ShadowLight's Adventures in Hirst Arts

[shadowlight]

OK, I finally have some time to post my painting results from Tuesday night!

For me the first step in painting is to get into some appropriate attire. I recommend an old BNL T-Shirt from their Maroon tour:

Hello City!​

I'm going with the dirty stone look rather than the gray stone look, so I got some colors that looked similar to the ones that Bruce Hirst has on his website. I got some of the cheap Delta Ceramcoat acrylics from my local craft store in the colors Burnt Umber, Mocha Brown, and Antique White:

Color Me Cheap!​

I really recommend reading Bruce Hirst's painting tutorials (linked above) and watching the painting video he has on the same site. Those are nearly exactly the same techniques I used for Basing and Dry Brushing.

I experimented a bit with some of my broken/bubbly pieces and came up with a three coat system that I liked:

- Base: 2.5 parts Burnt Umber,1 part Mocha Brown, 0.5 part water
- Dry Brush 1: Mocha Brown
- Dry Brush 2: 1 part Mocha Brown, 1 part Antique White

For the Base coat, I watered it down just a bit so that it would slop into all the cracks nicely and so that I'd end up with more shades of brown (in areas where it ended up thinner).

Here's a corner piece after the base coat:

All my base are belong to... me :\​

Next came the first dry brush:

Dry Brush 1​

Followed by the second dry brush. Here's the final results being shown off by my trusty warforged:

Is that a Warforged on your dungeon or are you just...nevermind.​

Same piece but pulled back so you can see the walls:

My 5x5 room never looked so good!​

And finally, a little Displacer Beast on Monk action:

Fight!​

Well, all in all, I'm really satisfied with the paint job results. Once I figured out what I liked, it was really straight forward to do the bulk of the painting.

One word of caution: when the pieces get wet from the paint, the Tacky Glue bond gets kind of soft. Be careful to make sure your pieces don't goo apart while you're painting them!

 

[shadowlight]

Well, you certainly cannot claim no one warned you

Curse you pogre!! You're as guilty as the rest of them!!

 

[jgbrowning]

I'm begining to think that Pogre is really an anacronym for Pusher of Great Roleplaying Enhancements.....

joe b.

 

[punkorange]

I wish my wife got me molds for DM day

 

[Desdichado]

Have a lot of Ibuprofen around! My back was killing me by Saturday night from hunching over the table. In fact, I ended up putting cinder blocks under the table to raise it up several inches. I took a break on Sunday and Monday, and my back's feeling a lot better

Yeah, I get the same effect from painting minis on the kitchen table. Ideally, I'd have a drafting desk style table somewhere in the house I could use, but realistically that ain't happening. I'm resigned to painting in shortish 3 or so hour stints, usually seperated by a day or two during which I make an effort to either sit up very straight, or lay around a lot.

 

[Digital M@]

Looking very good SL. I am going to get some myself. I think I am going to go with the 1.5" scale for the flooring because minis always take up more than an inch. I can still use a square = 5' so it should not be a big deal. Thanks for sharing.

If anyone is interested in trying a kit out before they buy the molds, go to www.castlekits.com and order 1 or two. It is a good way to introduce yourself to the product without having to cast the bricks. I ordered two pieces and really enjoyed putting them together. Now I have to decide which molds I want.

 

[Mourngrymn Dasha'r]

So I have a question that hasn't really been brought up. How much do these molds weight after they are finished. For instance you create enough molds to have a decent amount for a good dungen crawl... how much will all of these molds weight? And how difficult would they be to transport them to and from a game, if you don't have access to store them where you game?

 

[Desdichado]

So I have a question that hasn't really been brought up. How much do these molds weight after they are finished. For instance you create enough molds to have a decent amount for a good dungen crawl... how much will all of these molds weight? And how difficult would they be to transport them to and from a game, if you don't have access to store them where you game?

That depends on what you cast them with, but if you've got a ton of them, they can get relatively heavy. Pretty much all of the options are some kind of plaster.

 

[shadowlight]

Looking very good SL.

Thanks!

I am going to get some myself. I think I am going to go with the 1.5" scale for the flooring because minis always take up more than an inch. I can still use a square = 5' so it should not be a big deal. Thanks for sharing.

Cool. Post when you get your molds. I'd be interested to see how the 1.5" dungeons work out.

If anyone is interested in trying a kit out before they buy the molds, go to www.castlekits.com and order 1 or two. It is a good way to introduce yourself to the product without having to cast the bricks. I ordered two pieces and really enjoyed putting them together.

You can also order individual bricks from them. Very handy if you just want one or two and aren't sure if you want the mold or not yet.

Now I have to decide which molds I want.

I (obviously) recommend the field stone dungeons, but I'm also enjoying the egyptian molds I bought. Bruce is currently working on an Egyptian Dungeon mold....

 

[shadowlight]

So I have a question that hasn't really been brought up. How much do these molds weight after they are finished. For instance you create enough molds to have a decent amount for a good dungen crawl... how much will all of these molds weight? And how difficult would they be to transport them to and from a game, if you don't have access to store them where you game?

Well, I just weighed a couple of pieces. The 2"x2" corner piece weighs 100g and the 5"x5" room weighs 385g (that's glued and painted but not based yet... I'm still making up my mind on how I want to do that). Those are both made from Permastone.

I've done some casts with Excalibur and it's about 1.2 times the weight of Permastone (so 30g vs. 25g for 4 1" square floor tiles). So it's a little heavier but is allegedly stronger (I haven't had any of the Permastone pieces break after they're dry).

I don't think carrying the pieces to the gaming location will be a problem. So far all my pieces stack nicely and they're really not that heavy.