Encounter Maps

Just and assortment of encounter maps I used in the last Anglypur campaign I thought I'd share during this time of quarantine.

Recent Published Artwork!

Here's a sampling of pieces I've done for the upcoming modules Lost Treasure of Atlantis and the Sea-Wolf's Daughter for Northwind Adventures/Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The modules are fantastic adventures by the way.

Staying busy (AKA excuses for no posts)!

Sorry, not many posts lately, but a few of you know I have limited amount of spare time to get things done as I have overtime hours every week, amongst other responsibilities.  So my spare time has been filled with working for Jeff Talanian and NorthWind Adventures doing illustrations for some of his latest modules. Rats in the Walls has already been released and two more are coming soon.

Here’s a peak at couple of works in progress I did for Rats in the Walls:

PS: Rats in the Walls has three great low-level adventures that I personally found pretty damn cool, and most importantly: Interesting!

The Long War: The Fleshless

Continuing the fight against my unpainted miniatures, I offer you the first half of my undead which comprises all the undead without flesh. Basically, skellies, ghosts, wraiths, wights, and so, so many Liches.

Many different companies from a span of about 30 years! Can you guess them all?

So had to strip some of these bad boys as my newly discovered paint scheme requires a white prime vs my usual black priming. 2 days in a Pine Sol (my house smells so spring fresh!) and water solution did the trick and doesn't harm the minis, rinse and dry then prime.

Here's an early attempt that I didn't like. decided the only thing not ethereal-looking would be the weapons.

 

 

 

Ended up with a hand painted base coat with 100% coverage, then 2 highlight coats, the first a little wet, the second a little dry. 3 layers of color tend to make a figure have enough depth to look good (the way I paint, anyway).

Here's a completed shot with the flash on, just for the effect.

Still undecided how I'll paint the next group (I have some ideas, but...) which includes zombies, ghouls, wights (the d&d type with flesh on them vs the Warhammer type which were included above as they're basically tough as nails skellies) and vampires.

The Long War, Second Battle: Vermin!

Continuing my massive figure painting campaign, I finished the furry critters: 3 Minotaurs, 4 Beastmen, 12 Skaven, 12 Giant Rats, 12 Giant Spiders, 23 Giant Bats, 1 Dire Wolf, 10 Warhammer Quest Archways, Tsathaggua, 4 Erol Otus based Bugbears, 1 Yeti, 1 Werebear, and 1 Wererat. There's a few more old Grendiers off to the side I need to add a touch of detail to, but the lion's share are done, including the remaining minis to finish off the Warhammer Quest game.

As usual, I begin with a bunch of black-primed figures on plates.

Base-coat brown.

In progress. Finished figs on top of article, of course.

Next up, the Undead!

The Long War.

There's a few of you out there that know I'm a figure owning maniac. I seem to have a bit of a love affair with a lot of the old stuff, like early Grenadier and Ral Parthas, but I also have a lot of the Warhammer figs, too, despite being much more of a roleplayer than a wargamer. After all the terrain I've been doing, it'd be a shame not to have a bunch of stuff painted up for it, right?

Even though I do have a significant amount of figures painted, the great majority are not. So begins the great Painting Campaign of 2018. My idea is to just grab all the figures of a certain type that will have similar color themes and do them all at the same damn time.

First up: the GreenSkins. Every orc, troll, gobbo, etc I could find got gathered up and base coated black.

Note, some figures were done or started previously so I brought them along to for color reference and/or completion.

Then the painting begins:

As I have sooooo many minis, I'm not shooting for 'eavy metal quality, just decent looking on the table results:

As you can see from the first pic, I'm done with the greenies. Sure there's some banners and shields looking awful blank and perhaps some questionable color choices, but they're finished damn it!

So, what's next? What I call my Vermin. Pretty much all the hairy stuff: Minotaurs, beast men, skaven, lycanthropes, and giant rats, spiders, and bats. Completing these will mean my Warhammer Quest boxed set is fully painted, too!

Then: Undead, scaly stuff (lizard men mostly, think all my snakes and snakemen are already done), and chaos warriors/chaos dwarves, which will complete a butt-ton of figures.

Afterwards I may attempt to work on sci-fi stuff, especially ones that would work in a fantasy rpg. Imagine yourself deep in a megadungeon when suddenly: Genestealers! Lictor! Tyranids!

