Dungeon Treasure Piles and Dragon Hoard
Aug 14, 2013 14:50:51 GMT -5
arrakis, monkeywithtacos, and 6 more like this
Post by tauster on Aug 14, 2013 14:50:51 GMT -5
Hi there,
First posting, so I guess I’ll say a few words about myself first…
I’m a roleplayer since 1998 (ADND 2nd edition rules, mostly Forgotten Realms and Spell jammer campaigns) and discovered terrain crafting as a hobby only last year. Trying to find some time for crafting between job and family isn’t always easy, but it’s still easier to sit down for an hour happily crafting away than finding a whole evening where everybody else is from your RPG group is available… Long story short – I found DM Scotty and DMG’s youtube channel a few weeks back and have been hooked ever since. (c:
That being said, let’s start with my latest dungeon terrain project.
DMG’s Treasure Pile tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tehNrqf65tc) inspired me, so I did my own dungeon bling. You’ll find some intermediate steps below, plus the end result.
A word about the pictures: Because the piles are highly reflective, no matter what time of day or which camera setting, the light seems always crappy. I haven’t found a way around it so far.
DIY jewelry pearls and stuff hotglued down:
Whiteglued and goldglittered:
Several intermediate steps in one foto. The one in the middle isn’t painted with black, so you can see the difference: It looks ‘too new’…
It developed quite nicely and I was very satisfied – finally I have some ‘bling for my terrain – however when I placed it in front of my black dragon miniature, one glaring mistake became obvious:
It is too small.
Well each pile tile (did I just say ‘pile tile’?) contains more valuable stuff than any single adventurer without a portable hole or somesuch can probably carry without some serious fatigue issue, and it’s definitely enough for your average goblin king.
But… dragons?
Even all piles taken together look just enough for the starting hoard of a young wyrmling.
No self-respecting dragon would ever sleep on that hoard. Or even sleep below that, like Smaug did:
Yeah baby, now that is some draconic treasure hoard!
So I made one like that. Here is how:
I used some old food boxes for the core of the piles, hotglued polystyrene scraps around them and smoothed it out with papier mâché. The double-layerd cardboard is 40 x 30 cm.
Spaces between the treasure piles were base painted black and in a later step painted with DMG’s sponge stippeling technique.
I primed the piles in different metallic colors (gold, silver, copper and translucent pearl) to avoid having the papier mâché peeking through any gaps between the glitter. It proved unnecessary in the end, so I’ll scrap that step next time. In the picture the pearl color is more reflective than the metallic colors, so it looks like it glows by itself. Weird.
Hot-glue lots of baubles and pearls from DIY jewelry on the piles. I have several kilos of those because I use them for steampunk- and other crafting projects. You can get mixed bags of those cheap on ebay.
Close the door and keep the cat out of the room. Paint the piles with white glue and generously(!) sprinkle them with glitter. Wait until dry, carefully turn the whole thing around and knock the remaining glitter off. Don’t sneeze until all glitter is back in the bottle. Seriously.
…now it starts to looks like what we want in the end:
It still looks too clean, so we’ll have to apply some watered-down black color as DMG did in his tutorial video. One pile is already painted, so you can judge yourself:
…and that is as far as I have taken pictures for now.
I finished the hoard today, but there is one serious problem that I try to solve overnight: Due to the moisture in the papier mâché, the cardboard has bent up on the edges during the drying. I have put a wet paper towel on the backside, left it to soak for half an hour, and put it back on top and weighted it down with some heavy bottles wherever required. I hope that this won’t ruin the piece totally.
Several thoughts:
First, this is not really compatible with the 2.5 terrain style, as the hoard is about 5 cm high. Is is not very fragile, but even so you should take some extra care when storing or transporting the piece.
However since adventures involving scenery like that are usually extremely rare (when was the last time you have played or DM’ed a battle in a dragon’s hoard?), I guess it is well worth the additional hassle.
Second, I made flat tops for better playability, so you can either put some smaller treasure piles on top or place monsters or PC minis there, however you like.
Third, I have intentionally glued some jewelry pieces on that have small holes in them: You can span some small chains between them, and going one step further, have a princess shackled on them. Even without the time-honored princess, chains add much to a battle, allowing players and minions to swing back and forth, have the dragon or the PC wizard animate them and whatnot.
