Organized Memories

I've got a lot of Hirst Arts molds. I've had them for quite a while. Since making the modular dungeon back in 2010 I haven't done much of anything with them. I'm in the process of cleaning and organizing the hobby stuff - a never-ending process by the way - I decided to finally put them away properly.

These are photo storage containers from Michaels but work excellently for storing molds. Most molds. Some are a bit tight in there but not enough to worry me. They have squish points. Luckily I had exactly the right number of containers for my molds. I didn't count them first. Typical of me, I know.

It took me some time since I wanted to do it once, do it right. That meant pulling up my old page which had all my molds so I knew which ones were there and then correlating them back to the Hirst Arts store to get their names. My page only had their numbers since that's what is on the images I took.

But first they needed to have the excess plaster scraped off (I probably should have washed them thoroughly but they're lucky they got this much attention) and then powder them. The powder is just one of those extra steps that is more of a precaution than a necessity. It's on the site to do it, I was going to do it.

Then it was a matter of going out on the patio and working slowly through each mold. Finding the next numeric one, cleaning it off, dusting it, making the label, putting it away. Mold by mold.

To make it more interesting I have a number of molds that are no longer in production. I do have a printout of them so those were easy enough to sort out. I also have some third party molds that I pretty much guessed the names at.

Two of my molds are on loan. I know who and when. I left open spots for them where they'll go when they're returned.

And I seem to be missing one mold. I'll have a better look at where they were since it's a thinner one but if I can't find it I'll put out a message to the old group to see if anyone borrowed it and didn't return it. I'm not very fond of it but it was on my list so I might as well see about getting it back if I can.

For a bit of eye candy here's the modular dungeon set up for a convention game.

Several of the fancy floors are A&K molds that aren't on the market any more. They were fun to paint if slightly too small to fit in with the Hirst ones properly. The rest of the fancy floors are painted by me to be fancy. Mostly.

Dungeon Crawl

I've been lax about posting pictures from the dungeon crawl in action.  Back in February.  But hey!  Here they are now.

I asked players to take pictures during the game since I've found that I tend to be too busy to take enough pictures.  They did so I have pictures!  Here's some of the better ones.

I've been such a slacker

I know there's a bunch of stuff I need to do for this blog.  Most of it centers around terrain.

So far the list is:

• Create instructions and pictures for making my modular dungon


• Write the dungeon crawl convention/single play rules.  (I received permission from the original designer to make a 'fan based' version.)


• Write the dungeon crawl convention/single play PVP rules.  Yep.  Two sets of adventurers.


• Write a whole lotta tutorials on faux stone painting.  I have 10 on my list.  I'm waiting on some smooth floor tiles from Naloomi's Workshop since they're the best thing I've found for the tutorials.


• Other stuff I've probably forgotten.

Bear with me and I'll get these done.  Eventually.

Let me know if there's anything else you've seen me make for terrain and you're interested in knowing how.

I built stuff

Yes, I built stuff.  And I painted stuff last weekend too.

I have a gothic arena that I started back in 2009, I think.  It may have been 2010.  Whatever.  It was a while ago and it has been sitting, rather forlorn, in a box.  I needed to feel productive so I pulled it out to paint.  I also have some additional pieces for my modular dungeon that I built almost a year ago and never painted.

While I was painting I found some of the arena pieces weren't as well constructed as I would have liked and some had been damaged in the moves.  Tonight I dug out the bins of appropriate bricks and built not only the replacements but a couple of new ones.  I'm mixing the basic and advanced arenas so eventually I need to figure out what's left to build.  I think I have all the basic pieces.

Here's proof I built.



It takes a heck of a lot more glue than you would think to build this stuff.  I probably should have thrown that out before taking the picture.

I do a lot of building on my homemade magnet board.  That's a steel baking pan sitting on a piece of countertop.  (I used to be able to buy the sink cutouts - fantastic for solid surfaces).  The pieces of wood have magnets glued into holes - you can see one of them upside down in the upper right.  I can't remember where I found the instructions to do that.  I do remember the time it took to align the radial arm saw to as close to a perfect 90 degree cut as possible.  That took a while but it's worth it.

