D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 10): Painting the Cave

 After I had finished attaching, shaping and gluing everything to my Cave Frame, I sealed it with a couple of coats of the Black Magic Crafts sealer 

(black paint and matte mod podge) and let it dry. 

I was especially careful to get the entirety of the removable corner piece 

since it would need to be painted on all sides.

(Not sure what I’m talking about? 

Check out my D&D Tile series from the beginning. I’ll wait.)

 

Once it was dry, I had to decide how I wanted to paint it. I wanted the cave to feel like it could be a real place, so I went with a color scheme similar to 

my inspiration caves but with less red and orange tones.

I started by overbrushing a dark brown (burnt umber, I think) over the entire frame as well as the tile insert. I picked out the rocks in a medium grey and the skull, bones and sticks in a creamy antique white. 

Then I did a light dry brushing of a light grey across the floor.

 

I used the same medium grey for the walls, pools and stalagmites, and brushed on layers of lighter browns, golden tans and creams to get a more variegated look. I also wet blended a few colors onto 

the stalagmites, so they have subtle striations.

 

After a drybrush of light grey (heavier on the edges of the cave walls), followed by a lighter dry brushing of cream, I coated the 

terraced edges of the pools in cream and called it good.

 

I added a grey brown wash over everything, did a quick brown wash on the skull and bones and walked away so I wouldn’t keep adding to it.

 

After a couple of coats of spray polyurethane (which really 

brings out the browns) this is what it looks like:

  

And Mr. Skull Head’s close-up:

For the water in the pools, I used more of the clear 5-minute epoxy (I think it was a large tube and a small tube, but it may have been 2 large tubes). 

I wanted it to look like clear still water, so I didn’t add any color to the resin, but I did go over it with a lighter to pop as many bubbles as I could before it set.
 
Here’s what the Cave Set looks like in natural light once the resin cured:
 

So, my final thoughts on the Cave Set . . . I am really proud of how it came out and I’m glad I decided to play around with such a detailed idea. 

I think it reads as ‘fantasy cave’ rather than foam and hot glue on cardboard.
 
I wish the colors hadn’t blended as much on the stalagmites once 

the poly went on, but overall, I’m happy with it.
 
Elroy kept giggling about how to integrate the corner into game play and reveling in how much destruction a creature who took down 

Mr. Skull Head could wreak on an unsuspecting party.
 
Elroy and I haven’t really talked about what else to do for additional Cave Tiles outside of adding more stalagmite pools or rocks that characters would have to navigate around. Maybe a lava flow or a geyser or something similar.  
 
This set is pretty adaptable without needing any toppers, so if Elroy comes up with any, he absolutely has to have they’ll be farther down the list than the ones for the other sets. I kind of want to play around with some swamp tiles 

but that will have to wait until things settle back down again.
 
Any ideas or suggestions for more tiles or for some toppers?

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 9): Carving the Cave Walls

 I had drawn a rough outline of where I wanted the cave walls before I added the hot glue but since my foam trays were too small to do the frame sides 

in solid pieces, I decided I needed to make a pattern.

 

(Not sure what I’m talking about? 

Check out my D&D Tile series from the beginning). I’ll wait.)

 

This was easier said than done. I found a piece of lined school paper and started by overlaying the edge along the cave mouth & left wall. I traced the outlines on the frame (it helped that I had drawn them in black marker). Because the walls are farther into the frame, 

I was able to keep the outline within the length of my paper.

 

Then I rotated the paper, matched up the top corner and traced the top side. I repeated the process on a second sheet of paper for the remaining side as well as the larger stalagmite bases I planned to make out of foam. 

Then I cut the pattern pieces out, matched them up and taped them together to match the frame. I made sure to test my pattern against the frame to make sure everything fit where it was supposed to. I also made sure to include 

the cut line for the hidden chamber in the top right corner.

 

Once that was finished, I traced the pattern onto my foam, marking any seam lines on my pattern. I cut out the base layer and glued it into place using my mod podge and paint bottles to hold down any stubborn pieces.

While it was drying, I took my pattern and cut the second layer of cave wall. I made sure to vary the seam placement on the top layer. I ended up cutting out most of the seam lines later but having solid foam pieces cover 

the base seams was worth the extra effort.   

 

I also cut my corner cover for the hidden chamber and glued it, making sure I staggered the connecting edge so that the inset holds it in place slightly better. Then I beveled all the foam edges and textured all the foam with a foil ball.

