Stone Dice Tower with Arches

Just finished this dice tower! Trying to be more deliberate in the planning of models like these, and this time I spent a few minutes online reading about early medieval European architecture, the Romanesque style. Lots of round arches, symmetry and light stone work. There's only so much you can include in a little structure five inches high, but I got the arches into the design on front and back, and added some molding on the edges. For the cobblestone pattern, I used the Green Stuff World Textured Rollers on Sculpey. More pics about how it was made to come.

How I Made It

Started by making the frame / dice chute out of Palight PVC (as usual; see my other blog posts), and joining with Superglue.

Picture below shows the ramp at the bottom. I carved the texture with a gouge. The Ramp is propped up with blue foam. The picture also shows the guide marks I used for the "bumpers" inside the dice chute. 

For the brick texture on the outside walls of the chute: 

I peeled the paper off both sides of foam board, attached the foam to the walls with PVA glue, scored the grooves with a hobby knife, then used a ballpoint pen over the scores to widen them. 

In medieval architecture, the door and window jams often have receding planes (as Wikipedia describes it). The pic below shows how I tried to incorporate that into this design.

I made window sills out of Palight PVC board.

Here are the Vallejo paints used. Stone grey was mixed in with most colors and used as the base of the bricks. 

For the base, I used the paints shown below and made a slight texture by stippling it. 

I red/rust color on top, sills and bottom railing were sponged on to give it a texture. And I added some of that glitter paint, which I think helps make the flat surface of the top more interesting.

I finished it with a spray of Testor's Dullcote varnish, except for the top and cobblestone area, which I gave a gloss varnish. 

Fishing Shack, Part 2

Just as in Part 1 of the Fishing Shack, I used the paper model by Fat Dragon Games as a template for the other sides. In this pic, the front of the house that I made in Part 1 is in upper left. For the other three pieces, the paper templates are spray-mounted onto the PVC board.

This time I decided not to cut holes where the windows and door are. Instead, I left those areas flat and made sure NOT to cut grooves in those spots to represent siding.

I used a tool called The Chopper I to cut the small styrene strips. This helps keep the cut at 90 degrees.

Superglued the strips around the windows and door.

I had kept the windows that had been cut out of the front of the house, which I'm holding in this picture. I used that as a reference for painting a rough reflection on the windows. 

At this point, all I needed to do was the roof.

After a little online research it seemed like a good way to make shingles for a roof is by using thick paper or cardboard. I happened to have a lot of nice thick watercolor paper, so I used that because it will take paint well. I used the paper model again as a guide for size of the rows of shingles, and drew them out onto the paper. 

Using a combination of inks and Vallejo acrylic paints, I stained the paper before I cut out the strips.

The picture below shows the paper model reference, and some of the strips after they had been cut out.

Sometimes I used a card to mask off some shingles while stippling other shingles, to add variety.

Here are the shingles after I glued them onto the roof. I used PVA glue, and then once all of them were on, I went over the top of them again with one layer of the same glue, to keep the paper down.

This picture shows another detail I added -- a step just outside the doors. I made that with PVC board, textured with a rock, and then painted.

This project was fun. I decided to call it a day at this point, although there are other finishing touches I could do at some point: a chimney in the center of the roof, some static grass along the edges, perhaps other fishing-theme items like nets or buoys. But for now I'll leave those options open, because they may change depending on whether I use this in some sort of diorama.

Fishing Shack, Part 1

So far, I only have the front of this building done but it will be a fishing shack suitable for use with 28mm miniatures.

As a template for this building, I used a paper model spray-mounted onto the Palight PVC board. The paper model is Dock Building A in the Ravenfell set of EZ Dungeons by Fat Dragon Games.

Using the template, I cut out the windows and door. When it came time to remove the paper model, I found that it helped to heat it first with a hair dryer. It loosens the glue and makes it easier to peel the paper off. Then I cleaned more of the glue residue off with rubbing alcohol.

Colors shown were mixed for the base coat. I mixed in a light gray for coats over this.

Before painting, I carved grooves for the clapboard siding, using a hobby knife. For the wood grain texture, I scraped the clapboards with rough sandpaper.

I used styrene strips for window casings and door frame, glued on with superglue gel. 

Stippled green colors on along the bottom and other random places to represent algae or moss growing there.

I also gave this a wash, mixing the items shown with some water. 

Textured Rolling Pins from Green Stuff World

I picked up two textured rolling pins from Green Stuff World and tried them out for this post.

The top two pieces in this image were made using the Small Cobblestone roller, and the bottom piece was with the Small Dutch Bricks roller. The material used was Original Sculpey, and I painted them with Vallejo colors.

I also tried pressing the texture onto blue foam. Not as good as Sculpey, but might not be bad if I took my time with the paint job.

I set up this display to see how the bricks would look as a vertical wall. To see how I made the floor, check out my post called Wood Floor Part 2.

Dice Tower With Concealed Tray

Here is another dice tower I made for tabletop gaming. Unlike most dice towers I've seen, this one has a concealed tray.

Side-view:

The tray is where the dice land after they fall through the chute. Here is a front view of the tower, showing the tray, which is screened on three sides. A concealed tray might be useful for Dungeon Masters if they don't use a DM's screen, or others who need to hide their rolls from other players. 

This tower has a cavern-like style, with jagged rocks (made from blue foam) on the sides. The colorful rocks in the front are meant to look like crystals. 

The "chute," shown below is made from Palight PVC board and joined with Superglue. 

I had a better process for making the chute this time. Below is a picture that makes it pretty self-explanatory. I measured out where the "bumpers" go and then drew their placement on the side panels. So when it came time to insert the bumpers into the chute, I had guides. Before, I was just winging it. 

Also, using tape helped a lot. Much easier than trying to use clamps as shown in some of my other blog posts about dice towers. 

The red stuff is Vallejo's Earth Texture product.

Wood Floor, Part 2

For this project, I made a larger piece of wood floor to match the one I made in the last blog post. It is shown on the left in the picture below. 

I wanted them to match, but I did try a few subtle differences:

• I used the screwdriver to taper the edges of almost all of the boards this time rather than just a few random ones (see the other blog post for details). It is fine but I think I like the original a little better without that effect, it seems more realistic. Plus, one negative side-effect of tapering all of them is that the board warped a little -- it's not a big issue because I was able to bend it back, and if I wanted I could just mount it to another board. 
• I made the nail holes in the boards smaller, and I like that better. 
• I made a more regular pattern for the ends of the individual boards, which I like better.