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 

 

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 3): The Castle Frame and Pit Trap

Now that I had most of the Castle Tiles ready for painting, 

it was time to work on the Castle Frame and Pit Trap Tile.

 

(Not sure what I’m talking about? 

Check out the beginning of my new series. I’ll wait.)

 

First up, the Castle Floor Frame. This is a 12”x 12” Wilton cake board with a 6”x 6” square cut out of the center. I trimmed and beveled the edges, both the inside and outside borders. Then I found the center point, top and bottom. Just like with the inner tiles, I measured 1” to each side of the center point and connected the lines top and bottom. I then drew lines every 2” on each side of the center row. I rotated the frame to the unmarked side and 

repeated the process until I had an even, centered grid.

Because the center goes through a row of squares instead of between them, this put the outside edge at 1” from the next row over. This means that the row on the inside edge of the frame is made up of full squares and the outside edge is 1”x 2” rectangles (square cut lengthwise) 

with a 1”x 1” block in each outside corner.

 

Here’s a picture of the frame with and tile so you can see how they line up:

Just like with the tiles, I used a paintbrush to brush the bottom side of the foam squares with Matte Mod Podge and placed them on frame, keeping a couple of heavy bottles nearby to hold pieces in place if they started to lift.

The Pit Trap was similarly challenging. I decided that a 1” border would look best. Since this was for my final 6”x 6” castle tile, I cut 2 foam squares in half and cut a 1”x 1” block out of one corner of 4 more squares (I used them for the outside corners on the frame). This gave me 4 1”x 2” rectangles and 4 “L” shaped corner pieces. I now had a tile border (that lined up with the frame) 

with an empty square in the middle.

But how to make spears that won’t poke out above the foam border? 

3 words: Dimensional Fabric Paint.

Yup. That stuff. 

It’s really important to use a bottle with the tip for this, a brush is going to make it significantly harder. I use this far more often than most people would expect, and only rarely on fabric. This time, I freehanded a grid with alternating rows of 4 and 3 spear points with approximately ½” of vertical space between the rows. Then I made little Hershey kiss shapes with the fabric paint on each spear point. As they dried, the tips flattened out a bit, so I occasionally added new tips to the spikes to keep them pointy.

 

Once my tiles had dried, I repeated the texture and details from the last post.  The frame and pit trap got a quick and dirty stone finish by balling up some aluminum foil and pressing it into the foam to create a slate or travertine texture. I used the craft knife to trim any foam that was too close or didn’t leave enough of a grout line to line up nicely. Then I ran a ball point pen along the grout lines to gently bevel the edges of the foam. 

I also used the craft knife to give a deeper bevel to the foam on the edges. 

After everything was dry, I painted a coat of the 

Black Magic Craft Foam Sealer and let them dry overnight.
  

Now, I did make one more tile for the Castle Set: a Wooden Tavern Floor. 

I cut 1/2" strips of foam into 1", 2" and 4" lengths and arranged them to give a subtle 2" grid to the floor joins. Before I glued the strips on, I added wood grain by running a wire pet brush (because I had it on hand) in one direction along the top and sides of each board. I used an upholstery tack to put in nail holes at the ends of each board (you can totally use a toothpick, I just liked that the tacks have square tips). I also leaned into the gouges and snags from cutting the foam. About half of the boards I used were underside up 

to give the floor a more worn feel.

On to paint!
 
Elroy and I looked at the castle tiles and he decided they looked like slate, so I chose a selection of grey and cream acrylic craft paints and got to work. 

I started with a base coat of a dark grey (somewhere between slate and charcoal) and overbrushed (like dry brushing, but with slightly more paint on the brush) the foam with a medium grey. This will become the dominant tone for the stone. The next coat was a dry brush of a light grey, followed by an even lighter dry brush coat of ivory. I used a similar process for the wood floor, just in varying shades of brown instead of black.

 
Then it was time for the detail painting.