 

I mixed up another batch of the dried tea and mod podge that I used on the Cave Floor Tile and covered the rest of the floor. I added some of the small rock scatter as well as some dried oregano and rosemary from 

my spice drawer to simulate blown in leaves and sticks.

 

I really liked how it all was looking, but the back cave wall was too bare. 

So, I grabbed a small skull bead out of my stash, 

a couple of toothpicks and my hot glue gun and got to work. 

First, I filled the hole in the skull bead with a small dot of hot glue and smoothed it out with the side of the tip. I could also have tried cutting away the edges of the hole so that it looked like the skull had been punctured 

(maybe by a pickaxe or war hammer). Perhaps on another tile.

I cut the toothpicks down to about an inch long, maybe an inch and a half and put small blobs of hot glue on each end. I used the tip of the hot glue gun to shape the blobs into bone type shapes, with a hip socket on one end and a kneecap on the other. Once they were dry, I carefully broke one of 

the bones most of the way (but didn’t separate the pieces).

Then, I arranged the skull and bones in a small pile against the cave wall and added more leaves and sticks (oregano and rosemary) for flavor.

Isn’t he fun? I was pretty impressed by how well the bones came out. 

Not too bad for hot glue and toothpicks.

 

Here’s the frame with the hidden corner:

And here it is with the corner removed:

Now comes the hard part . . . painting everything.

 
 
Next up: Painting the Cave

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 8): Creating the Cave Frame

 Now that I had switched gears, it was time to do some research. 

I had an idea in mind for how I wanted the cave to look (because I’d gotten to take a cave tour on a road trip when I was younger) but I wanted the cave to feel like something out of fantasy rather than a strict reproduction of an actual cave. Elroy wanted a limestone cave with playable floor space

 and (if I could figure out how to make it work) a hidden chamber 

that players would have to do a perception check to find.
 
(Not sure what I’m talking about? 

Check out my D&D Tile series from the beginning. I’ll wait.)
 
Now it was time to find some inspiration images. And boy did I ever.

The Buchan Caves Reserve in Australia is amazing. 

Like high fantasy brought to life. I was especially inspired by the Royal Cave with its clear terraced pools and multiple layers of stalagmites. 

But how to simulate it, especially since I was trying to keep 

each piece as flat as possible for easier storage?

 

I started by drawing out where the cave walls would be. I decided to keep all of the pools to one side of the cave and to place the hidden chamber in one of the corners on the opposite side of the frame. From there I drew out basic shapes for the main stalagmites and used the same process from the

Oasis tile to remove the top few layers of the cake board for the pools. I also used this technique for the hidden chamber to give it room to 

include the floor texture under the lift-away foam lid.  

I had no plans to use any sand on this frame, so I needed to find a way to edge the pools that would look lumpy like the terraces in the Royal Cave. 

I considered cutting narrow foam edges but 

ultimately decided that I had a better solution. Hot glue.

After I made the terraces, I used more hot glue to create a bunch of tiny stalagmites growing around the larger ones. Since the Buchan stalagmites are uneven and blobby like melted wax, I wasn’t too worried about making the little ones perfect. I made small blobs of hot glue, came back to 

add height and used the hot sides of the tip of the glue gun 

to smooth and round anything that looked too funny.

One quick note about the hot glue; it really only sticks to the top layer of the cake board. I found myself needing to reinforce the terrace edges to make sure they stayed stuck down, the smaller stalagmites, too. I either added another row of hot glue or a quick dab of mod podge to re-adhere it.

Once I was happy with that, 

it was onto the next challenge . . . adding the foam.

 

 

 

Next up: Carving the Cave Walls

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 7): I thought we were doing a Dirt road . . .

 This set gave me fits. Originally, I had planned to make the frame something like a grassy field with a dirt road cutting through it. 

Unfortunately, this was not to be.

 I wasn’t sure how to do the tree-line / forest edge on top of the 

embankment since I was trying to keep each set as flat as possible, 

so I started with the Dirt Road Tile.

 

(Not sure what I’m talking about? 

Check out my D&D Tile series from the beginning. I’ll wait.)

 

My first attempt, I tried covering the tile with a single layer of foam, intending to press wheel tracks into the surface. Unfortunately, the trays don’t give enough flat foam to cover the entire tile in a solid piece. 

This left me with seamlines that I attempted to cover. 

