Mapping Shadowfell: Adventures in 3D Terrain Building

[Propagandroid]

Hi,

I've gotten some good responses to my Mapping Shadowfell series, so I figured I'd post a thread over here to let people know about it. I'm a newbie at creating 3D terrain, so you get to watch those growing pains along with seeing some (hopefully) cool maps.

Mapping Shadowfell: Part One

Mapping Shadowfell: Part Two

I'll update the thread when new maps hit the blog...look for the exterior of the Forest Lair sometime next week.

 

[Zaukrie]

Great stuff. I 100% recommend going to the heroscapers.net (I think it is .net) site and looking on their custom creations thread. There are all kinds of advice there. If you start with the sticky at the top that directs you to threads, you'll get the best advice.

Are the buses on a base that is removable? If not, I'd do it that way in the future. That way you can have things hiding there, and when they are no longer hiding you can remove the bushes. That also makes the terrain more modular in that you can vary where the bushes are.

One great way to texture pink foam is to crumple up a big piece of aluminum foil and just roll it around on the foam. It creates random texture that can be brought out with dry brushing.

 

[Propagandroid]

Great advice on the aluminum thing, thanks! I'm going to give that a try when I do a rough area.

The bushes are indeed removable. Actually, everything on the map is removable except the road. I don't have the bushes on a base right now, but I plan to cut a smaller cardboard base for each of them just to stabilize them for storage.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Nice work, I wish I had the time and space to do some of that.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hi,

I've gotten some good responses to my Mapping Shadowfell series, so I figured I'd post a thread over here to let people know about it. I'm a newbie at creating 3D terrain, so you get to watch those growing pains along with seeing some (hopefully) cool maps.

Mapping Shadowfell: Part One

Mapping Shadowfell: Part Two

I'll update the thread when new maps hit the blog...look for the exterior of the Forest Lair sometime next week.

Wow, that's amazing!

I could never spend so much time and effort (besides, I totally lack talent for practical stuff). I envy you for your time, and applaud you for your willpower to it.

 

[Propagandroid]

Well, as far as time goes, it's not all that time-consuming really. I do it in my spare evening and weekend hours.

Like I mentioned in the comments at my site, I probably spent 8-10 hours total on the King's Road map, and the Forest Lair exterior probably won't take me more than 3-4. Getting all the equipment has been a bigger time sink than anything, and figuring out techniques would have been too had it not been for the lovely Mrs. Droid, who is an awesome artist and has been reading terrain-building books and websites.

I'm really not that handy or practical either...I've surprised myself a bit while doing this. Having the wife on board is instrumental, of course, but as a hobby it's really not turning out to be that expensive or time consuming for what I'm getting out of it!

 

[Zaukrie]

I also have very little artistic talent, but, this stuff is quite doable. Seriously, check out heroscapers.whatever it is, and find the custom terrain forum. I find it fun to make the stuff.

For rooms, I highly recommend not doing bricks for walls. I use pink foam, and then use pencils to make grooves - either in the shape of bricks or just random. Floors are super easy to do, pencils for making the 1 inch squares, and the ball of foil for texture. You can also do random "holes" or grooves for brick patterns or just do random crevices. I'm making a modular system of rooms and halls, like I'm making it out of hirst arts, but doing pink foam instead.

 

[Propagandroid]

I also have very little artistic talent, but, this stuff is quite doable. Seriously, check out heroscapers.whatever it is, and find the custom terrain forum. I find it fun to make the stuff.

For rooms, I highly recommend not doing bricks for walls. I use pink foam, and then use pencils to make grooves - either in the shape of bricks or just random. Floors are super easy to do, pencils for making the 1 inch squares, and the ball of foil for texture. You can also do random "holes" or grooves for brick patterns or just do random crevices. I'm making a modular system of rooms and halls, like I'm making it out of hirst arts, but doing pink foam instead.

I'll be doing constructed interiors with Dwarven Forge. I don't have any cavern interiors, though, so I'll either have to make due with the normal interiors or build some cavern walls myself...haven't decided which I'm going to do.

I do plan to check out Hirst Arts at Gencon and see about getting some of the crazier molds...I dont' care about basic walls and such, but strange architectures, columns, and such I'm very interested in.

 

[Graf]

You scare me... in a very good way.

 

[Propagandroid]

You scare me... in a very good way.

That's what she said!