Colorful Palm Trees for "Wars of Ozz" From the Dollar Tree

A couple weeks ago I found some interesting plastic "succulent" plants at my local Dollar Tree, and I thought they would make excellent colorful palm trees for my "Wars of Ozz" games.  I'm planning to do some games set in the Great Impassable Desert of Ozz, and thought these would make great terrain for those set-ups.  Over the weekend I finished getting them based up, and I thought I'd show the results.  Some of the plants had central heavy wire in the stem, and some had nothing in their stems; so I drilled appropriate holes into 2" MDF wood bases and hot glued the trees in place.  I then covered the bases in some sand and gravel and a little flock.  

    I also based up a couple other interesting plastic plants I had put aside long ago.

  They are shown with the first two bases of Whim-Whim Spearman I have finished painting, to give a sense of size.

Scratchbuilt Hanging Pirate Cages for Ghost Archipelago

    These past couple weeks I worked on building some hanging pirate cages for our Ghost Archipelago table.   Awhile back I saw someone else's post about making these, and though I couldn't remember where, they are simple enough that I thought I'd attempt them from memory.

    I started out by getting a pack of hair rollers at my local Dollar Tree store.

     I also went to my local craft store and bought some necklace chain and jump rings in the jewelry section.

     Then, back in my workshop, I retrieved a pack of Dollar Tree mini ornaments I had bought last year to make some 10mm Sci-Fi fuel tanks.  I planned to use the caps off them to hang the cages.

     I cut the rollers down to a size I felt suitable to hold a 28mm human sized prisoner, and then glued a washer to the top, and one of the ornament hanger tops, with the flanges cut down, to the top of the washer.

     I the constructed a scaffolding to hang them on, and glued that to a cut-down old CD.  I added some bracing bracket bands to the top piece using paper strips, as well as a couple wire loops to hang the cages from.

     For the bottoms of the cages I just used a couple more washers, tough on these I glued round stickers to cover the holes in the washers.  Also, on one I assembled a skeleton to represent a long forgotten prisoner, using the parts from a GW skeleton set, and an arm from a Frostgrave cultist set.  I applied white glue to the CD, and sprinkled it with sand.  Also, I attached a short section of chain to the top of each cage.  Then, when everything was dry, I sprayed it all black.

        When I sat down to paint the cages, I suddenly realized I hadn't included any kind of door n them!  (A hazard of being a cut and glue first, ask questions later, type of crafter. ;-D )  So, on each cage I carefully cut out some sections of the roller, and added two vertical bars and a balsa lock to each, to give an impression of a cage door.

     After that it was simply a matter of painting everything.     I'm really happy with these, though if I had them to over again, I think I'd make them a little shorter in size by about two of the horizontal rings.

Frostgrave "Thaw of the Lich Lord" Bone Wheel: Simple Halloween Scratchbuild

    This past week I assembled a prototype Bone Wheel terrain piece for the "The Bone Wheel" scenario in the Frostgrave supplement book, Thaw of the Lich Lord.    Since we usually have 6-8 players in our Frostgrave Campaign games, I intend to make three more of these now that I have finished the prototype.
     The scenario describes the Bone Wheel as, "A gigantic wheel, sitting some eight feet off the ground on a central axle...the wheel is constructed of human bones, bound together with old leather straps..."   I knew there was no way I was going to make a big wheel out of 28mm bones, as it would take hundreds, so I headed to the local Dollar Tree store in hopes of finding something that would be bigger than 28mm but not so large that it wouldn't look too out of place with 28mm scenery and figures.
    Happily, I found a skeleton Halloween garland that looked like it would suit the purpose perfectly.

   But, before I built the wheel, I wanted to make the central axle.  So I dug through my wood bits box, and found some pieces I thought would work; a disc, a couple small spools, and a small soda bottle shape.  I glued those in a stack on a 2" fender washer.

    I then cut off the skeletons' arms and legs, and then cut the feet of the legs.    Next, I hot-glued the legs to a 1" fender washer, and then hot-glued the arms around the outer edge.

      I decided the center needed some sort of cover piece,  so I cut one of the ribcages in half, and glued that to the center.  I then did a test fit of the two parts.

      Happy with the fit, I used some of the string that came with the garland to make some lashings around the bone junctures, where the central spokes met the outer rim bones. I then sprayed the parts with flat black primer.  And, as seen in the photo below, I began drybryushing the central axle with some aged wood colors.

          It was just a matter of finishing painting everything, and then fitting the two pieces together.

Shown with a 28mm Reaper figure for scale.

    I'm happy with how the project turned out.  Since this is a scenery piece that will probably only ever be used for this scenario, I didn't put a lot of effort into it.   Still, for a quick job, I think it looks pretty good.

Ghost Archipelago Skull Rock Terrain From Dollar Tree Halloween Decor

   This past week my local Dollar Tree started putting their Halloween decorations on the shelves, and I grabbed one of their plastic skulls to make a skull-shaped rock terrain piece for Ghost Archipelago.

     I began by slicing off part of the lower jaw at an angle, so the skull would sit more upright and less leaned back.

     I then hot-glued it to a CD.

     I also hot glued a bit of pink foam scrap under the back overhang so it wouldn't look quite so unbalanced.

     I then sprayed it with flat black primer; and when that was dry, I sprayed it with stone texture spray paint.

     When the stone texture coat was dry,  I drybrushed the skull with various light grays.   When the drybrushing was dry, I used a little green stuff, some small twigs, and some spanish moss to make a little bird nest to sit in one of the eye sockets.

     I then hot glued various plastic aquarium plants onto the base.