I realized that the sand I had was far too coarse to mimic a packed dirt road and trying to cover the seam lines with is just made the 

whole thing look like a dirty plywood subfloor. 

Not the look I was going for.

I ripped off the foam and watched a bunch of YouTube DIY terrain videos 

(like this one). Outside of getting me hooked on watching resin diorama vids, I also realized that the contents of tea bags could make pretty decent groundcover and look like forest loam and debris after painting. 

This time I didn’t bother with the foam layer and started gluing straight to the bare side of the cake board. I started off painting a layer of mod podge and pouring the tea onto the tile, but it didn’t adhere as well as I wanted. I tried adding more mod podge on top, but since I didn’t remember to thin it 

with water, it was too thick and I had to add more tea. 

I realized that my best option was to do what I had with the sand and mix the tea into a small pool of mod podge and using my brush to scoop it onto the tile. I added more of the quartz rock scatter in small outcroppings in a few places to break things up. I even used the metal edge of 

a wax seal to press grooves into the tea.

 

This is the look I was going for when I painted . . .

It came out like this . . .

It was not quite what I’d hoped for. But when I showed it to Elroy, he thought it would make a good cave floor if I gave it a grey wash.
 
And so, a new concept for this set was born . . .  I would make the frame into a cave.
 
 
 

Next up: Creating the Cave Frame

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 6): The Desert Temple and Oasis Tiles

 Now for the fancy desert tiles . . .

First up was the Ancient Temple. I wanted the temple to have an open feel, somewhere between the Greek Acropolis and the Egyptian Temple of Karnak with pillars, an altar and sandstone floors. Elroy liked the idea of this particular tile potentially showing up in hidden rooms as part of a secret cult in future games, so maybe in the future I’ll add some sort of sigil or pictograph (or he can place a statue) so that all the temples are connected. But for the moment, I decided to keep it neutral.

 

(Not sure what I’m talking about? 

Check out my D&D Tile series from the beginning . I’ll wait.)

 

I started by cutting my foam dais (it ended up being about 2” by not quite 2 ½”) and using my craft knife to create a deep bevel on the edges. The altar was a foam rectangle about 1 ¾” long by about 1” wide. I wanted to keep the edges crisp on the altar (as though it was a stone table resting on the dais), so it was one of the few pieces of foam that I didn’t end up beveling. I placed it in the upper third of the tile, but with space behind it so that characters could move around the entire altar.

I made the corner pillar bases by centering hexagonal foam pieces (I used the base of a glue stick for scale) on top of 1” squares. Again, the bases were beveled but the pillars were not, and all the foam pieces were textured using rolled up foil. Had I wanted to go for a ruined temple, I would probably have added some cracks, rubble and other textures, but since this temple was supposed to work for a variety of storylines, I kept things fairly simple.

I also added small piles of sand mixed with Mod Podge, making sure to limit it to one side of the dais and pillar bases as though a small amount had blown into the altar room over time. Once everything had dried, 

I gave it a seal coat to make sure all the sand stayed in place.

 

The Oasis Tile was a bit more challenging. I had originally planned to simply create a pool (similar to the Water Pool from the Castle Set), but Elroy asked for an island or playable area for more game options. I sketched a rough outline of where the edges of the pool and the island would be on the tile (again in the upper third) as well as a few steppingstones so that characters could get to the island. I cut out the rough island shape and steppingstones from single layers of foam but didn’t bother beveling any of the edges.

Then I tried something I wasn’t sure would work . . . I moistened the top layer of the cake board with a little bit of water, cut along the outline of the water and carefully peeled up the top few layers to give myself a reservoir for the water. I was very careful not to go down more than about a third of the way so that it wouldn’t affect the structural integrity of the tile. 

I glued down the island and steppingstones.  

Then I mixed up more of the sand with Matte Mod Podge and built up the edge of the pool. I also covered the island (including all the foam edges) and the rest of the desert around the oasis. Just like on the Desert Frame and Tile, I added small outcroppings of the small quartz rock scatter wherever there was too much open sand (and put an extra drop of Mod Podge on to keep them in place). I used the foil on the steppingstones so that they looked like large boulders instead of sandbars and set the whole thing aside to dry overnight. 

I added the sealing coat the next day.