I also build using my Lego as braces and alignment blocks.  To be honest mine are Brix Blocks, the Sears equivalent to Lego.  I've had them since I was a kid and I'm still playing with them.

I'll let these dry for a few days and then probably put paint on them this weekend when I do the touchups on the pieces I already base coated.  And the touchups on the pieces I touched up when I painted last weekend.  At some point I do move beyond the base coat.  Really.

I may be slightly active again

Don't get your hopes up too much.  It's all very much in the beginning phases of doing stuff again.

So far I have a local game store asking about Saturday paint lessons/sessions/clinics/etc.  I had to break away from the teaching I had been doing for a few reasons but oddly enough I enjoy it when I have eager (and teachable) students.  By 'teachable' I mean 'willing to learn'.  I've just contacted them to let them know that this might be possible so we'll see where it goes.

I also thought some terrain building classes might be fun.  The problem with terrain is that it generally takes at least 2 sessions due to setting and drying time.  My immediate thoughts were small Hirst Arts projects and the pipe cleaner trees I made in the past.  Useful and not too difficult.

On top of all that I'm making my very first attempts to sculpt minis.  There's a reason for this but I won't get into that now.  My first challenge is making the metal wire armatures.  "Twist the wire like this" doesn't sound that hard but for me it is.  Metal hates me and getting both a smooth twist and a twist that's the correct size in the correct place is not as easy as the pictures make it out to be.  I shall be twisting and cursing at more than a few pieces of wire while I get this right.

Until I can make consistent armatures I'm not even thinking of putting putty on anything.  I did take the time to find the sculpting tools I made when I still had access to the workshop.  It looks like between those and my standard sculpting tools I have enough to make a good start.  There's someone on etsy who makes similar tools so I can get different ones if I need them.

Lastly if I have a good relationship with this store and their customers there's a chance I could set up a regular time to run my dungeon crawl.  After I finish revising the rules, revising the encounters, and painting all the necessary minis.  I even have an idea for a PVP version but would need someone to help me run it.

Yes, Rastl may be back!

Rastl is on hiatus

I make terrain and paint minis to play games.  They're toys.

I'm not currently playing any games so I don't have a reason to make terrain or paint minis.

I may eventually pick up the project of the modular dungeon again but for now it's packed away along with all the other projects.  If so I'll post about it here of course.

I've been challenged

Well then.  Boardgame Colosseum from the Hirst Arts forum has presented me with a challenge.

He purchased a mold for me off my wanted list!  All he's asking in return is that I start building stuff again.  Reasonable enough.

However the problem is that I haven't thought of building in quite a while.  I'm not playing any games that require terrain (well, not playing any games at all to be honest) so I haven't thought much about building.

I'll start pondering a new project and if you've got any suggestions post them in the comments below.

Who knows.  Maybe this will break me out of my funk.

Quick updates, no pictures

Sorry - no pictures right now.  Nothing really picture-worthy at this point.

I did base up some of the 15mm so they would be safe and take up less room.  Unfortunately the basing glue and flock shrank oddly so now I have to figure out how to fix it.  I'm still trying to figure that out since I'll need to make sure the rest of the army matches.  And there's no way to remove the minis from the base and start over.

I have over 100 minis prepped for my revised dungeon crawl but none of them are painted.  I canceled my games and my classes for the convention over Labor Day.  With everything going on there was no way for me to be ready enough to give value to the people who signed up.  So I'll bow out this time and try to get things going for the convention in February.

I feel bad about canceling my painting classes because the only other person teaching a number of classes also had to bow out for work.  There's a slim chance he can make it but he's not counting on it.  A few people have offered to pick up his classes.  The coordinator is thinking of not having any painting classes this year because of the two of us canceling.

Why did I back out of everything? Honestly, no time or inclination to prep.  I did build the additional wall sections for the dungeon but haven't painted them.  I prepped almost all the minis I could (missing bits and pieces for 8 of them) and they're ready to be painted.  I just have zero motivation to sit down and paint them.

I haven't worked up the new rules, the new tables, the new treasures or anything else for the dungeon crawl.  I certainly haven't play tested it.

