doc mcb | 09 Apr 2014 8:27 a.m. PST |
Working on the 2nd half of the Wyldewood Campaign (first half was DARK AND BLOODY GROUND, elves etc vs orcs and goblins in a no-mans-land) which will be GOLDEN GROVE AND BLACKEST BLIGHT, the undead of the vasty vault invading Wyldewood. For the battles fought inside the druids' domain I have plenty of nice forests and elven tree houses and halting farms and such. But when the battle is in the Dead Zone, the terrain will include twisted and corrupted forests or other vegetation, ruins, a vampire's castle, etc. We have the vamp castle from Blue Moon, and a good many ruins. But more is always better, and we are particularly interested in suggestions for wicked swamps and hillsides and trees and such. I expect we'll be making a good bit of it ourselves, but I'd be glad of suggestions both as to techniques that others have developed and described, and also commercially available products (15mm) we might not be aware of. Thanks! |
Murvihill | 09 Apr 2014 9:14 a.m. PST |
Trees with twisted faces are always a good idea. |
timurilank | 09 Apr 2014 9:19 a.m. PST |
I was thinking about the "dark woods" as seen in Snow White and the Huntsmen. As the area is shrouded in mist, I would need trunks, branches and hillocks no higher than a centimetre or two above the figures. The whole would be painted in grey tone. Cheers, |
Black Cavalier | 09 Apr 2014 9:50 a.m. PST |
The GW plastic trees look pretty ominous when you don't put the leaves on them, but they might be too big for 15mm. There's also some scary trees in the Fanticide terrain here: link again, maybe too big for 15mm. There was an article in the Fictional Reality online magazine that showed how to build trees out of action figures. The author looked for scary looking figures, cut them apart, & used the body for the trunk, & arms & legs as branches. He sometimes mixed the figure parts with plastic tree parts like from GW. So an arm would be glued to a plastic trunk, etc. That way a single figure could be used to make multiple trees, & it looked better to have the body parts scattered throughout the trees instead of all in 1 tree. He used putty to cover up the joins, & then pressed something into the putty to give the putty a bark-like look. I don't remember what it was though. |
doc mcb | 09 Apr 2014 9:52 a.m. PST |
All good ideas; thanks! I own SNOW WHITE and will relook at it. And the idea of plastic figures as a basis for trees with faces is clever. |
doc mcb | 09 Apr 2014 10:20 a.m. PST |
Has anyone ever tried successfully to warp the plastic tree pieces that one normally twists and then glues clump foliage onto? Seems like with the right amount of solvent or heat one could make the trunks and branches "melt" a bit into something that looks spooky -- then add some sort of slime or something instead of foliage? |
WeeSparky | 09 Apr 2014 11:57 a.m. PST |
If you do not mind toxic fumes, chenille stems can be twisted easily into tree shapes and the plastic fuzz melted with a propane torch. |
fred12df | 09 Apr 2014 1:01 p.m. PST |
Toxic swamps are good – black base layer, maybe with some dark green bits. Then layer of water effects, add in random bones / skeletons or bubbles Some pale dead grass around the edges. I've been thinking of doing some dead trees just using Noch or Faller plastic tree armatures with no flock added, and dry brushed a greyish colour. |
Cyrus the Great | 09 Apr 2014 3:33 p.m. PST |
You might like the Horrorclix evil tree. link I don't think it is too big for 15mm. |
Gone Fishing | 09 Apr 2014 3:38 p.m. PST |
I've always found mushrooms and "fungi forests" evil in a weird sort of way. Pendraken make some nice mushrooms and mushroom men in 10mm that could work; there are also plenty in 28mm if you want really big ones. Trees with twisted, Rackham-esque faces are a lot of fun too, of course! |
doc mcb | 09 Apr 2014 4:40 p.m. PST |
Yes, and there's some useful weird/evil pieces in some of the other plastic pre-paints also. DREAM-whatever, iirc. |
Space Monkey | 09 Apr 2014 10:54 p.m. PST |
My FAVORITE haunted forest segment is in The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (I know, great name right!), an old Christopher Lee movie. When the protagonists are on their way to the titular Dr.'s haunted castle things get weird and the trees are full of hanged men
and in some places human bodies are formed in and out of the trunks of the trees. |
Borathan | 09 Apr 2014 11:26 p.m. PST |
Rather than the deathtrap and corpses/remains everywhere options, you could go with a darker forest. If you can find them now, a lot of the non-evergreen winter trees places sell tend to be easily reworked into dead trees. also, some of the large driftwood pieces that a lot of pet stores sell work great with a couple coats of a thicker black wash followed by a thin white one while the last black one is still wet
gives it an old, greyed wood look. Spider webs work, but can end up just looking odd rather than in the dark/creepy feel. A few overgrown ruins or pieces of them. Odd, mishapen trees and plants, hell, a lot of craft store plants work rather well for it. It's one of the few things that the Games Workshop tree set actually seems to work rather well for
with a few odd trees scattered about. If you have the time and don't mind the effort to keep it up, get some of the wool/cotton sheets that christmas villages occasionally use for snow and then stretch it out and base things through it, possibly "cutting" out the lowest portions of the woods entirely to represent a mist hanging over it. If you want the look for a haunted and nasty wood, I think the woods scenes of Mirkwood in The Desolation of Smaug kind of managed to hit that feel
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doc mcb | 10 Apr 2014 6:34 a.m. PST |
Yes, I will have to decide what "look" I am going for. The Vasty Vault is ultimately about the annihilation of Creation, but in the shorter term it twists and corrupts the natural (which in the Splintered Lands includes the non-material, so an air or fire elemental is natural). The DREAMBLADE plastic pre-paints include a number of useful pieces, as it is very much about nightmares. I expect I will construct some smaller terrain pieces around some of them, as vignettes, and will have trees included. |
Cmde Perry | 10 Apr 2014 6:27 p.m. PST |
Figures with pasty white skin tones, lying face up amongst gray/brown rushes, all covered in layers of sodium silicate (or your water-modeling material of choice). Notch it up with dimly flickering LED's embedded in the water a la The Dead Marshes. And if you can stand the cold, the vapor, or the smell, make fog/mist with dry ice, ultrasonic mister, or theatrical smoke respectively. |
Borathan | 10 Apr 2014 10:52 p.m. PST |
@Cmde Perry, the mist options are not a very good choice for anything painted, it tends to get through even seals and cause issues with blistering of paint and with a lot of things, mold problems that get rather nasty. |
Ancestral Hamster | 11 Apr 2014 3:37 a.m. PST |
While not familiar with the Fictional Reality online magazine, I saw a similar article on "Chaos Trees" made from action figures in the magazine linked below. Perhaps it is the same author. link |
doc mcb | 12 Apr 2014 7:56 a.m. PST |
Hamster, thanks, I see several items of interest there. |
Rebel Minis | 13 Apr 2014 6:17 a.m. PST |
I look forward to seeing the complete set up[ :) RebelMike RebelMinis.com
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The Last Conformist | 13 Apr 2014 8:52 a.m. PST |
There's "toxic pools" in GF9's "Battlefield in a Box" range. link The swamps with dead tree stumps can undoubtedly be made to look suitably evil too. |
doc mcb | 13 Apr 2014 7:11 p.m. PST |
Oooh, yes, those are probably worth buying. Thanks. |