Make-it Monday: Papercraft, Halls of the Mountain King

Awhile back I went on a wicked Kickstarter bender, and among the several (mostly gaming related) projects I backed was a new papercraft set from Fat Dragon Games. The Kickstarted Halls of the Mountain King features some impressive dwarven architecture in the best tradition of Tolkien. 

Last night, the Wife and I sat down and started assembling the primary feature of the set, a bunch of big-ass stone pillars! Working together, we managed to get four knocked out in a couple hours. It's always hard to tell just how many of a certain item are supposed to be included in a papercraft set, since you print and assemble everything, but I suspect that the pillars are intended to be produced in sets of six. I draw this conclusion based on the fact that the top pieces come six to a sheet and the bases come three to a sheet.

Four fully assembled pillar tiles with minis for scale

I'm quite pleased with how everything looks so far, and especially happy that the pillars are designed to come off the bases for easier storage!

The basic pillar tile unit

with pillar removed for storage

This was the first time the Wife has helped me out with a papercraft project, and I gotta say, she works a lot faster than I do! I may need to enlist her aid on such things more often.

The finished product makes for quite the dramatic encounter.

Long, long ago...

On an entirely separate creative note, the Wife and I launched into our post-wedding reorganization with gusto this weekend, and while digging through an old portable file cabinet, I stumbled on a play I co-wrote with my friend Jon in college. It was one of those wild and reckless projects, written over one or two alcohol-fueled nights with little regard for editing or nuance.

The play is called Lando, and it is a 24 page tale in the spirit of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but requiring far less brain power. It explores the off-screen happenings of the minor characters in Cloud City during the final act of Empire Strikes Back. It's ridiculous and farcical, and I was surprised just how much I laughed reading it over a decade later. I'm not sure if it's actually funny, or if I'm just reading it in the voice of myself and my co-author.

Make-it Monday: Minis and Papercraft!

This week's Make-it Monday brings you a two-fer: a mini and a papercraft structure! After last week's disappointing mini painting experience, which produced Butterface the elf, I decided to immediately dive back in with another painting project in hopes of redeeming my sense of painterly self worth. I painted up an orc sorceress figure that I had previously been hesitant to tackle due to the complex detail in the sculpt. I gotta say, I feel really good about how she turned out, and I think the model had a lot to do with it. I feel like, this particular model had a lot of really well-defined detail that was lacking on ol' Butterface. As a result, the paint just seemed to know where to go.

I thought the one blue eye, one stark white eye was a nice touch.

Now, I actually finished that paint job on the same night as Butterface, so in order to actually make something this past week, as per my goal, I decided to actually finish a whole papercraft project for once! See, I have a horrible habit of starting papercraft models but never finishing a whole set. This time, I took one of my smaller sets--a ruined inn--and built the whole structure. I also worked on some furninshings for it and then dropped the orc witch in for good measure.

cozy, isn't it?

I am getting excited for my Bones minis to arrive later next month, and I really want to get in some more practice before they do. I'm going to need to get some new paint, however, because I've discovered that the cheap hobby stuff I've been using doesn't hold to the minis particularly well.

P is for Papercraft

Need. More. Pillars!

I am a bit of a hapless penny pincher when it comes to gaming. I buy all my rulebooks used from Half Price Books. I use Legos in place of minis and for a long time I used a go board in place of a battle mat. (side note: the go mat led my group to begin referring to the start of a combat encounter as "go" time.)  However, I also greatly enjoy the creative extras that float around a game's periphery and going above an beyond to give my players a more immersive game experience.

Well, shortly after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, I donated to a cause hosted by RPGnow.com called Gamers Help Haiti. The site offered a large bundle of online, indie game offerings (mostly pdf e-books, map packs and the like) in exchange for a donation of $25 or more, with all proceeds going to the relief effort. Anyway, included in the virtual bundle I received, were a couple of pdf dungeon tile sets from Fat Dragon Games (FDG). FDG offers a wide variety of quality print-and-assemble 2D and 3D sets for building custom environments for your game.

I printed to the tile sets, glued them to foam core, cut them out and was immediately hooked. Ever since I printed my first basic dungeon set from the Gamers Help Haiti bundle, I have been hopelessly addicted to papercraft and FDG. At $2 to $15 per pdf, the FDG sets are far more cost effective than some alternatives. I find myself squirreling away old Red Baron pizza boxes and scraps of foam core (when the exhibit shop at work is throwing it out, it comes home with me!) to serve as backing for my tiles. Every time I swing by my local art store, I jealously eye the Logan mat cutters. My hands become so sore meticulously wielding the exacto knives that feed my need.

My addiction has given rise to quite a collection of papercraft tiles and set pieces that frequently grace my gaming table, along with a couple of realizations:

• When you factor in the time it takes to mount and cut dungeon tiles and the fact that printer ink costs more than Charlie Sheen's tiger blood, it becomes apparent that brand name, store bought tile sets are ultimately cheaper than the do-it-yourself variety.
• 3D set pieces take up a lot of storage space very quickly.
• Having a 3D set that you can quickly throw together somehow feels so much more satisfying than just drawing it out on a battle mat.
• I really want one of those Logan cutters!

sigh...