Painting/Inspiration Thread

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Stunning work, but who's going to assault the Grey Havens? :devil:

Ouch, Genestealers up the sewer pipe. That fortress is about to have a very bad day.
 
Actually, you're nearly 50. At some point in the next few years, you'll wake up one morning with the urge to read a book about WWII.

Pretty soon you'll be able to quote 38t chassis production numbers for every year of the war, and the different StuG model numbers that used them.

You'll be able to tell people the difference between a German schwerepunkt strategy and a kessel deployment. Largely unprovoked, it must be said.

You'll end your days yelling 1944 bomber strategies at the nurses in the home.

Fight it as you must, but it's coming...
30s I went deep into Oakeshott and Petersen typologies, fechtbuchs, pattern welded/Wootz/Damascus/Toledo/Solingen steels, Milanese armor, composite bow resins, etc. I figure those were early warning signs of the horror to come. :devil:
 
This what I imagine robertsconley robertsconley has in his house. All of Castle Greyhawk laid out in Dwarven Forge.
Well maybe not Castle Greyhawk but I did take a pretty good stab at Tegal Manor.


I have four tub of Dwarven Forge like the picture below. So I got more than most.

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But keep in mind I like to run my campaigns as sandboxes. Large dioramas are not often useful. Instead what I do is use the trays like in the middle picture. To build locales and dungeons on the fly. As I build out a room or a corridor, I am describing it as well. So while it does take longer it not that much longer.

In did get into one more DF kickstarter that was a sequel to their dungeon KS. But one pictured above turned me off to the other KS they did. Not because it was bad quality. It great. But it is really a diorama building kit. So I have to pre-build anything as the way it constructed takes too much time to do during a session. And you have to buy more to get the same coverage as the dungeon set.

Luckily I found found two copies each of both resin medieval building set. So I got a set of pieces that work the same way as dungeons for buildings.

That what you are seeing in the below picture which was one of the few diorama I build for a session. It is the central section of the City State of the Invincible Overlord.
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And a Tegel Manor Post showing how I used it at the time.

Many many and did I say many? giant frogs and snakes

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Speaking of Dwarven Forge, has anyone picked up the Wizkid's budget versions - "Warlock Tiles" I think they are called? They didn't look half bad from my brief glance at them.
 
Speaking of Dwarven Forge, has anyone picked up the Wizkid's budget versions - "Warlock Tiles" I think they are called? They didn't look half bad from my brief glance at them.
Mega kudos for point this out. I probably won't their dungeon pieces but the accessories are at the right price point for me for what you get. If there anything like the bits and pieces from other fantasy sets they offered over the years like from Mage Knight, they hold up well and look more than good enough.
 
So looking it over it looks like the Door set, Stairs, and Dungeon Dressing are all compatible with Dwarven Forge.

For the main set the issue appears that the walls are on the outside whereas Dwarven Forge has the walls on the inside.

However I do like that when you have an assembled expanse of floor the wall slot in between two tiles. That is nifty. But....

The use of clips maybe means they are more like dioramas then something you can use on the fly. I.e. you have to assemble them before hand to use them quickly.

However while you can assemble Dwarven Forge on the fly quickly, the inside walls means you have to think about placement or gets messed up.
 
This reminds me of the joke where the grad student finds a frog and picks it up. To his surprise it says if you kiss me I'll turn into a beautiful woman. He smiles and puts it in his pocket.
A while later he pulls it out and it says "I'm a princess and rich" he smiles and puts it back in his pocket. A while later he pulls it out again and it asks "what's wrong with you. Didn't you hear I'm a rich beautiful woman?!?"
He says " I heard but I'm a grad student. I've already come to peace with poverty and a girl would just be a distraction." Smiling he adds " But a talking frog that's something pretty cool!"
 
Speaking of Dwarven Forge, has anyone picked up the Wizkid's budget versions - "Warlock Tiles" I think they are called? They didn't look half bad from my brief glance at them.
I saw the Wizkids tiles at my FLGS and I am considering them. I have gamed in a couple campaigns using a friend's Dwarven Forge and although I love the heft and overall quality of the pieces the one bummer was that they weren't ideal for putting scenes together on the fly (@ robertsconley robertsconley if you disagree with me please share how you manage it!).

Also when I tried to buy Dwarven Forge in 2013 their customer service and product availability was subpar but I am willing to give them another chance.

So basically although I prefer the Dwarven Forge quality and looks I may have to compromise with Wizkids if transport and setup is significantly easier.
 
My 2 bits on this. Dwarven forge only makes tiles. They've been doing it for over a decade. WizKids is doing it today. Will they tomorrow when you decide you more tile? Maaaybe? Probably you'll be searching for then in the aftermarket for a higher price.

That said I think the two sided floor tile idea is brilliant.
 
