For Your Own Peace of Mind - Organize!

 

As my previous post said I'm packing to move. The deadline is fast approaching and of course I'm scrambling now since before this I had 'plenty of time'. I no longer have 'plenty of time'.

I'm going to use this post as a heartfelt plea for you to go through your hobby/office spaces. Please declutter and throw out/donate/sell what you're not going to use. Look, actually look, at what you have and be brutally practical. Take what's left and put it into storage containers, then put those on shelves. It's a lot of work and it may not seem necessary if you're in your forever home or don't plan on moving.

But sometimes you don't get the luxury of planning on moving. Sometimes your forever home turns out not to be your forever home. And in general we collect and pile up a lot of crap.

I was somewhat lucky in that I started organizing things into plastic storage bins a while ago but never really finished. I'm paying for that now in some respects and in others not so much. I can use a lot of the 'unorganized' things and use them to fill space where the containers don't fit the boxes. That helps greatly in the short term, it isn't so great in the long term.

I'm not saying you can't keep things 'just in case'. I've got a lot of things like that for scratch building and they pack up just fine. When they're unpacked they're going into, you guessed it, plastic storage bins. I've also found a lot of things that I kept because it was more convenient than throwing them out. That's no longer the case. I don't need them and see no use for them in the near to moderate future. So they go.

When you're in one place for a long time this happens. It's easier to leave things out because you're using them than it is to go through and put them away. Piles occur. There's no judgement here. There can't be based on my own situation. But I'm saying that organization will save you a lot in the long run.

I'm a big fan of plastic bins over cardboard when possible. Get ones with tops. I use a lot of the dollar store ($1.25 store?) plastic shoeboxes and their smaller containers with handy flap lids. Those two sizes are mostly what I use since I can't make them too heavy for metal miniatures and the supplies fit mostly very well into the smaller ones. I'm also a huge fan of the 16 x 16 scrapbook paper holders from the craft store since they hold mini paint bottles well. I have a cart that holds six of those. I'm going to need another cart. But when I put the paint away it's put away.

In general it's a lot easier to find stuff if you've put like with like. All the sandpaper? In a plastic paper holder with a sliding lock. All the Dremel accessories? In a container. All the bases? In a container. It's work up front but if you look at it, really look at it, it's a one time pain. Then it saves you time when you're looking for where you put whatever later.

I also have storage cubes with doors. I lucked out getting those because they were discontinued. They fit perfectly into my current space and should fit well into my new space with some planning. Right now they're handy to where I paint so I can keep things I use a lot in there. In plastic storage bins or loose-ish in other kinds of containers. I use a pill bottle and a pilsner glass for the second rate and terrain paint brushes. They're contained.

I'd have a lot more trouble if I hadn't done this up front. Even with doing a partial organization it's saved me a lot of time and things are already together. When a box has 'bases' written on it I know all the bases are in there when it comes time to unpack. When a box has 'air' written on it I know it's everything I need for the air compressor. There will be other things in those boxes but I know what the important things are.

Another thing I found from all this is just how much I have of particular kinds of items. Between you and me I have too many of some. I know I can clear one of those when I get settled. The other will take more work and planning. But until it was all gathered up I didn't know the extent of what I had. Having it scattered put it out of mind. Having it put in one place lost me that luxury.

So just how well organized will the new space be? I'd like to think it's going to be decently organized. What's not in plastic containers will get there. The things that can be reduced will be. I will have more storage space so more things will be visible for me to use. I'll even label the containers if I get all kinds of ambitious. Those are all future considerations. Right now it's a matter of a rough organization of at least getting things into the boxes that will go into the same room.

I'm lucky in that I'll have more rooms for things now. With my hobbies I outgrew my two bedroom apartment resulting in a dense accumulation that was difficult to use. I worked hard to use every possible bit of storage space and I think I did well. The problem with that was getting to most things. I also had things on the shelves that I wasn't going to use but had the space to put them. That happens. That's going to happen again. By having more rooms and separating two big space hogging hobbies I'll have actual room to work. That's a luxury I haven't had for well over a decade.

I'll end this as I started, begging you to take the time to organize what you have. Plastic works better than cardboard in my opinion because if something bad happens that involves water your stuff has a much better chance of coming through undamaged or at least minimally damaged. Wipe it off and put it back. Cardboard, not so much. There's enough variety of sizes and shapes of plastic containers that you can find what you need or at least what will work well enough. You don't have to do it all at once. But please, please, please do it.

Nothing Interesting, Sadly - But with Pictures!

On the 3D printing front I'm currently churning through prints for other people. It's nice to have things to do and I enjoy printing for them. But it takes the printers out of commission for my own stuff. Of course that's when I find things I really want to print for myself but forget again when the printers are open.

Life.

I just finished a bunch of Gaslands terrain for someone. And car parts. That's when I found out that Inland's 'consistent color' isn't really that great. The grey went from light grey to medium/dark. Luckily it didn't matter in the print I was doing but I'm going to have to take both filament cats to the store and find out what is the grey going forward. Or stock up on both colors. I'm not sure yet.