Slate tends to have more oxidized, rust colored patches mixed in on large tiles. So, I thinned a mix of red and dark brown with some water and brushed it on sections that were fairly flat, or just needed an accent. I did not use this on every tile (I followed the same loose ‘less than half’ guideline from the worn tiles), and I don’t think I covered more than 1/4 - 1/3 

of the surface of the tiles I did put it on.

The Pit Trap needed to look deeper than it was, so I painted the recess with a coat of a dark charcoal grey. I originally added more red to the rust wash and layered a few puddles around the points to simulate old dried blood. Elroy liked it, but I was worried that it wouldn’t show up once the piece was sealed. So I found a dark red and thinned it just a tiny bit and carefully splattered it (with a very small, stiff bristled brush) into the pit. I wiped off any drops that landed on the foam edges and let it dry. I used some old, nearly dry silver Rub ‘N’ Buff (a metallic, pigmented wax) on the points so they would look like metal. 

Once all the pieces were finished and dry it was time for a black wash to tone down the colors, settle into the crevices and pick out the details.

I made a quick blackwash using warm water with a drop of dish soap and a combination of black, dark brown, dark grey and dark purple paints. The variety of paint colors made the wash less of a true black, and more of a very dark grey. The wash got brushed over everything in the set 

and I let the pieces dry overnight.

After the wash dried, I added a few more splatters of thinned red to the Pit and recoated the points with Rub ‘N’ Buff. 

Then I sealed all the pieces with 2 to 3 coats of Spray Polyurethane 

(specifically the Minwax Fast-Drying, because it doesn’t melt foam). 

This stuff:

A quick note. The spray poly really brought up grey and brown tones on all the pieces, changing the overall colors of the pieces. If you decide to make your own set, don’t be surprised if the final color is not what you were expecting.

Now came the next challenge . . . resin.
 

Next up: Adventures in Resin

 

D&D Dungeon Tiles (Pt. 2): Building the Castle

The first set of Dungeon Tiles I decided to tackle were 
the Castle/ Dungeon Frame and Inserts.

 (Not sure what I’m talking about? Check out my last post. I’ll wait.) 

Elroy and I came up with 6 insert variations for the Castle Frame: 
Basic Stone Floor, Worn Stone Floor, Authentic Battle Damage™ Stone Floor, Water Pool, Acid Pool and Pit Trap. 

When I drew up the first grid, I made the squares 1”x 1” 

(because that is the scale that Black Magic Crafts uses for his D&D terrain). 

And then I showed it to Elroy . . .

He was worried that a grid at that scale 
(even though it is scaled to match the miniatures for the game) 
would have too much information per square 

to be a good fit for his type of gameplay.

So, I re-drew the grid at a 2”x 2” scale and started cutting my foam trays. 

I used a craft knife and cutting mat to cut the curved lip off the tray, 

and my 1 yd metal ruler to cut the center pieces into 2” strips, 

and those strips into 2” squares. 
I found that as I went on, the bottom edge of the foam would get little burrs, where the blade would snag on a small strip of foam and pull it along like a hangnail (later, I learned that cutting with a small sawing motion helps keep this from happening). So, I just made sure to trim those edges and keep them in mind when I started arranging my tiles. 

Before I started gluing, I used a pen and my ruler to put my 2” grid on the bare side of the tiles and frame. If you decide to make these DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! No matter how well you measure, not every foam square will be perfectly even, and I found that my cake boards were not perfect 12”x 12” squares. On side was just slightly (like less than 1/8^th of an inch) under. 
I also used the craft knife to trim and bevel the edges on the tiles and frame, making sure to check that all of the tiles fit 

with some wiggle room in the frame. If they are too snug, 

it’s really hard to switch the tiles out without lifting up the whole piece. 

