Post by caveman on May 30, 2013 23:04:43 GMT -5
Here's my smacked-together version of The Wormwood. I was dissatisfied with the results, googled ideas on how to improve my next effort, and thus found DM Scotty's work. (Many thanks from this aging gamer to DM Scotty not only for the excellence of his ideas and of his videos, but also for taking so much time to post it for all of us to enjoy and draw inspiration from.)
I made this model because the Paizo map boards wouldn't lay flat, and the ship tiles set kept coming apart. Mostly though, I wanted to give everyone at the table a better way to understand how to get from point A to B on the Wormwood since they were going to be spending so much time there. All I did was scan the purchased-art, select/copy sections of it in Photoshop, paste them into Illustrator and scale them appropriately, print them, paste them onto foam core board, then cut them out out. I added three layers of foam core board for the stairs so each deck would stack nicely on top of the deck below. It really helped all of us visualize what was happening, especially when the PCs were sneaking around on different decks while Scourge et al were somewhere else.
I learned a lot of lessons just putting this together -- most notably to give myself more than 2 hours before the game started to make the model, and to not cut the mast holes based on the printout, but rather to wait and see how the model's decks actually line up first -- and I'm really looking forward to putting DM Scotty's techniques to use when I go to make the second ship ("Man's Promise") this weekend.
Forecastle and Poop Decks (and all decks stacked up beneath):
Main deck:
Cargo deck:
Lower deck:
Bilge:
A quick animated GIF of a mini running from the fo'castle to the bilges (note that the mini is Groo):
This last pic if off topic but I can't resist. The mini is Groo, but I cannot even remember where I got it or when:
Anyway, it doesn't look pretty but it is an excellent game aid and my first attempt at crafting any kind of dungeon tile.
I made this model because the Paizo map boards wouldn't lay flat, and the ship tiles set kept coming apart. Mostly though, I wanted to give everyone at the table a better way to understand how to get from point A to B on the Wormwood since they were going to be spending so much time there. All I did was scan the purchased-art, select/copy sections of it in Photoshop, paste them into Illustrator and scale them appropriately, print them, paste them onto foam core board, then cut them out out. I added three layers of foam core board for the stairs so each deck would stack nicely on top of the deck below. It really helped all of us visualize what was happening, especially when the PCs were sneaking around on different decks while Scourge et al were somewhere else.
I learned a lot of lessons just putting this together -- most notably to give myself more than 2 hours before the game started to make the model, and to not cut the mast holes based on the printout, but rather to wait and see how the model's decks actually line up first -- and I'm really looking forward to putting DM Scotty's techniques to use when I go to make the second ship ("Man's Promise") this weekend.
Forecastle and Poop Decks (and all decks stacked up beneath):
Main deck:
Cargo deck:
Lower deck:
Bilge:
A quick animated GIF of a mini running from the fo'castle to the bilges (note that the mini is Groo):
This last pic if off topic but I can't resist. The mini is Groo, but I cannot even remember where I got it or when:
Anyway, it doesn't look pretty but it is an excellent game aid and my first attempt at crafting any kind of dungeon tile.