Or... deep beneath the pyramids you hear a fine hum of machinery and a Necron Spider-Wraith Terminator thingy floats towards you! Roll for initiative!

Buildings finished!



Here are the last of the buildings for the edge of town where my dungeon crawl will be based. I fear they may not be populated by friendly villagers when the players first arrive...

 

A warehouse... of Doom!

A tavern... of Doom!

A fortified residence... of Doom!

 

 

Residences... of Doom!

 

 

Continuing this project I am making the terrain area where these buildings will reside, then it'll be all set for many nights of adventure!

 

Once again, all buildings are from www.gamesprintshop.com

Future plans for Grim Hack.

Noticed I have been getting a lot of hits from people checking out my Grim Hack posts
worldwide, so I'd better get off my ass and finish it up. Major plans are to:

 

• Change some of the characteristics back to their original derivation (eg. CS back to WS) just for ease of use/conversion purposes, as Grim Hack is more a rules addendum/option to add on to the original 1st edition, not a stand alone game.
• Some minor clarifications. Off the top of my head the rules for skill acquisition and magic particularly.
• An complete document, maybe even with some of my artwork packed into it. No idea how to turn something into a PDF, but I just may learn.
• Work on some rules to include 2nd edition since I've had some contact with people asking for ideas for Magic System conversion.

No promises on time-line as I just received 5(!) more buildings for my campaign that I need to paint up so I can finish off my village.

An interesting place to explore?

Been having some issues with my scanner, so have to bear with my camera phone.

Starting to get some positive responses from my gaming group on maybe getting something started in meatspace. Hoping I can give my new terrain some use!

More buildings!

This is a fortified dwelling that will serve as a military outpost.

And here we have our local temple and black smith. Yuan-ti shown for scale. All these buildings open up for interior gaming use, but I haven't painted them yet, nor have I painted furniture, etc. I'll tackle that once we start gaming again.

I'm getting the buildings from games-printshop.com which are licensed printers for printable scenery.

Freshly painted Town terrain.

Picked these up from a company that prints other company's 3D printer plans. Planning on getting just a few more, so it's definitely cheaper than buying a 3D printer, plus I work too much to really build them from scratch (maybe in the future for special things like a massive castle or something).

Now, I just need to get the guys on schedule to either re-start the Crown's Hold Campaign -or- start up a new one...

Not suspicious at all.

1st Completed MegaDungeon level

Just a few pics of the first 3' x 7' level of my Mega Dungeon made of 1' square modular dungeon sections. (Ignore the figures surrounding the dungeon, I had them spread on the table divided up into painting schemes in preparation for painting).

Underground Sea modular terrain

Every mega-dungeon needs an underground sea area, right? Found some fairly inexpensive foamcore with a nice green base color. For this type of terrain brown or blue would have worked as well. Just slapped some spackling compound on the edge portion for a shore line. I love spackle because you can really pile it up if need be and it comes in great big tubs if you need it.

Painted some 50/50 white glue and water randomly onto the shore areas to give it a more interesting texture.

Next came some random black spray paint.

Finally, after 3 coats of clear gloss finish (warning, it's oil based, just about guaranteed to wreck whichever brush you use on it), I have completed the shore line of my underground sea. If my players figure out some way to get/find a boat/raft down there and want to sail, I can easily whip up more a couple more for that endless seas appeal!

Quick ruined tower for miniature gaming.

On this project, I just started out with a single layer of cardboard where I glued down the bottom layer of 1"x0.5"x0.5" Styrofoam bricks with Gorilla Glue. All other rows I just used white glue.

I had a few squirts of spray foam left over after some gap-filling in my house, so I just used that for some thickness, then glued down random bricks cut on angles for that collapsed structure feel. After drying I added my favorite terrain standby of spackling compound for added filler and then some sand where the grass has been worn away. I also attacked the bricks with a small cautery to put some crumbly/ancient touches to them.

Base spray-coat black, ftw!

Hit the stones with a thick dry-brush of a medium gray, then a light dry brush of a light gray.

Started adding the flock. I've had the most luck doing small separate sections as it doesn't lead to big balls of fuzzy green goop.

And the finished piece, ready for the characters to discover. A campsite of travelling murderous cultists? A hidden trap door to a Mega Dungeon? Or a defensible position when the Spider hordes attack? Perhaps all three...