My 2 bits on this. Dwarven forge only makes tiles. They've been doing it for over a decade. WizKids is doing it today. Will they tomorrow when you decide you more tile? Maaaybe? Probably you'll be searching for then in the aftermarket for a higher price.

That said I think the two sided floor tile idea is brilliant.
I dunno, in comparing companies you could just as easily say Wizkids is a large established company with enough capital to sustain new product and provide customer service while Dwarven Forge is a little company that needs Kickstarters just to fund projects. The big difference in my opinion is that Dwarven Forge is more artisanal and higher quality but with Wizkids you get the benefit of a big company who is able to churn these things out en masse. I really want to go with choice #1 but the banal, practical side of me says take choice #2.
 
I dunno, in comparing companies you could just as easily say Wizkids is a large established company with enough capital to sustain new product and provide customer service while Dwarven Forge is a little company that needs Kickstarters just to fund projects. The big difference in my opinion is that Dwarven Forge is more artisanal and higher quality but with Wizkids you get the benefit of a big company who is able to churn these things out en masse. I really want to go with choice #1 but the banal, practical side of me says take choice #2.
No question it has the capital. But the question is will it keep doing it. Look at someone like Google. Do they need to shut down all those products that any other company would kill to be behind? No. They just lose interest or cease to see it as the most profitable way to use their limited resources. WizKids might do just the same.
 
. I have gamed in a couple campaigns using a friend's Dwarven Forge and although I love the heft and overall quality of the pieces the one bummer was that they weren't ideal for putting scenes together on the fly (@ robertsconley robertsconley if you disagree with me please share how you manage it!).
Just keep in mind that there are two broad categories of Dwarven Forge. The ones you put together like tiles like the Dungeon and Cave pieces, and the ones you assemble like Cities, and Castle pieces. It would be very difficult to use the later two on the fly.

But for the dungeon and cavern pieces along with the older resin medieval building sets it can be done on the fly. The key is to have everything stored before. Sort of like the middle picture below. Note this is showing my town stuff sorted. I apologize for any confusion but is the only ready picture I had. But just imagine one container filled with corners, another with walls, another with floor, etc. So you need to have a table behind you within arms reach. With that you can just reach and collect the dozen or so pieces to assemble the current room.

The next trick to practice with the pieces to get a handle on how various types of corridors and room are assembled. DF pieces have walls on the inside so they have a "grain" that needs to be taken into account.

Finally mesh in the verbal description description of the room while you lay it out. That saves considerable time. Not as fast as using dry erase and verbal but fast enough to be acceptable in most cases.

The downside is having the dwarven forge on hand and most of all the physical space around where you referee to make grabbing pieces convenient. At conventions I generally ask for two tables and if they are rectangular I will put them in a L shape with the Dwarven Forge on one leg of the table and the players on the other leg.

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My 2 bits on this. Dwarven forge only makes tiles. They've been doing it for over a decade. WizKids is doing it today. Will they tomorrow when you decide you more tile? Maaaybe? Probably you'll be searching for then in the aftermarket for a higher price.
If you build dioramas then there rarely never enough. If you do what I do and build out a "window" of where they are adventures then all you need is enough to cover a 3' by 3' area plus 50% to handle odd layouts. That much more doable. I exceeded that with my buy of the 1st DF kickstarter. Came under that with my cave buy largely because I decided to go with painted. With next dungeon ks (5th?) I opted in at the $10 and just bought the sets I wanted mostly add-ons that were useful (like the traps) or to add variety.

With Wizkids I can see going for the 3' by 3' window plus 50% and stopping as a viable strategy.

Now one thing you can do with the wizkid is build out a 3' by 3' grid and just add the walls as needed due to how they slot into between the floors.

I also like the double sided floors as well.

But likely I will get most of the "props" sets. They seem to be a good deal at $40 or so dollars for what you get.
 
Just incase those interested in the Dwarven Forge tile pieces aren't aware of this alternative I'll post this.

Hirst Arts

It's a company that sells molds to make your own individual tiles and stones (and other bits) out of dental cement. The molds are really expensive IMO but of of course once you own the mold you can make and remake as many bits as you want.
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Seems like the better (albeit more time consuming) option in the long run.

Also their forums seem to have allot of fans/owners sharing tutorials/patters on their builds.

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That's some crazy fucking flat work on that knight. I don't even want to know the hours invested (although it's probably less than I think, I'm an excellent painter, but my style is pretty time consuming).
 
That sort of style takes a massive amount of patience. Unfortunately, far more than I posses, I get bored with a mini if I stop after working on it.
 
Flat work is not my strong suit as a mini painter at all. The best I can claim is I hand painted Punisher skulls on the pauldrons and vehicles of 3000 points worth of marines as a chapter badge.
 
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