I'm pushing the reason off on work since that really is taking up more of my time but I think there's more to it than that.  I don't plan on going to the con at all, honestly.  I have no reason to go.  When the only thing I do is run games and teach classes then go home it's hard to look forward to it.

Otherwise not too much happening in the hobby world for me. Our local game store was seized by the state for back taxes so we have no home.  A group of people is trying to get the capital and business plan together to open a new store with a new name in the same location.  But that's not certain and there's no dates.  What little interaction I had with the game club is going to be much more difficult as they move around the game stores for different days.

My gaming group hasn't met since April.  I don't miss it all that much. I didn't get the time to try and fit it plus this was a group that has been playing together for about a decade.  Very difficult to mesh.  That and trying to get used to how the GM runs his game made things hard for me to relax and enjoy.

The 40K hasn't interested me at all.  I think the pressure of wanting to get the dungeon crawl minis done killed a lot of motivation to paint at all.  They're off to the side so I don't need to see them.  Except for the ones still in the process of being assembled or waiting for parts.  I cleaned off the paint table pretty well.  That started when my friend came over to paint one evening and I needed to make room.  Then as part of a "tidy up" mood I worked on cleaning off more and generally cleaning up the hobby area.  It's pretty bare now.

I still have 15mm to paint but the problem with basing the ones I did have painted has discouraged me.  I know I'll figure out how to make it better but expecting 6 nicely finished stands of minis and getting what I got didn't help the entire situation.

So yes. Things are going on but there's not a lot of progress to show.  Maybe I'll post some pics when I have something to show.

Dungeon Bash Layout

I took a lot of pictures while running the game but haven't cleaned them up.  As a tease, here's what one of the large layouts ended up as.

The last of the room floors and better shots of the others

OK - the last of the room floors are done.  I still need to varnish them but they're painted and DONE!  That leaves 2 door frames and if my friend doesn't paint them this week I will.  He said he wanted to paint them but we just haven't hooked up so he can.  If he doesn't come over this week then I'll just paint them and the entire dungeon will be complete.

Enough talk.  Pics!



Yes, I could have just painted the tiles plain or followed the grid but where's the fun in that?



The real problem for me with these highly detailed designs is finding a color pattern that accents it without being too busy.  It would be so easy to make this look cluttered.

Here's some better pictures of the ones from the last post.

Insomnia + OCD + Deadline

I had one of my infrequent bouts of insomnia last night and around 2am I decided that I wasn't going to sleep so I might as well do something that would be relaxing and possibly soothe me to sleep.   I chose putting the Celtic knotwork design on my small floor.  Yeah, I know.



I think it turned out OK and should be a nice addition to the dungeon.  Yes, seriously.  I painted this at 2:0oam.  The red and white floor tiles were already painted and only needed a little touch up work to finish the piece.

Some more room floors

I've been terrible about getting pictures of the layout but I have my reasons.  They're not good reasons but they're reasons.  The pieces are all painted.  They're also neatly packed away.  So to take layout pics I need to unpack them, lay them into a pleasing pattern, take pictures, then pack them again.  And I'm trying to get the minis painted for the game so I have to budget my time.

But I did get a couple more of the room floors painted up.  I took these pictures at night and I can never get the white balance correct when I do this.  But you can see the general painting.



It's rough to get a nice repeating pattern when you've got odd-by-even tile counts.  I try.



I did a little freehand painting in the center.  It isn't perfect but I think it gives a nice effect.

Quick update on progress

No pics tonight.  Sorry.  But there will be soon.  Promise!

I've got the last of the small rooms assembled and the edges painted, waiting for the detail painting.  One more small room has the gold lining done on the medieval floor pattern.  I'll probably be painting that one but a friend of mine has some vague interest in it.  He does have interest in painting the last 2 door frames.  Especially since I'm out of ideas.  If he can't get them done I'll figure something out.

I'm also building 1 x 2 corridor pieces.  I actually need those for dead ends (odd by even, remember?) and I can use them with corridor sections to build extra rooms if necessary.  I can put them together to make more corridors.  And they fill in a space in the floor tile layers in the boxes.  All kinds of uses!

