry brush followed. After flocking the bases, I added Woodland Scenic clump foliage to show the ruins beginning to be overrun by the jungle.

The Double Pieces measuring roughly 1"x2"

The Double Pieces were about 1"x2" rectangular sections of crumbled ruins. One of the styles included the stump of a tree growing out of the wall. This was particularly appropriate since you see that time and again in SE Asian ruined temples such as Angkor Wat, in Cambodia.

The Large, roughly 1.5"x3" pieces

Finally, there were the Large Ruins pieces, which measured roughly 1.5"x3". There were two main styles, both of which had a tree stump growing out of them. I suppose I could have hunted and found a tree to fit on the stump and have it be a live tree, but I wanted to keep these pieces quick and simple. They did paint up very quickly. Just as much time was spent flocking the bases as was on prepping, priming, and dry brushing them. They did not take long to paint up, and felt they looked great. The clump foliage glued onto the stones themselves really give them an overgrown look.

Next up is another batch of ruins created with Tim's Hirts Arts. Here I will be assembling pieces to recreate a crumbled down staircase, gallery of statues, and section of columns with statues atop them. Stay tuned!

SE Asian Temples: Two Smaller Temples & a Stupa

Originally built for my 28mm Pulp campaign, these temples will find use in my upcoming Frostgrave one, as well!

This will finish out my SE Asian temples built earlier for my Pulp campaign. For the full thread on how I built them, please check out Southeast Asian Temples (actually, eight separate blog entries -- here's a link to the first): http://leadlegionaries.blogspot.com/2013/10/southeast-asian-temple-part-1-materials.html

I like how these scratch-built temples are mostly made from various bits and pieces that I picked up at the craft store.

These two temples are a great size. I can really see them coming in handy for my Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago campaign. Expect treasure counters to be located in them regularly!

The second temple, a twin of the first, with Pulp explorers posing in front of it for a photo op

Printed interiors look the part, I felt, and add that extra bit over an all black or blank inside

Round Stupa
A common feature of SE Asian archeological sites are these round stupas, that look for all the world like a giant, stone tea bell sitting on a platform. They are usually solid state with a relic of the Buddha inside. However, being a fantasy/Pulp piece of terrain they HAVE to feature a hidden entrance into the interior (where doubtless great treasure is secreted away!).

A round paper mache box, a craft food finial, some beads, stone spray and voila! A SE Asian stupa!

The upper portion pulls off of its base to reveal a hidden chamber!

SE Asian Temples: The Forbidden Temple

Scratch-built SE Asian temple (warrior statue is from a pet store "lizard aquarium" section)

Here are pictures of what I call the Forbidden Temple. This is also a big temple -- the biggest part being the statue from the "lizard terrain" section of a pet store. To read the blog entries about how it was constructed, go to my blog post on it ("The Forbidden Temple"): http://leadlegionaries.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-forbidden-temple.html

The friezes on the sides are actually are downloaded and printed out on a color laser printer from an Architectural website, and depict Angkor Wat

I called it the Forbidden Temple because it was the one I used in my series of Pulp games in which adventurers were looking for the Eye of the Buddha (found inside). It will see new action on the tabletop when I begin my Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago campaign soon.

Another shot of the paper friezes glued onto the temple's sides

The interior of the Forbidden Temple - also printed patterns

SE Asian Temples: The Big Temple

Three quarter view showing the entire temple

 Here it is, the grand-daddy of all my SE Asian temples that I have built (so far...?). I call it simply, The Big Temple. Creative, isn't it?

Detailed shot of the roof of The Big Temple

Photo of the interior of the temple with the printed architectural patterns

View of the entrance to the temple and the styrene brick pattern sheet and Hirst Arts blocks entranceway

Anyway, to read how I created it, you'll have to go back to the original thread from 2014: "Snowed In? Build a Temple!" It may seem strange that I am duplicating the finished photos here, but...sigh...there is a reason. My previous image hosting site, Photobucket, has decided to charge more than $400 for "third party hosting" -- in other words, "hot-linking." That's when you upload a photo to their site and link back to it on another, such as a blog. Why Photobucket is essentially committing business suicide, I don't know. No one that I know of will pay that ridiculous amount when there are perfectly sensible free options. Such as a Google blog!

Frostgrave: A New Project

The rules

Well, I enjoyed my game of Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago enough to rush out and buy the rules. I pitched the idea to the Sunday Night gaming crew and received an enthusiastic enough response. They even gave a thumbs up to using the Splintered Light Miniatures anthropomorphic Woodland creatures as warbands. You never know -- some gamers may not want the characters they're controlling to be bears, badgers, wolverines, raccoons, and so on! I dug through my SLM unpainted lead (and there's a LOT of it), and picked out about 30 miniatures to paint up.

Some of my previously-painted Splintered Light Miniatures animals -- two bears and two wolverines

Readers of my blog know I've been painting SLM figs for awhile. Originally, I used the for armies for Hordes of the Things (HOTT) rules. However, HOTT has petered out here, dying alongside DBA Ancients -- which we played for more than two decades. Lately, I've been painting more of the animals up for my own set of big battle fantasy miniatures rules. However, all along, the leader figures for these armies I'd decided to base up individually. In the back of my mind was another project using these individually based figures.

SLM frogs -- not sure whether to keep these guys as opposition forces for the players, or offer them up as a force

Well, along comes Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago and now I have a definite need for these individually based figs! Since my Sunday night crew is rather large (we have 5-8 players regularly), I worry that a normal 10-figures Frostgrave force might lead to really long games. My plan is to shrink down the size of the forces, though I may paint them up initially as 10-figure just in case.

Jungle Rats - my first force that will be offered up to my players

Anyway, here's my first force from my previously-painted figures: The Jungle Rats. The dark rat in the front left will be the Heritor, or magically powered leader of the force. The white rat in the middle is his Warden -- you can tell he's a shaman by the skull on the end of his staff, of course! The remaining five will be choices for the player to field. The blowgun armed rats will likely count as "Bows" -- I know, I know. Shouldn't have as much range as a bow, but this IS a fantasy world, isn't it?

Other warbands coming up include the Pine Martens, Badgers, Satyrs, and more...!