First posting, so I guess I’ll say a few words about myself first…
I’m a roleplayer since 1998 (ADND 2nd edition rules, mostly Forgotten Realms and Spell jammer campaigns) and discovered terrain crafting as a hobby only last year. Trying to find some time for crafting between job and family isn’t always easy, but it’s still easier to sit down for an hour happily crafting away than finding a whole evening where everybody else is from your RPG group is available… Long story short – I found DM Scotty and DMG’s youtube channel a few weeks back and have been hooked ever since. (c:
That being said, let’s start with my latest dungeon terrain project.
DMG’s Treasure Pile tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tehNrqf65tc) inspired me, so I did my own dungeon bling. You’ll find some intermediate steps below, plus the end result.
A word about the pictures: Because the piles are highly reflective, no matter what time of day or which camera setting, the light seems always crappy. I haven’t found a way around it so far.
DIY jewelry pearls and stuff hotglued down:
Whiteglued and goldglittered:
Several intermediate steps in one foto. The one in the middle isn’t painted with black, so you can see the difference: It looks ‘too new’…
It developed quite nicely and I was very satisfied – finally I have some ‘bling for my terrain – however when I placed it in front of my black dragon miniature, one glaring mistake became obvious:
It is too small.
Well each pile tile (did I just say ‘pile tile’?) contains more valuable stuff than any single adventurer without a portable hole or somesuch can probably carry without some serious fatigue issue, and it’s definitely enough for your average goblin king.
But… dragons?
Even all piles taken together look just enough for the starting hoard of a young wyrmling.
No self-respecting dragon would ever sleep on that hoard. Or even sleep below that, like Smaug did:
Yeah baby, now that is some draconic treasure hoard!
So I made one like that. Here is how:
I used some old food boxes for the core of the piles, hotglued polystyrene scraps around them and smoothed it out with papier mâché. The double-layerd cardboard is 40 x 30 cm.
Spaces between the treasure piles were base painted black and in a later step painted with DMG’s sponge stippeling technique.
I primed the piles in different metallic colors (gold, silver, copper and translucent pearl) to avoid having the papier mâché peeking through any gaps between the glitter. It proved unnecessary in the end, so I’ll scrap that step next time. In the picture the pearl color is more reflective than the metallic colors, so it looks like it glows by itself. Weird.
Hot-glue lots of baubles and pearls from DIY jewelry on the piles. I have several kilos of those because I use them for steampunk- and other crafting projects. You can get mixed bags of those cheap on ebay.
Close the door and keep the cat out of the room. Paint the piles with white glue and generously(!) sprinkle them with glitter. Wait until dry, carefully turn the whole thing around and knock the remaining glitter off. Don’t sneeze until all glitter is back in the bottle. Seriously.
…now it starts to looks like what we want in the end:
It still looks too clean, so we’ll have to apply some watered-down black color as DMG did in his tutorial video. One pile is already painted, so you can judge yourself:
…and that is as far as I have taken pictures for now.
I finished the hoard today, but there is one serious problem that I try to solve overnight: Due to the moisture in the papier mâché, the cardboard has bent up on the edges during the drying. I have put a wet paper towel on the backside, left it to soak for half an hour, and put it back on top and weighted it down with some heavy bottles wherever required. I hope that this won’t ruin the piece totally.
Several thoughts:
First, this is not really compatible with the 2.5 terrain style, as the hoard is about 5 cm high. Is is not very fragile, but even so you should take some extra care when storing or transporting the piece.
However since adventures involving scenery like that are usually extremely rare (when was the last time you have played or DM’ed a battle in a dragon’s hoard?), I guess it is well worth the additional hassle.
Second, I made flat tops for better playability, so you can either put some smaller treasure piles on top or place monsters or PC minis there, however you like.
Third, I have intentionally glued some jewelry pieces on that have small holes in them: You can span some small chains between them, and going one step further, have a princess shackled on them. Even without the time-honored princess, chains add much to a battle, allowing players and minions to swing back and forth, have the dragon or the PC wizard animate them and whatnot.
) cat-safe. Btw: You'll see an open treasure chest among the bling, inspired by your video. I had done two chests, one open and one closed, and left them overnight on the craft table so that the black priming can dry. In the morning, shortly after one furry whirlwind rampaged through our rooms, I had only the open chest left - the cat we're talking about 