 

Once the Temple and Oasis tiles were sealed, I painted them the same way I had for the rest of the Desert Set: I painted a base coat of camel craft paint and used a combination of overbrushing and dry brushing in a selection of khaki and cream tones to get a sun-beaten sand look. I also used a light grey to pick out some of the larger rocks and the top of the steppingstones and black on the temple altar stone (I only lightly dry brushed the altar with a light dusting of cream to pick out a few details).   

 

 

I used the same brown wash that I made for the rest of my Desert pieces. While it was primarily a burnt umber, I added a few shades of chocolate brown, red and camel to enhance the color of the wash. I weighted down the corners as the wash dried, to help correct any warping from the moisture in the Mod Podge and wash. The Temple didn’t have tons of texture for the wash to stick to, so it turned out noticeably lighter than the other Desert pieces, but I kinda like how the contrast defines the edges so I don’t plan to repaint it. 

Now that all the pieces were painted, I put on 2 to 3 coats of the 

Spray Polyurethane (specifically the Minwax Fast Dry, because it 

doesn’t melt foam) to protect the finish.

But what about the water, you ask . . . I used another large tube of clear 5 minute epoxy. I had learned from my previous attempts at water and only added one small drop of blue acrylic paint to the epoxy resin and carefully poured it into the reservoir I had created around the island. 

I used a toothpick to spread the resin between the stones and up to the edges of the sand. I took perhaps longer than I should have, as the resin was thickening enough to create some dips and swells along the sides. These don’t detract from the overall look and I’m very happy with how this tile came out. If you look closely at the shoreline, you can see the texture in the bottom of the pool because the acrylic paint starts to fall out of suspension as the resin sets.

 

While the resin cured, I decided that the temple was too plain and needed some accents. I had picked up a package of spider confetti around Halloween, but I didn’t like how flat the spiders looked on the tile. So, I grabbed my fabric paint and gave the spiders some depth. I wasn’t really happy with how blobby the spiders ended up either but then it hit me. 

Not spiders; scarab beetles. 

After looking at a ridiculous number of scarab beetle pictures (I swear, someone at Google is very confused by my search history), I cut off the first set of legs and trimmed the carapace to more of a point on a few of the confetti spiders. Then, I covered them with black fabric paint and used a toothpick to press in wing details once they were mostly dry. 

The bodies flattened a little more than I liked, so I carefully added a second layer of fabric paint just along the carapace, leaving a small gap between and above the wings. Once that layer had dried, I used some iridescent nail polish (specifically Peace & Love & OPI) on everything but the head and legs 

and glued them on once they dried.

Now, I will let you bask in the loveliness of these tiles in the desert Frame. Bask, I tell you. Bask!

And that’s the Desert Set finished. Elroy really wants a pyramid topper for this set, so that has been added to my list of Topper ideas for future projects.
 The final set ended up going in an entirely different direction than 

I had planned, but it came out so pretty.
 

 

Next up: I thought we were doing a Dirt road . . . 

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 5): Building the Desert

 

Elroy and I went back and forth on how this set should look a number of times. He had no interest in trying to use any of the Castle tiles with the Desert Frame, so I didn’t bother with making a foam base for this set. 
I made the Desert Frame and three insert tiles: a Basic Desert, 

a Desert Oasis and an Ancient Temple.

(Not sure what I’m talking about? 
Check out my D&D Tile series from the beginning. I’ll wait.)

I wanted to lift the sides of the frame as though characters were traveling in the valley between two sand dunes. So, I replicated the bases of the surrounding dunes by adding strips of foam on the outside edges of the right and left sides and freehand drawing the approximate widths of the edges of the sand dunes on either side, straight onto the frame.

 On the shallower ‘windward’ side of the dune I glued a wider base only one layer of foam high.  For the ‘leeward’ side, I chose to stack narrower pieces of foam two layers high to simulate the steeper slope on that side. I cut one side of the foam strips in an uneven, wobbly line and brushed that side with acetone to smooth the edges for a more natural look 
(this step ended up being mostly unnecessary once I added the sand texture). 

I didn’t have any sand at home (the days of playing in the sand box having long since passed at my house) and I didn’t want to buy a full bag from a construction supply store, so I checked out my local Dollar Tree. 

They had bags of sand and small rocks for vase filler in a variety of colors on the candle aisle. I grabbed a bag of sand and a bag of 

small quartz scatter to use for desert texture. 

I ended up using less than half of each bag for all of the remaining tiles, leaving me with plenty of my $2 worth of sand for future projects.