I think there's one more set of 1 x 2 pieces after these are done unless I get ambitious and use up all the cast floor tiles.  Why not?  I can always cast more.

I also pulled out the filler pieces I need to complete the gaps between the room and corridor walls.  I may need a few more than I seem to have but there's another mold that makes them so I need to pillage that box for the remaining few.  Those just need to be painted.

I'm painting prepped minis now.  Tonight I finished up 8 skellies and got the base coat on their bases.  Tomorrow I can dry brush them up, touch up the base edge, number them, and then they're ready for varnish.  Skellies are easy.  I couldn't resist some fancy stuff (comparatively) but it didn't take long and I like it.  I think I'll add a little flock as moss to the bases to break up the grey.

I also got started on the drow but just wasn't in the mood to work on them so at least the skin base coats are on.  Once I get involved they should go pretty quickly.  I see a little freehand practice on cloaks but I need it anyway.

I have 2 minis about 2/3 done and need to finish those off.  The whole list of what I need is sitting in a file somewhere so I'll need to get it out and start checking things off.  And get the player characters painted up.  Those get more paint love than the monsters.

Oh yeah.  The spiders.  I just need to figure out the freehand on the second one and they're done.  Attaching them to bases takes a little different work because they need epoxy but it's nothing I haven't done before.

More floors

Yes, I'm getting to the point where all there is left to do for the dungeon is the room floors.  All of the dungeon components have been painted, varnished and carefully put into their storage boxes.  I know I'll be pulling them out to do a display layout but first I need to make sure they fit in the first place.

I added gold to some of the sections on this floor.  Now if you look at it you'll also see a circular pattern that wasn't obvious before.



Then I got the chain floor done.  This room is a bit of an odd shape and I didn't make any more like it.  Technically it fits the requirements of the game.  I just didn't like it.



The white is still a little uneven to me but from gaming distance it should be fine.

Another fancy floor

This one is from the A&K Medieval Floor mold and has been a bit of a challenge to build much less paint.



It's kind of difficult to see that there's silver sections that I used to try to define more of the design.  I may have to paint them gold or some other color to make it stand out.

Dungeon Bash Small Room and Vindication

Turns out I was right about the room scale, I just have to have them oriented a particular way for it to work.  Not a problem and now I know.  The side with the even number of tiles needs to be along the edge with the corridor/door.  Again, I still need to put together a larger layout to see if that's going to cause issues with assembly but I doubt it.



Yes, I still need the small pieces to fit the gaps where the walls meet.  They're on the list to be painted.

A very quick setup

I couldn't resist showing off this painted room since I had to move it up out of harm's way anyway.  I couldn't get the corner and wall segments to work and that's frustrating since I thought I did the math right.  I'm going to work with the layouts more since that might be part of the problem.  Otherwise I figure out how to correct (make 1 inch wall sections?), add more cracked floor tiles to make it work, or just work around it.  I have half the rooms to make yet so no matter what the fix is those will be "right".



I can never resist a PC level shot.  Enter if you dare ...



Yes I see the gap between the wall and the door frame.  Again, quick layout.  And if people are looking at that kind of detail then I'm not running the game correctly.

Dungeon Bash Storage and Transport

I need some way to store this monstrosity as well as easily transport it to and from the convention.  Considering it's a lot of cement in little pieces I'll be carrying around boxes of rocks.

I was looking at various sizes and shapes of plastic storage bins but they're never actually square and they tend to have style aspects that make it difficult to use all the space.  Plus I was worried about how sturdy they would be, considering the aforementioned boxes of rocks.

Instead I found some 12 x 12 x 6 cardboard boxes that are designed to transport up to about 70lb of material.  I'll just leave it at that as to what kind of boxes these are.

I bought some of the large size bubble wrap, which turns out to be perforated in handy 12 inch lengths and is 12 inches wide.  Things started coming together.