These are both just called 'Grey' on the label. I think they're different colors. And yes. That's a grey hair of mine on the darker one. It got stuck under the label I put on each cat. It has been removed from the cat with extreme prejudice. It was nicely appropriate to the topic so I'll give myself points for it.

Another thing I'm printing is a lot of Star Wars: Legions terrain. I got done with Tatoine and now I'm on to Imperial. I hope to get some pictures once he's painted them because they look better that way. But it's been some long prints and I'm just starting up the Imperial. Luckily I have a spool of grey from a company that's gone out of business so I can use it up on this stuff. I should use up most of the spool if not all of it. The dark grey above matches close enough that it shouldn't matter if I have to swap it in.

I lied. Here's some of the Tatoine stuff. The light brown seemed appropriate to the setting and I printed them in thicker layers so they'll have a nice texture when he paints them.

I have a lot of printing left to go for another friend who bought into a Printable Scenery Kickstarter for elven terrain with the intention of me printing them. Literally this has been hours of printing. Hundreds of hours and spools of filament. He doesn't care what color they are so I've been using up more of those discontinued colors and am quite happy about it.

I don't think I ever shared any of those prints so here's a couple of them. If I have shared them you get to see them again.

Just to give you an idea that large one (it's a library) took 156 hours to print the four pieces. And those minis are on one inch bases. So there's a lot of time invested in his printing and he keeps sending more files my way. I hope some day to be caught up so I can mail it off to him.

Other than those there's been a couple of small print jobs for friends and those are nice to have done. I've also printed up some Tardis boxes that I'll sell as dice containers (yes, I checked the license and I can sell them) which used up all but some of the discontinued WhoBlue color. I need the rest of it for a game organizer container. Whatever is left is going to be Tardis LED earrings. It was meant for Tardis stuff, might as well use it that way.

I think that covers the 3D printing.

I haven't made much (any) progress in clearing off my workspace. I know I need to do it and I keep meaning to do it. But life happens then suddenly it's close to when I need to start winding down to go to sleep which means no working on organizing. It's maddening and worse because I'm doing it to myself.

Add onto that going to two conventions in the next month and my time is limited. I'll go to one, have a couple of weeks, then go to the other. The second one has planned very poorly for scheduling their convention. They used to have it in May, then October. Both weren't bad. Then they switched to Labor Day weekend. Which is bad. The timing is actually bad because of the huge convention just a couple of weeks ahead of it, being the same weekend as a huge convention, and over a holiday weekend. But I don't work there so I just show up and do my thing.

Last thing! I have a hoard of GM accessories. A literal hoard. I love those things and I'm a sucker for them. The item generators folder on my hard drive is packed full of files and I have other things as well. Just recently I got some dice (yay dice!) for when you need to add some detail to rooms on the fly. Of course I like to add more detail so I got three of each set.

I need to find a better way to store them. The little boxes are great until you pick one up wrong and have dice all over the floor. I'll probably end up designing and printing something to hold them. Or just toss them all in a random dice bag. It's not like I don't have plenty of those sitting around.

Each color is a different theme. I'd have to look up what they are and I will be making a reference card for myself since I know there's no way I'm going to remember it. But aren't they fun??

OK - Something I Printed

I've been rather less than generous with pictures of the 3D printed stuff, which is a rip since the idea is to see what I've been doing. Right?

Here's something I printed for a friend. He bought into their Kickstarter and then started sending me files and lists of what he wanted. I picked this one as the first print because it was going to take the longest.

I painted the miniature that's on there for a sense of scale. He's on a one inch square base.

This was four separate prints - first floor, second floor, roof, and doors. The total print time was 156 hours and it took over a kilo (one spool) of filament hence the purple snow on the roof.

Yes. You read that right. 156 hours to print this. That's what 3D printing is about. It's about waiting. The layers on this were 0.2mm each so it took five passes to make 1mm of print. I'll let you try to do the math on how many layers there were.

Here's the link to the file so you can see their painted pictures and the detail inside. It's pretty intense on the first floor.

https://www.printablescenery.com/product/library-of-ithillia/

I used up that orange-ish filament I'd had sitting around for a while and now I'm working on the purple. Due to getting a monthly subscription box I end up with spools of filament in colors I wouldn't have chosen for myself. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it isn't. He's getting prints out of the colors I don't like.

It's all right! He's going to paint it and I confirmed that he was fine with odd color prints. The printer makes it easy to change filament so that's a plus. I haven't enabled the sensor to pause the printer when it runs out of filament because I've heard about too many failures both ways - false positives and not working as it's supposed to work. I time the prints so I can be around when the filament will run out and I can swap in the next roll.

I posted this picture on Facebook - in some 3D printing for tabletop/gaming groups, in the printer group, and on my own page. I wanted to show it off. The sheer size of it is impressive. I take no credit for the design but it's a darn good print.