 

Using my Basic Desert Tile to practice my technique, I poured out a puddle of Matte Mod Podge onto an uncut foam tray and mixed in sand. I used an old brush to scoop and spread out the sand mixture on the tile relatively evenly. Over time the silica in the sand pulls moisture out of the Mod Podge, so work in smaller batches to make sure it sticks. Then I scattered the small rocks around on the tile wherever the texture was too uniform. I added drops of Mod Podge to the tops of the rocks both to keep them from falling off and to enhance the visual of them growing up out of the landscape.

 

I did the same thing on the Desert Frame, making sure to put clumps of rock outcroppings and sand along the edges and tops of the dunes. 

I let the tile and frame dry overnight and then painted a coat of 

Black MagicCraft Foam Sealer. 

After that dried, I painted a base coat of camel craft paint and used a combination of overbrushing and dry brushing in a selection of 

khaki and cream tones to get a sun-beaten sand look. I then used a light grey to pick out some of the larger rock outcroppings. 

Instead of a black wash, like on the Castle tiles, I made up a brown wash for my Desert pieces. While it was primarily a burnt umber, I added a few shades of chocolate brown, red and camel to enhance the color of the wash. I weighted down the corners as the wash dried, to help correct any warping from the moisture in the Mod Podge and wash. 

On to the specialty tiles . . .

 
 

Next up: The Desert Temple and Oasis Tiles

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 4): Adventures in Resin

I admit, this step was the most intimidating for me. I had never worked with resin although I had wanted to get into it for some time. After watching a few more terrain videos, including this one, 

I went to the hardware store to grab some clear 2-part epoxy.
 
(Not sure what I’m talking about? 

Check out my new series from the beginning. I’ll wait.)
 
Since I was more concerned with price and cure time than perfect clarity or bubbles, I came home from the hardware store 

with a couple of the larger size tubes of this:

I found them for about $5 for the smaller size, and $6 for the larger size. Since I wasn’t sure how much resin I would need, I grabbed a large tube for each tile. I used clear plastic disposable cups to mix and color my resin (the medium, straight sided ones). Each epoxy tube came with a small wooden applicator, but they were too small, so I grabbed a couple of craft popsicle sticks 

and a few toothpicks to spread the resin.

 
I also used blue painter’s tape to dam up the edges and grout lines that went beyond where I wanted the resin (on both tiles). This was nit-picky and obnoxious and was a bit more work on the water tile than was really necessary (it was, however, very useful keeping the acid pools separate).
 
I started with the Water Pool. Once I had mixed the resin, I added a drop each of 2 different colors of blue craft paint. This was far more than I needed and made the resin much more opaque than I had hoped. I decided to go ahead instead of tossing the resin and mixing up another batch. I carefully poured the resin onto the recess on the water tile, using the toothpicks to drag it into crevices and smaller gaps between the foam squares. Due to my inexperience, I overfilled the water pool, leaving the top uneven 

and a weird divot over a set of grout lines. 

I have since tried using Gloss Mod Podge as a fill/ texturing agent to help repair the weirdness of the water pour. It’s better with the ripples and waves, but I plan to add at least 1 more layer for depth 

before I call the Water Pool Tile done.

And now for the Acid Pool. 

This time I only used 1 drop of electric green paint for the entire tube of epoxy. This gave the acid a much more viscous, slimy look while still allowing details to show through in the shallower areas. It reminds me of ectoplasm from Ghostbusters. I was much more careful with my pour for this one 

and managed not to overfill it. 

A fun aside about this epoxy. Acrylic paint doesn't mix into it completely; so as it cures, some of the paint starts to fall out of suspension and settles into the crevices. This exaggerates the appearance of  depth as the color intensifies at the bottom. I’m quite happy with how this tile came out.

I ended up using resin on another tile (in the Desert Set) and on the last Frame I made. The builds for those sets were more elaborate, so I’ll touch on the resin more once we get there. I also made some light weight, free floating scatter pieces including a couple of foam tables and a fire pit. 

Originally, I had planned to make a throne room out of one of the castle tiles, but we didn’t like how it sat in the playable area. I hope to make a set of toppers using 9”x 9” cake boards that will sit on top of the frames. 

My current plans for Castle Toppers include 

a Throne Room, a Cathedral and possibly a barracks.  
 
Now, on to the next set.
 

 

Next up: Building the Desert