18 Aug 2012

Graveyard

Hello,

I've started building module grave yard when I got SA rules. I needed some terrain, as my brother and I played with only sandbags, wood fences and three obelisks I made before, which made games similar eventually and somewhat boring. I went for graveyard as crypt (or anything horrifying on a CD sized base) and grave stones are needed in quite few scenarios. Grave stones are needed for ghosts and zombie spawn points (makes sense!)

I've counted most I'd need are six, so I made six grave stones on single bases (25mm slotta base). I wanted to buy some, but you know...making something so basic yourself is faster, cheaper, easier and its yours in the end. Of course the finishing product is not as good as some gravestones out there, but I like what has became of mine :P

Here is a picture of all 6 of them:





They were painted black, drybrushed dark green, drybrushed grey. I went for random lines instead of actual writing, as it is faster, easier and big letters would just look silly. Plus my imagination fails when it comes to the names! I've drawn some eldritch stuff on some of them, like the star sign and something that should look like cthulhu's head.


To get some terrain, I've made two templates with grave stones. Those are meant for terrain purposes, but you could easily designate one or two (or all of them, wish be) to be used as grave stones instead of those I've shown before.

First template has a row of graves, first two being of a wealthier people and the rest being some random. I don't know if you can see it, but earth at one grave is piled up a bit. The last one is only half visible and really battered, someone disliked this person a lot!

Second template is a bit different, so I could avoid boring repeatings. It has a custom made tree, drybrushed with greys and whites. First, this helped me avoid figuring how to make leaves and secondly, it gives a certain "death" feel to the grave yard. I wanted to make grave dug out, but that will be hard to visualise, so I will probably just gloss varnish the grave and make it look like a pool of something unpleasant. A hand sticking out sounds perfect!


The crypt itself is in early stages of WIP. I need to get to it and build doors and some details out of plasticard, use spackle to fill the roof...I am not sure how could I make the walls less boring (or should I say more detailed?) and the building itself will probably be painted the same way as grave stones.  Somehow it seems I don't have a single nice pic of it, so I will leave it out. You can  see it in one of the pics above, it is made of cork.

All the pieces lack static grass as I am thinking about buying some tufts to complement the grass, making it a bit less regular. I also only got the "straw" grass, which I bought for my FOW US army in North Africa. I will probably buy "dead" and "green" grass too, and simply mix them up a bit for some variety. I also dont like the way I've painted the earth at the templates and would prefer it too be like one at the grave stones. The thing is, I don't want to use my vallejo paints for bigger terrains and I always keep getting brown with too much red in it! Well, once there will be more grass, it will be less noticable and I think I could live with that.

Let this be it for another late post, next time I will try to give you at least a review of Strange Aeons rules, if not an AAR!

Thanks for watching,
Mathyoo


11 comments:

  1. Very suitable for the theme, Mathyoo. Well done.

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  2. Simple but effective,do I spot a certain Mr. Pickman's grave there too ?

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  3. I really like it when people can be bothered to make terrain and not just buy it. Every one becomes just that little bit diferent and therefore unique.

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  4. You've done a grand job on those, Mathyoo. As Clint said, homemade scenery will always be unique and if done well, as these are, ought to make you feel very proud. When others admire it, you can say to them, "I made that!"

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  5. That is pretty awesome!

    It will really add some character to the gaming board. Well done mate!

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  6. These look great, I'm looking forward to seeing that crypt too!

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  7. Love these. I never thought of single bases for tomb stones. Damn good idea.

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  8. An excellent bit of scenery! Nicely made mate! :)

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  9. These look great the. Writing appears to be worn off as if these graves are ancient. Very eerie look great dude.

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  10. Thanks guys!

    Yes there is a Pickman's grave, been listening to audiobook and it seem appropriate, hah! Good eyes, as I've tried to hid it a bit :P

    As for the single bases, its by the rules, but again, they always make nice scenery...some might be bothered by the height of slotta bases, I guess, but I like it that way.

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  11. Its a good idea and it makes sense to have the graves raised out the ground slightly. All depends on the colour of the battlefield your playing on.

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