If that's all you want to know then you can stop here. I'm going to proceed with everything that's wrong with it and why. No. I don't and won't have pictures of that.

1 - Stringing. Inside the smaller curves the plastic didn't adhere well enough and it pulled out into strings. It happened because of the way the print cooling fan directs air. I haven't found a replacement fan shroud that minimizes this and I may take a crack at designing one myself. But there's very little if anything I can do in the print settings to help this one.

2 - Drooping. This is the opposite of what happens when the print gets cool too fast. When it doesn't cool fast enough the plastic can sag away from the previous layer. So you get little loops of filament. This happened on the sides where the print fan can't get an adequate amount of air in time. Again it comes down to something I can't change.

These problems happened due to the way the print fan shroud directs air and the size of the print. I couldn't move it around so that it was minimized or eliminated. I feel bad with the amount of cleanup he's doing to have to do but a lot of it isn't immediately visible or is in parts (like the inside of the roof) where it doesn't matter as much.

It's not perfect but it's darn pretty.

Latest DungeonBash/Dungeon Crawl

I've taken to using the words 'Dungeon Crawl' when listing my game in convention schedules to make it very clear that it's a dungeon crawl.  The name DungeonBash is great but it doesn't say much about what the game is.  I'm trying all kinds of things to get people interested in playing the game.

I ran the game yesterday at Conclave of Gamers.  This is a new con that expanded from a board game focus into more types of games.  I thought I would pull a double here - help the con by having another game and see what the response was with a different crowd.

I ran it twice and neither time had what I would call a full table.  The first game had 3 out of 4 players (someone played 2 of the characters) and the other game was full during registration but only 1 (maybe 2) of them showed up.  The last seat was filled by someone who seemed to be guilted into playing and I'm not sure how much he enjoyed it.

This is the exact reason why I was testing the waters again.  I have yet to run the game at a convention and fill the table with enthusiastic players.  Even the last game at GengisCon had 3 players and 1 who seemed more interested in me than the game.  The 3 players were a family so 2 were kids.  Not what I wanted but I ran the game for them.

I've come to the decision that not enough people want to play.  The game is optimized for 4 people so not getting that many puts a burden on the other players.  Getting less than 3 is no fun at all.  I haven't canceled those games since 2 people showed up to play but its been tempting.

I changed up the rules for this convention and I'm considering more changes for the future.  Not that I have any plans at all to run it but it's nice to take the experience and use it to improve the game.

• Pre-built dungeon - I did this already.  Building the dungeon on the fly takes too long during a convention.  If I'm ever asked to run it for a group and we have time I can go the 'build as we go' route.


• Fewer rooms - When they're searching for 3 items having 9 or 10 rooms is too many.  Combat is random and takes too long for them to get into all the rooms.  Next time there will be 6, at most 7, rooms.  Items x 2.


• Different monster charts - I didn't like how the current monsters fit into the new format.  I'll change up the encounters to be more suited to the play style.  That means not using some of the minis and duplicate encounters on the chart.  I'm good with that.  I think I can mix it up enough to make it work.


• Faster multiple encounter progression - The progression feels slow and doesn't add to the tension of the game.  This is an easy one since I can pick from the existing cards to do the progression.  I already did some of that in the last game.

In a way it means making the game smaller.  Having a big dungeon layout is great and attracts attention.  It doesn't attract players.  So a big part of the modular dungeon pieces I made won't get used.  Sad but more effective.

I didn't sign up to run the game at the next upcoming convention.  I knew I could get in if I had success at this one.  I didn't have success.  I won't be signing up for the next convention.

It's a waste to pack it up (after fixing bits that need fixing) after all the work that went into it.  I'm very sad that the minis painted by my friends will get packed up with the game.  At this point I don't see a way to not pack it up.  It won't go out of style so putting it away for a couple of years isn't going to move it off the charts.

What's most disappointing to me is that I get a lot of "That's so cool!  I want to play!" and then when they get the chance they don't.  Or people sign up and don't show up.  I like running the game and I'm proud of what I built and that my friends helped out making it awesome.  Then I sit at a table with empty chairs all around and it's hard not to take it personally after a few conventions.

Anyway.  Here's a picture of the layout I built on the fly at the last convention.  I decided to use the space available to me to make a nice big dungeon.

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.

Update without much content

The subject warned you.

I finally bought an air compressor to go with the air brush I bought off Craigslist a while ago.  The airbrush is new and a pretty basic double action.  The compressor is a decent one.  I got very good deals on both of them which is only to be expected.  I want to try doing the base coat of my Hirst pieces with the airbrush to see if I can get one-coat coverage and not have to go back and do touchups like I have every time I've used a brush.  I also want to try doing the base coats of large minis.

I've been fairly active getting my business RastlWorld Minis going.  My two most difficult tasks are doing the research for new minis and finding enough sculptors to get them done.

Otherwise I haven't been doing anything hobby-wise.

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.

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.