     After that,  I flocked the base and added some more clump foliage and some grass tufts.    Finally, I sprayed it with some Testor's Dullcote matte spray paint.

Shown with a 28mm Reaper pirate figure for scale

     I'm very pleased with how this turned out!   I'm thinking I may like to make some smaller ones as well.

Dollar Tree Sand Mold Frostgrave Pyramid Mausoleum

   A couple weeks ago I posted an article about a Sci-Fi terrain piece I made from a sand mold that I purchased at the local Dollar Tree.   One of my readers, Marc, in the Comments section of that post, said that he was going to use the pyramid from the same "landmarks" mold series to make a Frostgrave mausoleum.  I thought that was a great idea, so picked one up myself to make my own mausoleum.

     I began by cutting a simple doorway piece from some scrap pink insulation foam, and scribed some doors and cut stones on it. I then used hot glue to glue it to one of the sides. I also glued a small decorative bits piece over the doors (Not shown in this photo)

     I pre-painted the doorway piece with black acrylic paint (so it wouldn't melt when sprayed), then sprayed the whole thing with black spray paint.

      I then did a couple layers of grey drybrushed on the pyramid, and then painted the piece over the doors as verdigris bronze.

    I'm really happy how this turned out!   I had originally dismissed the Pyramid sand mold since I have a perfectly good desert-colored pyramid already.  I never thought of doing one for a colder climate (that is, grey stone), so thank Marc for his idea!

Dollar Tree Sand Mold Sci-Fi Terrain

   When scouting the local Dollar Tree this past week, I saw this sand mold of the Sydney Opera House.  It's part of a collection they have along with other world landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, Pyramid, and Leaning Tower of Pisa.

     I thought is looked like it might be useful as some sort of Sci-Fi industrial structure, like a large generator, pumping station, or engine of some sort.   So I glued a couple stick-on gems to it and a simple plastic cap off of something, to give it a little texture.  In retrospect, you could apply even more cool add-ons to it, like access panels or make shift repairs covered in rivets.  The possibilities are endless, but I was in a hurry to get going with the painting, so I kept it kind of simple.

          I thought this piece would be another perfect chance to practice my salt and hairspray chipped paint technique, that I have ever only done once before.  So, I began by spraying it with a flat dark brown camouflage spray paint, and then splotched on some light brown and orange to give a rusty look to some areas.

      I then applied the hairspray, and while still wet, sprinkled kosher salt on it; mainly on the lower areas.  I let it dry for a short time, and then sprayed it with some medium blue satin-finish spray paint I happened to have.   I let the spray paint dry the minimum manufacturer recommended time, and then ran the piece under some warm water, and with a soft toothbrush gently brushed at the areas of salt.   I then let the piece throughly dry, and after that I painted the very bottom base layer with some medium gray paint to make it look a little like a concrete slab.

      When that was dry, I applied an allover wash of Citadel "Nuln Oil" wash using a wet brush.  Then, when the wash was dry, I gave the piece a light blue dry brushing .  Lastly, I applied some decals, and then applied a little paint to make the decals look aged and chipped up.  I let it sit over night and the next day my final step was to spray it with some Testor's Dullcote.

Shown with Reaper 28mm figures for scale.

    I'm really pleased with how this project turned out.  And considering it was only a dollar, I think it's pretty great!

Dollar Tree Mermaid Ghost Archipelago Terrain, Part 2

   After completing my mermaid tail arch from a air of mermaid dolls from the local Dollar Tree store, last month, a lot fof olks asked what I planned to do with the left over mermaid top-halves.  I considered this as something of a challenge, and so set about thinking about possible terrain projects to make from partially naked plastic doll halves.
   Inspired by the cover of the Ghost Archipelago cover, featuring a band of heroes facing off against a band of snakemen natives, I got the idea to make one of the doll halves into some sort of snake-man goddess idol.

 

     The first thing I needed to find was a suitable snakeman head, so I made another trip to the local Dollar Tree to see what I could find.  I wasn't able to find a plastic snake I could use, but I did find a suitable plastic lizard that had just the right head and neck pose to go atop a human torso.

   With lizard in hand, I began to construct my snakeman goddess idol.  I began by cutting down an old CD, and hot-gluing a piece of pine bark mulch to it to serve as a base.  I then cut the head of the lizard, and pulled the head off the doll.  I had to cut the neck of the doll down a little to fit the lizard head, but once things looked good I glued the lizard head in place with a liberal amount of hot-glue to help fill any gaps and blend the shape to the body.    I then hot-glued the torso to the hunk of mulch and glued the arms into a satisfactory position.

     Next, I  drilled couple holes in the top jaw to insert a couple toothpick fangs, and then used some Milliput to help blend all the joints and blend the mulch to the base.  I also sculpted a little sacrifice basin at the base of the idol, and glued some small rocks on the base. 

      When all the Milliput was dry, I gave the piece a spray with Krylon Camouflage with Fusion "Flat Black" spray paint to act as a primer.  And when that was dry, I sprayed the idol with some stone textured spray paint.

     When the stone texture was dry, I painted the idol with some Folk Art "Grey Green" craft paint, and then applied some washes of Citadel "Nuln Oil", and "Green" ink.  After that I glued some course sand to the base.  When the sand was dry, I painted that, and then drybrushed highlights on to the statue and base.  When the paint was dry, I glued some various foliage all over the base.  Then, when the weather warms up, I will give the piece a spray of Dullcote to seal it. 

    I'm really happy with how she turned out considering she was a spur of the moment make-use-of-a-leftover inspired construction.