Hobby Dungeon

I've made versions of this same map several times. The same coastline with islands dotted alongside, leaving the Southeastern world as an unimportant mystery. The focus here is on the woods, the sea, and the mountains. There are people here, but they are sparse and distant. I've never been much for drawing, and of course the scale is terrible. I've got a little legend there showing that a centimeter is about 25km (American translation: 5/16" is about 18ish miles - that's a ballpark). Anyways, this area is massive, especially for people traveling through forests and snow on foot. I've started putting together some ideas for who the people that live in these places are, but nothing too concrete yet. I generally don't like worldbuilding-in-advance like this. Normally, I prefer to pick one setting, create my characters, and see what they do. But with my minis all boxed up at the moment, I'm working backwards. I think the next thing I do will b...

What’s this all about? I recently started watching Game of Thrones again from the beginning. ASOIAF is probably my favourite fantasy series of all time – and that is despite all of my love for the Old World. ASOIAF, both in the books and the tv series (and also the graphics novels, and supplementary worldbuilding materials – yeah I’ve read it all) has the perfect blend of historical fiction, low fantasy, low magic, grand narrative, political intrigue, and human story. Above and beyond these things, the world is hedged in by a deep history of the occult and supernatural. And I don’t just mean the dragons and the white walkers – there are the Lovecraftian old ones, the glass candles, and the many mysteries that the series alludes to just out of the direct framing of the story. I’ve tried several times to write my own wargame (I spent several months and hundreds of dollars writing rules and commissioning artwork for a game that I never ended up releasing) or roleplaying campaigns that...

  Blogs are once again in vogue, and that works for me. I started this blog before I created a hobby Instagram account, and I'm happy to return here. I've had a love-hate relationship with Instagram, and often, I don't actually care if anyone is reading what I write or seeing what I work on. Most of the time, it's just the act of creation that means something to me. At this current moment in time I'm in between houses and don't have all of my hobby stuff, so a place to write and post ideas is a great cathartic exercise. I'm also coming to the end of the 2nd annual One Page Game Jam, which has been getting a great response just like last year - but once that's done, I think it will be time to delete IG off my phone again. Having a place where I can potentially reach some of my friends (even in this belaboured form) helps me feel like I'm still connected to the zeitgeist. So, this is just a little post to kick things off. I've got a few ideas for p...

 Last week I put together a few fences that I wanted to use as line of sight blockers in my Silver Bayonet game, but fences are pretty universal. They may not be particularly 'sci-fi', but I don't see why the future wouldn't have any wood fences! It was a very easy build, and I have taken pictures of each step to illustrate it here.   For this build I used a bit of mdf board as the basing, but some stiff cardboard will work as well. I also used to coffee stir sticks, and a square wooden rod. You could use a round dowel just as easily. I roughly beveled the edges of the mdf pieces I cut the square wooden rod into 1 inch lengths. How many you need will depend on how long you want the fence to be. Mine are about 2 rods to one coffee stir stick. I also rough up the edges and cut little lines on the to give them a weathered look. I glue the rods standing up on the mdf board, using the coffee stir stick to see the right width. You may notice that I have also clipped the round...

I'm so used to working on miniatures in groups of 5, 10, 20, that even when I do kitbashing, it's usually for a whole squad. For this project, I kept it minimal. I did one miniature, a bit of basing, and came up with some very loose narrative themes. Two things came together for this project. The first was going to see Dune in theatres and being blown away by the visual style and design of the film, and the other was wanting to create a non-combat miniature. All of my previous hobby experience was confined to war and wargames, and that is such a narrow slice of existence. I wanted to expand my hobby horizon and explore narrative instead of combat. This character is some sort of miner/prospector/treasure-hunter from a gritty desert planet. He mixes advanced technology like his respirator and reactor-lantern with a low tech shovel and patched overcoat. He is searching the rubble of some facility or other, where loose wiring, tarps, and metallic grating are being overtaken by the ...

  I am a huge Conan the Barbarian fan. Books, movies, comics, all of it. Conan reaches back to an era of sword and sorcery which we don't see much in fantasy anymore, to mysticism and mystery and a little bit of horror. Low, dark, minimal fantasy. I've spent the last few weeks making terrain and painting Napoleonic soldiers for The Silver Bayonet, and I wanted a bit of a break. I picked up this "Conan" model from Reaper miniatures. I think it was just labelled as a generic barbarian, but we all know who this really is... I started off by priming him with some tan/brown craft paint that I have laying around. A few coats of this, just to make sure of coverage. I also have a bottle of Gulliman Flesh contrast paint that was given to me by a friend, and which I had never used before. I thought it would make a nice dark flesh tone on top of this brownish primer. I was a bit aggressive and the shadows were a bit deep, but I just rolled with it. I blocked in all my base colou...

What follows here is a quick guide to the way that I paint. It is not definitive, does not cover many techniques, and is not overly flashy. When I refer to this style, I often call it 'table-ready', because it allows me to quickly paint a large group of models that look good on the tabletop. On closer inspection, you may see that lines aren't straight, highlights aren't smooth gradients, and spots may be missed. I think this is all totally fine when it comes to miniatures. Unless I am painting pieces for competition or display, table-ready is my default paint mode. One quick note before starting. I use a wet palette, which can be made by placing a square of paper towel in a flat tupperware container, adding water, and placing a sheet of baking parchment on top. Water is pulled up through the parchment and keeps paints moist. It also allows for dilution and smooth blending of colours. Nearly all paints that come out of a paint pot should be diluted to some degree. It ma...