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