No, Hirst Arts. Just...no.

[the Jester]

Nice work, man!

I gotta spread some around, will somebody cover me and rep H.M.Gimlord for me?

 

[H.M.Gimlord]

I have another idea to bring to life an encounter based on an L4W game I've been DMing for about a year and a half now, called Hey! That's Not Wayne's Basement. The idea is the cellar of an inn with enormous wine casks, one of which is actually a secret door leading to a den of thieves. Problem is, Burce Hirst only has a 1" wide cask, and I would be looking for a cask of at least 2" in diameter and 3" long. Here's a link to "The Cask" in Heidelberg, Germany that served as an inspiration for the idea. Any ideas where I can get a mold for something like this without having to cast the mold myself?

 

[Lalato]

Note to self: Add Heidelberg to bucket list.

 

[H.M.Gimlord]

Oh yeah! I was born there. It's definitely a must on the bucket list. Images. In addition to the old city, there's a replicated Greek amphitheater on the opposite hill.
[sblock=internet pic]

[/sblock] as well as on old monastery. I found some cool pictures taken of it by a guy named Rainer Ebert. Don't know him. I just found it on a Google search.

I go back every chance I get.

 

[frankthedm]

I'm noticing, though, that the 1":5' scale is a little constrictive. I've been told it's better to model at 1":3.5'.

this sums it up pretty well...

Quoting the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, regarding the use of miniatures in the game:

"Figure bases are necessarily broad in order to assure that the figure will stand... Because of this, it is usually necessary to use a ground scale twice that of the actual scale... squares of about one actual inch per side are suggested. Each ground scale inch can then be used to equal 3 1/2 linear feet, so a 10' wide scale corridor is three actual inches in width and shown as 3 separate squares. This allows depiction of the typical array of three figures abreast, and also enables easy handling of such figures when they are moved."​

In short, the corridors were drawn ten feet wide, but with the assumption that ten feet was enough for three people fighting side by side (three squares), not two.

 

[H.M.Gimlord]

Yes. A grim reality, but unfortunate for those of us who wish to reproduce 4E maps :sigh:.

 

[Kunimatyu]

You can absolutely do Hirst Arts stuff cheaply. Buy the floor molds (usually $10 cheaper than the others) and instead of buying the rest, buy pre-cast blocks from here: Results for PRE-CAST PIECES BY SET

You can then use a few of these sets of pre-cast blocks to make some of your tiles more interesting.

 

[GameDaddy]

Hirst Arts is a good first choice for casting your own terrain pieces, and it's worth it, as the quality molds have a long lifetime and will easily support 100 or more casts.

An alternative I have tried out, is to make my own molds out of Latex Rubber reinforced with surgical gauze. One pound of Latex Rubber is $12 and for 25mm scale will let you build two to three small house sized structures...

You'll get 25 or so casts out of each before the mold breaks down and becomes unusable. About $10-20 dollars for the modeling supplies, but the molds provide super detailed plaster models.

Doesn't work with resins that well though as the resin hardens and sticks to the molds causing fractures and rough breaks in the latex.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Hairy armpits?

[Threadjack]
When I first read the title of this thread, I read "No, Hirsute Arts. Just... no".

Immediately, I had a mental image of a bunch of drawing students gathered in a semi-cirle around a male, well, "life model", who hadn't, well, waxed... And I could well understand why the OP was saying "Just... no".

This probably says more about me than about the OP, though...
[/Threadjack]

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[H.M.Gimlord]

You can absolutely do Hirst Arts stuff cheaply. Buy the floor molds (usually $10 cheaper than the others) and instead of buying the rest, buy pre-cast blocks from here: Results for PRE-CAST PIECES BY SET

You can then use a few of these sets of pre-cast blocks to make some of your tiles more interesting.

I would urge you to splurge and buy the wall mold (per your chosen style) as well, but this looks like a great alternative to buying a mold for simply casting detailing pieces. There are some molds where I would only see myself casting 10 or so and no more. Why buy the mold for that if you can get the same amount for $10 less than the mold. It would be especially worth it for some molds that they don't have, like #85 (couldn't find it), and the the gothic graveyard set (casting resin for things like the fence is hard for me. I always break them). I would definitely buy these by the pre-cast set.