To keep the rows as even as possible and make sure the grout lines would line up no matter which insert was used, I started with the insert tiles. I wanted each tile to have 9 squares (like a tic tac toe board), so I found the center point on the top and bottom sides, measured 1” to either side and connected my points top and bottom. This gave me a 2” distance between the lines that was centered on the tile. Then I rotated the tiles to the unmarked side 

and repeated the process. 

Voila! The center square is perfectly centered.  

Time to Assemble! (Cue Avengers music . . . oh no, just me? Gotcha.)

I used a paintbrush to brush the bottom side of the foam squares with Matte Mod Podge and placed them on the tiles 

(I plan to cover the Frame and Pit Trap in the next post because they had a bit of extra math involved in the foam placement). 

I ran into a small issue as I got to work. Although the top of the foam trays was smooth, the underside had a brand imprint that made the undersides uneven once they’d been cut. I ended up keeping a couple of heavy bottles nearby to hold pieces in place if they started to lift.

Once my tiles had dried (usually less than an hour), I went back and started adding texture and details.  All of the tiles got a quick and dirty stone finish by balling up some aluminum foil and pressing it into the foam to create a slate or travertine texture. I used the craft knife to trim any foam that was too close or didn’t leave enough of a grout line to line up nicely. Then I ran a ball point pen along the grout lines to gently bevel the edges of the foam. I also used the craft knife to bevel the outside edges of each tile. This gave them a nicer, more even edge and kept them from sticking in the frame.

For the Worn Stone Floor, I drew in small, jagged cracks with the pen and used the tip of the craft knife to gouge and slice out small chunks of a few of the tiles (I think 4 out of 9 squares got minimal damage), as though the broken stones were simply left in place instead of being replaced, making this section of floor feel worn, shabby and maybe a little bit grimy.  

I exaggerated this on the Authentic Battle Damage™ tile. I gouged much larger cracks into the foam, removed corners on some tiles and used the pen to extend the gouges with branching cracks. I tried to radiate the cracks out as though they were showing impact points that traveled from one square to the rest. Every square had at least some damage on this tile, giving it an abandoned castle/ ruins feel. 

Here's the same tile after I added some bits of craft moss and tea from a cheap tea bag.

For the Acid and Water tiles, I drew in the general shapes I wanted the pools to have and then I experimented with a couple of techniques to get the shapes.

I sacrificed one of my trays as a tester for the melting agents (dollar store clear nail polish and dollar store acetone nail polish remover) and later used the same tray to make sure the resin was foam safe. The reaction that melts the foam takes a few minutes, and the foam is really thin, 

so taking too much off was a real concern. 

The Acid tile had 2 pools of acid separated by a narrow strip of land that players would have to traverse to get across the board. I wanted a more violent looking, corrosive type of finish so I grabbed some dollar store clear nail polish and brushed it on just inside my outlines. I kept working farther into the pools and then went back over some of the areas that weren’t as deep as I wanted with a second coat before the first coat had dried. I left plenty of small projections and bumps to give the resin some additional details.

The Water tile consisted of 1 large central pool that took up most of the playable surface. I wanted it to look like the water had slowly worn down the floor, with smoother transitions and gentler edges. I brushed on the acetone (use an old brush you don’t care about if you do this, the acetone will strip the glue holding in the bristles. I had to throw the brush out after I finished), again starting at the edges and working my way in. The acetone causes a more extreme melt and took the tile down to bare board in a number of places but it leaves smoother, more rounded edges. 

Once I was happy with all the tiles, I painted a coat of the Black Magic Craft Foam Sealer, which is just Matte Mod Podge with black craft paint added.

Funny story, after I mixed my batch it bubbled up like a volcano. I know my Mod Podge was a couple of years old and has a strong vinegar smell, so maybe my craft paint was just basic enough to get a reaction. 

(Heh, heh basic. Like I’m the only one who appreciates science puns.) 

I let the tiles dry overnight. I’ll cover the techniques I used 

for painting and sealing in the next post.

 

 

Next up: The Castle Frame and Pit Trap