11/03/2023

Cave dwellings

 Misleading title. I wouldn't blame anyone if you thought I'm into a new Neanderthal project or something like that. But the truth is I'm back to my mining town vertical board! Let's briefly recap. Last time I left you with this pic:

Here's the post. Wow, that was back in September. Shame on me.

Next step before I can go any further is finishing those two caves on the rock wall.

First of all, I thought the whole wall needed some more texture. It looked too flat, too straight, doesn't give the impression of being a desert rock formation, it looks more like a weird building. I mean, not that I'm really aiming at something like this:

Looks awesome, but it's sooo out of my reach

But anyway I could put some effort into making it all look more like rock:

The interior of the cave needed it too, of course

So I provisionally came to something like this:

Looks better. I won't say "looks good", but just simply better than before

Once you add some doors and stuff of course it looks a little better:

Now the title of the post begins to make sense

The upper cave looks horryfing empty. You know my perpetual dilemma, I'm aware I'm building a doll house, but I still need to... well, at least pretend it's playable! So I'll add some stuff but leaving enough room for minis and so. My starting point:

Disconcerting, I know. This post is made of pure entropy

It's a cologne top (the ubiquitous one I use for control panels all over) and a piece of a broken water gun from the Suberlings. Of course they needed some work...

Not that it's specially complex

...and some paint:

Now they look like part of the board

This is the centerpiece, but I also added some tubes, wires and weird stuff to the caves, so I finally got to this point:

General view of the whole board so far

Upper cave

Lower one

You can see there's nothing new, I'm just repeating the same techiques and doing the same things I've previously used on the other pieces of the board, to give a coherent look. Here you have them both:

Still need to add ladders and stuff

But I need to make some more progress on other areas before I do that, you see

I tried to give it all the same look than the other larger cave, and I reinforced that feeling by adding the large horizontal pipe on the upper part at the same height, giving the impression it's still the same thing.

Have a look at the caves with some minis:

Still playable!

A hand barely fits in there, but it's enough for gaming purposes

So this is it for today! I know it doesn't look like a huge progress, but I'm afraid it involved quite a lot of hours, so it's tricky!

The good thing is that now I have the back part "finished" (as much as I can at this stage), I can now bring the board from there to the front part, so this was a key stage of the project, which unlocks other new parts.

So I'd better go for them!

27 comments:

  1. Fantastic work Suber! Always a difficult balance between playability and modelling.

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    1. Thank you! Oh, that's my everlasting conundrum :P
      I always try to make scenery to have a purpose, to look as part of the story, not just a mere LoS blocker. The risk of that is that it's really easy to lose yourself and end up with an impractical monstrosity!

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  2. Promising progress: What did you build the rock effect on the cave walls with? We love how you mixed trash elements into the decor with touches of class, like the two Persian carpets. So now your sci-fi miniatures will know where to wipe off their muddy boots at the end of a hard day's adventures...

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    1. Thanks! The whole texture is DAS putty, a kind of air-drying clay. If you play with water and drying time, you can get rocky textures. It lacks professional level, sure, but it works for me!
      Haha, the carpets are essential! I've been looking for Arabic-looking lamps at this scale, but I've been unsuccessful so far!

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    2. So easy to add Persian carpets to terrain! There are so many images of flat Persian carpet patterns on the internet and you can print them off as you please. And yeah, they really add visual interest.

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    3. Right, I printed quite a few! In fact I made a rug merchant with some of them :P
      https://oldschoolworkshop.blogspot.com/2017/06/raggedy-rugs.html

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  3. You are master! I back in my mind to Tatooine and Mos Eisley :)

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    1. [Cantina band theme] Thank you! That's quite right, it's an obvious reference, and I try to get that kind of vibe! :)

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    2. It's definitely a convincing combination of Anasazi and Turkish cliff dwellings, with the Tatooine desert tech aesthetic. A great addition to this board.

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    3. Haha, thanks! It's fun to see how such different ambientations as those can combine and turn into something different, I'm really enjoying all this :)

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  4. Wonderful creative work Suber, can fully appreciate how much time details and scenery, so I would say you achieved a hell of a lot, with a very high finish to it all.

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    1. Thank you very much! I really enjoy this kind of worldbuilding. The ambientation itself is part of the narrative and helps to make my (very scarce) games at least an experience!

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  5. That's really nice. The style is consistent and works very well. I like the weathering on the machinery: it really looks like A New Hope. Good work!

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    1. Thank you! It all has to look battered and overused, the kind of backwater world with permanent issues with maintenance and order. The kind of place where adventures happen!

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  6. Small touches like this add life and realism. Excited to see what you have planned next for this little settlement mate

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    1. Thanks! I have a general idea of the next steps I want to take, but this monster is quite a logistic nightmare every time I want to work on it!

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    1. Thank you! It's beginning to look populated!

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  8. Excellent detailing, it's very difficult to tread the line between playability and model making but you seem to have found a sure path!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thank you very much! I always struggle with that duality! I guess I tend to take things to the limit when building these doll houses, but I really hope it will prove playable in the end!

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  9. y cuándo dices que quedamos probar la mesa? ya llevo yo las naves :D te está quedando genial el pueblo rocoso.

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    1. ¡Jaja, gracias! ¿Naves? Pues te vas a reír, pero la verdad es que tengo en mente añadir una o dos plataformas de aterrizaje de naves (¡lo que pasa es que no sé dónde!)

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  10. No sólo es jugable, es abigarrado, excesivo, sucio, hasta escucho el bullicio de los habitantes. Me encanta el trabajo que estás haciendo, no es un tablero pelado y mondado donde poner miniaturas, tú lo estás dotando de vida y llenando de personalidad. Me encanta

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    1. Cuando lo termines, por favor, pon el enlace en AirBnB, le pondré 5 estrellas

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    2. ¡Jaja, muchas gracias! Sí, supongo que "abigarrado" es una buena palabra para definirlo XD
      ¡Tengo que acabarlo para estrenarlo!

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  11. Oh wow Suber ... your terrain work is on a whole different level. Superb work Suber!

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    1. Thank you! I need an impulse to get back to it again!

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