Inspiration for my next Hirst Arts Project - please help!

[pogre]

Greetings!

I have been doing nothing but painting and modifying miniatures for the past several months. Sadly, my Hirst Arts molds have sat unused during this time. I am now seeking inspiration to build something cool with them.

Help me with some inspiration!

Here are the parameters -
1. It can be a dungeon room or a building. Cool dungeon pieces will have a priority.

2. I would like to build an adventure around it.

3. Unusual is good, but I'm not really looking for scifi - I want a pseudo-medieval feel. You know, D&D ish.

4. It need to fit on a 20" by 20" base at largest. I know a huge castle would be impressive, but I'm looking for something of a smaller scale.

5. I have pretty much every Hirst Arts mold save the Egyptian and Sci-fi lines. I also am quite willing to make molds for pieces I need repeats of so do not let the Hirst Arts line limit what you suggest.

I look forward to your inspiring suggestions. Pictures of actual locations and dungeon room maps are appreciated.

I promise to post updates of my progress in my model and figure thread.

What do you say ENWorld? Help an ole' pogre out!

 

[Kris]

Seeing as how I myself have recently been drawing maps for several barrow/cairn type layouts... how about something like that? (sorry it's all I can think of right now).

Someone recently posted some small barrow designs over on the hirst arts message boards:
http://p068.ezboard.com/fhirstartspostyourownpictureshere.showMessage?topicID=1899.topic

But how about a larger one with a removable roof - and thus a mini dungeon inside?

Just a thought, and seems doable on a 20 inch square board. Might be something I'll try myself in the future now that I think about it

 

[pogre]

Just a thought, and seems doable on a 20 inch square board.

And a good thought at that - thanks!

BTW - I would love to see you take this vision to 3D! Your maps are outstanding BTW.

 

[Kris]

Well my selection of moulds is far less than yourself (I have a grand total of 5 ) - but I think I'll give this barrow/cairn idea a shot in the future (though right now I'm a bit pushed for space ).

Got any thoughts yet on what you will actually be building?

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Damn! Lost a big post with lots of links. Let me boil it down.

A pharos (like the lighthouse of Alexandria)

A medieval mill

If you're interested in either, I can post images. (Right now I'm peeved I lost a half hour's research. Sorry.)

 

[pogre]

Well my selection of moulds is far less than yourself (I have a grand total of 5 ) - but I think I'll give this barrow/cairn idea a shot in the future (though right now I'm a bit pushed for space ).

Got any thoughts yet on what you will actually be building?

Well, someone sent me a bunch of scans from Cry Havoc #9 from Rackham with drawings of their fantasy city Cadwallon. It has a lot of cool ideas - I actually own the magazine, but had not really looked at the Cadwallon stuff yet.

A medieval mill

This is an idea I have been thinking about for a while. I'm not sure I could beat the one Ryan Skow posted a couple of years ago though:
Ryan Skow's Mill

 

[Varianor Abroad]

This is an idea I have been thinking about for a while. I'm not sure I could beat the one Ryan Skow posted a couple of years ago though:
Ryan Skow's Mill

That's a very cool setup there. I can understand not wanting to duplicate it.

One variant that I can think of is a medieval French "bridge mill" where they put a stone structure across a river and built wheels below it. I first saw it mentioned in one of Michael Crichton's novels. Images are hard to find though. This may be beating a dead horse.

Another possibility is a medieval foundry. I have a few woodcuts in an Italian book. I can look for those.

 

[pogre]

One variant that I can think of is a medieval French "bridge mill" where they put a stone structure across a river and built wheels below it. I first saw it mentioned in one of Michael Crichton's novels. Images are hard to find though. This may be beating a dead horse.

Very cool - If anyone has a picture of what V.A. is talking about please post it or a link.

Not a dead horse at all.

 

[Tolen Mar]

Hm... somewhere I have a tower map I made up. I think it would fit your size limits if done in 3D, though it might just take up the limits of it.

It was an old wizards tower, and its since changed hands a few times. Someone got ahold of it at one point and put in new overns in the basement, so it has a newer (but well-weathered) copper chimney running up one side of it. If it were made so that you could stack each level, the main visual piece would be the orrery floor, which is actually several stories tall, with a huge mechanical celestial orrery in the center. The floors immediately below that contain the machinery to operate it. Its steam powered using excess heat from the ovens in the basement. (The original was magically powered, but the new owners couldnt figure out how to get it to go...)

Anyway, something like that could be interesting. My maps arent the best, having been hand drawn for a one-shot. I never expected to use it again, and yet I could never bring myself to throw it away.

Hrm...on second thought, maybe thats going to be my next project...

 

[Varianor Abroad]

There's a good picture of a mill bridge in the book Timeline, by Michael Crichton. The artist's name is Catherine Kanner, but the image is not on her website. I'll keep looking for it.