The final piece that came together was finding a foam core display board that was being tossed away at work.  Free foam core is not to be taken lightly.  It's to be taken quickly. :D

Tonight I wanted to see just how this would work out.  I put bubble wrap along the sides of the box, then made "flats" out of foam core with bubble wrap on one side.  Then it was a parfait of foam core level, walls, foam core, corners, foam core, corridors (Note 1), bubble wrap.  So I was able to get 2 layers of walls/corners and a double layer of floors in a box.  It's not too heavy at all and I used lengths of foam core between then rows of pieces to fill them out and minimize damage.  I didn't go so far as to put them between each piece.

I'm guessing the walls and corners will take just over 2 boxes and then the other pieces will probably spread it out to 4 boxes.  I'm hoping to have room in that last box for the minis but given how many they are they might get their own box.

I need to get some sticky back velcro so I can seal the tops of the boxes and I'll get one of those portable luggage carts and a ratchet strap to put the whole thing together.  I just don't trust bungies for this because they don't have enough surface area.  A ratchet strap will hold things more securely.

Tomorrow I should be able to pack up one more full box and clear off the mantle of finished pieces.  I think the room floors will all go into the last box since it will have extra room.

Note 1 - The 2mm foam I use as a base also lets me stack the floors and not worry about them scratching.  Bonus!

Some fancy painting

I've been working on the door frames and the floors since they're the only pieces that require more than the standard 3 color scheme.  All right, yes.  I could have done all basic floors for the rooms and left the door frames painted in the same scheme as the rest of the dungeon.  But where's the fun in that?



I'm going with very bright colors since they're meant to be seen from gaming distance.  No faux anything on these.  There's some floors that match but the rooms are all getting painted as I see fit.  Actually I need to finish building all the floors.

You can see the 2mm foam I use to base them on this picture.  Typically you wouldn't be seeing them from this angle and even now you can see that the foam doesn't go all the way to the edges.  The foam is multi-purpose.  It gives stability to the piece which is important on things like the door frames and the floors where they can be subject to stress when they're used.  It also keeps the pieces from scratching the table.  Lastly it gives a little bit of traction so they don't slide around.  It's not thick enough to call attention to the fact the pieces are raised above the table either.

I found I can paint 40 corridor sections at a time instead of the 30 I was planning for in the paint schedule.  More is good.  I'm using a finer brush so I don't get lines in the paint job.  You'll see them soon enough because once I get these done I can make a small layout for a photo session.  I'm alternating floors (easy) with the walls and corners (more work) and they should all be finished in at most 4 paint sessions.  In the middle of all this I want to finish building the rooms because they're bordered with the cracked floor tiles and I hate wasting painting time.

Quick update - corridors

As I said before almost every corridor section is a 4 x 4 square.  The only exception is the need for a 1 x 2 for the dead ends so the corners work.  Easy enough.  I've been slacking on other things and just pushed myself to start making these.  Of course I justified the break by saying I wanted to wait for my friend to ship me floor tiles he'd cast.  It sounded good.  And it was actually true.

Due to differences in how everyone casts the same bricks from the same molds may come out to be ever so slightly different.  In this case his tiles are slightly smaller than mine and I found that out when I used them under floors and corners.  My floor tiles required almost no sanding for the walls to fit, his required sanding.  So I'm mixing in a very careful way.



This is 47 corridor sections.  I don't even remember how many I need but I'll use up all the casts he sent in making corridors.  You'll notice the ones on the right have alternating white and grey tiles.  If I took a close up of one of them you'd see that the centers don't align at perfect right angles.  Yes, I used geometry to get a square out of them.  I really don't see a size difference in the completed sections when I compare them to ones made out of all my tiles.  I also haven't pulled out the micrometer since I'm not quite that detailed in this build.

Drying on the boards are 9 full sections and enough 2 tile sections to make 12 more.  I guess that means I can make 21 at a time with the space I have.  I'll go through the floor tiles he sent in not a lot of time.

I'm hoping to spend time this weekend building and painting.  I'm holding off on casting until I'm more certain of what still needs to be done.  And I plan on getting the cheap varnish I need so I can finish the ones I've already painted.  Time to buy tacky glue so I can attach the foam bases too.  I wonder if the weather is going to cooperate for varnishing.