How To: Create your own Tact-tiles

[Catavarie]

I prefer to have something that resembles actual miniatures, not just tokens or coins. I'm trying to determine a good material to make them out of and a means of "mass producing" them so that anyone could create their own miniatures and do so quickly and easily.

Perhaps wax or Styrofoam of some sort, although I have make sure that they are not too light weight or else they could blow off the board too easily.

 

[frankthedm]

Slimes need only wax. Cthuloid horrors dwell within hot glue sticks. My minis thread has more details.

 

[Dragon Snack]

I prefer to have something that resembles actual miniatures, not just tokens or coins. I'm trying to determine a good material to make them out of and a means of "mass producing" them so that anyone could create their own miniatures and do so quickly and easily.

Perhaps wax or Styrofoam of some sort, although I have make sure that they are not too light weight or else they could blow off the board too easily.

Wax or styrofoam will probably negate any 'quick and easy' way to 'mass produce' your minis, since they will have to be sculpted. If you just wanted generics, then I guess wax would work, but you still have to make a mold for it. After all that work, it's probably easier to pick up an actual 'store bought' miniature.

For 'quick and easy' (and cheap) look for printable cardstock minis (mutiple companies make versions of them). Tape a coin (or other weighty counter) to the bottom to keep them from blowing off the board. You can also find plastic bases made to to stick them in, but coins and tape is easier and cheaper.

 

[Gilladian]

If you want to be able to make simple shapes or even get more detailed in your sculpting but without going all the way to carving your own minis, try polymer clay. You can make a simple shape (I've made elementals, dog-type animals, doors in frames, wells and altars, tables, barrels and chests) all very easily. I go more for props than minis, as you can see. I tend to use "pawn-type" shapes modeled from the clay for monsters.

The nice thing about PC is that once you've modeled a figure from it, you can use any simple RTV silicone mold to reproduce it. You bake PC in your home oven at about 275-300 degrees F, so you can bake it IN the mold, and then pop it out.

PC (brand names I suggest are Fimosoft, Premo, Supersculpey and Kato - stay away from original Sculpey and Sculpey III as they are very breakable in comparison to the others) is quite durable - you can drop and step on small solid pieces without breaking them. Sticky-outy-bits (technical term) are a bit easier to break off if banged around.

Here's a link to a photo of some of my stuff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilladian/sets/72157601082049021/.

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

...Fimosoft, Premo, Supersculpey and Kato - stay away from original Sculpey and Sculpey III as they are very breakable in comparison to the others...

What's the price comparison?

My experiences using Sculpey to make hard-to-find monsters (beholder and grell to name a couple) have been very positive. I've been able to make (and paint) them to look quite detailed, with players thinking they were store-bought minis.

I'm not a good enough sculptor to do detailed people, though, and of course I can't reliably mass produce them. Still, a good solution when you can't afford (or find) a mini of an aberration, ooze, elemental, etc.

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Thoughts on Tact-tiles, Dwarven Forge, etc.

Can anyone think of a more convenient way to get the grid onto the foam board? I can get 1"-grid easel pad paper. Anyone tried pasting this to the foam board and then laminating?

I have gone through numerous homemade battlemat alternatives:

First I made my own Dwarven Forge stuff out of bathroom tile. Works fine, looks great, but its heavier than all-get-out, not portable, and it takes a long time to assemble/rearrange. So it's not my ideal solution...

Next I bought a big sheet of linoleum that looks more or less like a dungeon floor and has a 1" grid on it. I intended to cut this into 12-in squares or so, glue it to metal sheets, and use magnetic walls to create dungeons, but this began to seem impractical, so I got...

9 x 12 sheets of thin metal, which I spray painted on both sides in different colours (most grey, some blue, some green) with a 1" grid. Then I cut various length strips of 1/8" thick magnets that I can easily reposition to show walls, etc. I've used this system once or twice. It's not bad, but it takes time to lay out.

In a pinch, I have also used ungridded 9 x 12 dry erase boards, but that's almost the same as drawing on blank paper.

So far, my best experiences have been with printing computer-generated scale maps (for areas I have planned in advance) or drawing on 1"-grid easel pad paper (for areas too large to print out or for which I don't have maps on the computer). Both of these systems allow me to display the dungeon in piecemeal format, and they have the added advantage that I don't have to redraw if the PCs return to an area already explored.

 

[Gilladian]

Sculpey III is usually around 1.29 per block (about 1/2" thick by 2" square). It's the cheapest, except for Super Sculpey. You buy that by the lb box but I'm not sure of the price. It only comes in one color (flesh tone). Fimosoft and Premo are about 1.89 per block about the same size as the Sculpey III. Kato is the most expensive, and usually only available at certain stores (JoAnne Fabric, Hobby Lobby that I know of). Or mailorder. Kato is about 2.29 but comes in slightly larger blocks (about 1"x1.5"x 2.5").

What's the price comparison?

My experiences using Sculpey to make hard-to-find monsters (beholder and grell to name a couple) have been very positive. I've been able to make (and paint) them to look quite detailed, with players thinking they were store-bought minis.

I'm not a good enough sculptor to do detailed people, though, and of course I can't reliably mass produce them. Still, a good solution when you can't afford (or find) a mini of an aberration, ooze, elemental, etc.

 

[Catavarie]

Can anyone think of a more convenient way to get the grid onto the foam board? I can get 1"-grid easel pad paper. Anyone tried pasting this to the foam board and then laminating?

My local walmart sells gridded Foamboard sheets at 2 for ~$10. They have a light 1/2 inch grid on them but I didn't like the price point myself. Of course it is much more convienent and you can still get 6 tiles per sheet, so I guess 12 tiles for $10 is not a bad trade off, I was just trying to keep things as cheap as possible. Of course YMMV.