This will be my first Malifaux/Frostgrave crossover terrain piece.
Supplies Suggested:
Small lid -- the lids from mini cups are perfect. Diamond
sells a bagof 50 cups with lids are the greatest for various projects. If you can’t find a bag of mini cups, the
local take-out or salad bar has them.
Order a salad with dressing on the side and you will have what you need
after a healthy lunch! (Make sure you wash the cup and lid well if repurposing)
Wax paper -- Protects
your work surface and allows your glue to dry evenly. I like the results much better than
newspaper, but reusing the flyers they endless stuff in your mailbox are an ok
substitute.
Small stones – I bought a bag of gravel from the local
hardware store. The gravel is various
sizes, but for this project I pick out stones that are big enough to fit 3-4 onto
a penny. This creates a scale where it
seems feasible the stones were hand carried to site and manually
assembled. This well is going to look
ancient, but can also be used in settings where it looks like the denizens did
the best they could with the material at hand.
Wood Glue – Flexible and strong. A little more expensive than White glue, but
a bit cheaper than Hot glue and I prefer than either when it comes to gravel.
Paint -- I am
picturing this being used for Frostgrave mostly, so I imagine grey stone. Inexpensive, Craft acrylic paints in Black,
White and Grey.
Spackle – This is the mortar. Get a tub of spackling paste from your
hardware store, you will use a lot of it in your coming terrain projects (great
for hills, cliffs, cabins, water features and basing, too!)
1. Find a lid that is slightly smaller than you
want your finished product. Cut a piece
of wax paper that will be slightly larger than your finished product. Place the lid centered on the wax paper, with
the inside facing up. The lid is not
only going to serve as the guide for your well’s circumference, but it
also holds your “water”.
2.
Squeeze your glue (I recommend wood glue over
the other options) onto the wax paper around the outer edge of the lid. This glue will not only connect the stones,
but it will also bond the stones to the lids.
3.
Start placing your stones around the base, flush
against the outside of the lid and to one another. Do not worry about spacing them, there will
be enough gaps and space due to irregular shape and roundness of the
gravel. I create an irregular base,
randomly alternating between large and medium –sized gravel
pieces. You can create a more
uniformed look by just using medium -, or even two small, –sized gravel pieces deep, but
I like the irregular profile and it allows the second and third level of stones
to settle in interesting ways.
4.
Once you get the initial base surrounded with
gravel so it looks how you want it, let the glue set.
5.
Now comes the fun part….. Well, fun in a
fiddly I-hate-gravity way. The second level is you finding the stones
that naturally settle into the gaps created by the base layer of stones. It doesn’t have to be perfect because you are
adding the “mortar” later to fill gaps and smooth the outer and inner
profile. The second and third level are
your chance to create your well’s personality.
Will the stones be of uniform size, shape, and spacing, or are some
going jut out, tilt, or even be missing in places? It all depends on the story you want the well
to tell. I went for the middle
ground. Most of my stones are the same
size, but some stick out more than others and some are rounded and others have
sharp points. I want the look that the
builders had to use available material which might not have been ideal, but it
was still useful and had a lasting result. I also wanted to give the impression that the
stonework was starting to shift from over the centuries so I allowed my pieces
to sometimes move how gravity wanted them to settle. I suggest letting each level settle and for
the glue to set before going to the next level.
This is the project that will take a few days, but each day is only 30
minutes or so of gluing.
This is what my well looks like after the final level. I went with 3 levels. For 28-32 mm scale, I think anything higher
seems impractical from the fluff of citizens getting water and also from a
terrain perspective of giving cover, but not blocking LOS.
Next entry will discuss the addition of mortar and paint.
Let me know if I skipped anything, you have any questions,
or was unclear about a step.
Have fun building your miniature world!
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