Thread: First steps toward a playable bug colony

Nice work Ettrick. Cheap markers aren't easy to use, but you did a good job. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks. Of course, the markers were just the quick and easy way to make the original pencil visible.

I think my next step is to use hot glue to attach styrofoam to the paper in the dark areas.

I'll build that up then cover it with acrylic molding paste. Using crumpled paper and glue would be too rigid and leave the map slightly curled. The hot glue and acrylic should be flexible enough that the whole thing will still lay flat.

Any ideas?

I would definitely use styrofoam or other foamboard. It's used a lot in miniature wargaming, and there are plenty of tutorials around for it. It's light, fairly durable and easy to work with. This is a fairly advanced tutorial, but I think for what you need something like this might suffice. If you google around a bit you'll find dozens of other tutorials.

If I were you I would mount the paper on a piece of sturdier material before you go any further though. The paper is flexible and that would make the entire board very fragile. Curious to see what you end up with!

Poison, that first link is a great site. I had never come across it before. Bookmark set. Cheers.

My challenge when I get into durable construction and hard board, I get more cautious and hesitant. By working on paper this time, I'm just going to blast it out. If I'm only using supplies that would otherwise go into the bin, I'm not concerned about a serious mistake. As soon as I've got good light I'll get a photo of the first round of foam. I made a lot of progress but blistered my hand with the high-temp glue.

A double post, but here's the first session of foam documented. Some of the shapes are roughed out; some are simple blocks I'll hack a bit and add texture on later. I'm thinking of rounding the corners of the paper so they won't lift up as much. I've also considered simply building the raised area out to the edges even though that would not look at all natural. A rectangle with rounded corners don't very often appear in nature.

Great idea! Especially for caverns and tunnels. Thanks for posting it and offering the outlines for creative commons. If I ever get a chance to use it with my group, I will take a picture and put it up.

Thanks. I learned my lesson. Every stage should look good. When I first started shading the walls in 2d, I simply wanted to get colour down so viewers here could tell what was what. As I worked on that, I realised I could even give this stage visual texture and interest. I experimented from there with different techniques, but that left side looks so bad by comparison. I also got a better overhead shot of it. I guess now, that will have to wait for the later stages so the images are of a quality for others to use in their games.

i've now done most of the hard acrylic paste over the foam. I've still got to hide a few very straight edges though. I will be doing more texturing and painting soon.

Hmmm, I got the one post per 30 seconds message, so I thought that the above post hadn't gone. After I'd waited and reposted, I saw that it was already there. Apologies.