Ishoo Wun-Oh-Sven: Portheim Boards

Welcome once again fans of the African river horse school of terrain manufacture! Last ishoo we handled the making of the polystyrene tiles which make up the land of Portheim. This time we shall look at the making of the MDF board which they sit upon and which represent the watery depths of the seas! And which can ALSO be used for games of Distopian Wars, Dreadfleet (for the absurdly rich) or Man O' War (for the absurdly old and awesome).
But how hard is it to build an ocean, I hear you cry? Let us consult Grot, who has recently been hunting witches through the ruins of Portheim...

Oh yes indeed. It is glossy and reflective, but it's very hard to get a decent photo.... sigh.
This is a very quick little project, which could easily be done in a day. The only reason it took me longer was the unseasonable weather here... Not so much the rain, but the wind which was threatening to pick up and launch the boards while I was painting. Yes - boards - there are three of them which can be placed side by side to make a 6X4 table.
Also, a note on the photos - I didn't want to take the camera outside and forget it to be rained upon, so these were taken on my phone. Grot seems to like the new widescreen format...
Next up, we'll look at building Old Portheim Bridge, followed by an attempt at the Pirate Ship Titania...

...now that all the Ted Naifeh fans are excited I shall leave you! Farewell!

Portheim: Prologue.

A glimpse of Portheim from way back in 2009.

I've decided to try to increase the posting rate on the blog by bringing back themed months during the summer holidays. This time round: Portheim.
Portheim was a project from before TFH even existed - 2008 I think. I'd had the good fortune to have a huge amount of medium density white polystyrene insulation board offcuts given to me by a friend in the building supply industry, and realised that it was the destiny of these boards to become modular terrain tiles. At the time, we were playing a lot of Mordheim at HGC, so I decided to make the boards for that sort of medieval fantasy skirmish game. There were not enough to cover a whole table, so I came up with the idea of doing them as a dockside table. The idea being that you put down a blue table surface (painted, or a sheet) for the water, and then build up the docks on this using the tiles. Portheim was fairly quickly built up, including a bunch of things like a ruined lighthouse island and some boats to go in the water. The porblem was that it worked fine for a 4' table, but I never got more polystyrene to expand it out to larger sizes. Then Bunnings started stocking the stuff. Then an idea we'd had at HGC about a modular town table came back to light, and things sort of happened. So Portheim is on the go again, and during January I'll be posting TFH ishoos on various aspects, like making the tiles, building ships and other stuff.
Of course, I have to post the People's Choice Necrotite Rig first. So I'll just go and finish that shall I?
There are also some comissions which will need to be worked on while Portheim stuff dries, so I'm not really expecting more than one ishoo a week. Especially since GeekFest is next week.

Pretty Pictures of Burkittheim.

Recently, I was commissioned to build $400 worth of Mordheim terrain for a sinister man from Sydney (ie: Mr. Alex Burkitt of the Infernal Muppets, a group of sinister sydneysiders who throw dice at one another on a regular basis. That or play Warhammer. I'm not sure.) 

And now, for your delectation are the photos I took of Burkittheim before shipping it. I was going to take more, but my camera batteries went flat, and I forgot to take more once I had recharged. In the immortal commodore-rear-window decorating words of Ned Kelly, Such is Life.
(note that I did not resize these before posting, so they are at the original camera file size, which is pretty chunky.)

Ah, beautiful downtown Burkittheim.

Which can be viewed from a range of angles and directions.

Such as this one.

Ruined building No.... er... I think this is No. 4? There were numbers...

The mighty carriage factory of Herr K. G. Benz & Sons. Also possibly known as Ruin No. 4.

The side of Burkitt Bros, dealers in finest reconditioned arms and armour.

And here we see the side of the house of ill repute. Which is most ill-y reputable.

The strange sort of tower-and-grave yard might of Ruin 5. This is definitely ruin 5.

This is ruin 3. I'm almost certain of that. It has an interior. Because such things are good, or so I am told.

Ruin 3 connected to one of the corners with a bridge of great sturdiness. Note also the ladder.

Yet another view of said ruin.

This is the back of Burkitt Bros.

The Burkittheim Guardhouse, featuring it's mighty round towery-thing. Which would be a wonderful place to deploy a warmachine in WFB, or KoW. Let us hope Herr Burkitt resists the urge to use it thus.

Another view of said guard house, which features EVERY kind of stone technique I use.... apart from one.

But it does have a multi-level interior to make up for missing out on one stone technique.

Ah, Burkitt Bros, you return to end the article. huzzah!

I can now also reveal what ACTUALLY happened to Mordheim. It was not struck by a twin-tailed comet. It was struck by a single tailed giant mutant space cat with warpstone eyes.

Well, there you are, about a month's worth of Mordheiming it up like a mad mad. I'll be posting the TFH Annual Compometition results on the weekend, so keep and eye out for those too.

TFH Freebie: Mordheim Posters

I'm working on Mordheim commission at the moment, and while waiting for glue to dry, I have been making some posters to stick on the walls of the buildings. So I thought it might be an idea to share some of the posters. Adding this sort of thing really brings an urban setting to life - I always employ shop signs as well as posters when I'm making something urban.
These posters are 180dpi for better print quality without excessive file size. I always use Inkscape to design them, often with the help of a good google image search for woodcuts and other medieval imagery.

And while we're here, let me take this opportunity to remind you to enter the TFH annual Terrain Compometition, which ends in a mere ten days! And what can you make in a mere ten days, I hear you cry? Well, why not have a mosey through the blog and find some ideas.

Ishoo Fifty-Wun: Mordheim Corners

Greetings once more hippo fans!

A few years back we looked at how to make your own Mordheim ruins. Well, that ishoo proved to be very popular, and 'mordheim ruins' is now the second most popular search to find this blog (after 'Terrain For Hippos'), so I figured it was time to once more visit Mordheim.

Last time we looked at fairly large ruins which involved complete buildings. This time, we're looking at smaller and more versatile ruins - corners. You can use them individually, or as part of a larger building in a thousand ways. They really are the most useful piece of terrain for mordheim. So, I hear you ask, are they hard to build? Let's find out!

Ishoo Free

And there you have it! It's quick and easy to get a whole batch of ruins done at once, and a set like this easily covers a square foot of table space.

Stay tuned for next ishoo when we tackle the Toll Bridge!