Reaper's Craft Corner

Reaper Miniatures is such a great company. And their website really reflects that. Not only is the website a great place to buy their great stuff, it is also home to a great community forum for their customers.

They post their own spoilers, and by looking at the Greens link you can see what products are coming long before they appear in the catalog. There is a great wish list feature where you can window shop and keep a running tally of what your metal dreams will cost you when your lottery ticket pays out.

Perhaps best of all, they have a section of their website devoted to helping you learn how to paint, sculpt, build terrain--in essence, how to get the most out of the products you buy from them and therefore the hobby you are addicted to.

The Craft is a treasure trove of articles and tips and I really recommend you check it out: http://www.reapermini.com/TheCraft

The worlds finest miniature terrain...Dwarven Forge

The Miniature Building Authority

The Miniature Building Authority is one of the best sources of pre-painted resin building for your table top gaming needs.

Paper Boats

Hokey Smokes, but this is cool!

SeaWorks: Maiden of the High Seas

This company has amazing pdfs for sale of all sorts of cool game accessories. The PDFs are very inexpensive for the quality. It probably takes a bit of skill and access to a very high quality color laser printer with bright white cardstock, but man, these are nice models.

Check them out!

Resin Boats

Not giving up my quest. I found an excellent site for resin boats.

Shifting Lands has some amazing pieces.

In particular, the Buccaneer Ship is a fantastic piece of modeling and he gives you a complete and detailed history of its creation. He doesn't exactly have a retail operation, however, and when he puts things up on ebay I'm sure they are very expensive...and if they aren't, they should be.

Dwarven Forge

I've been doing postings over at The Severed Head Blog of my Player's miniatures as they proceed through the current module, Doom of Daggerdale.

They actually played all this stuff a year ago, but I'm trying to catch up so that I can record their history in real time with images from the digital camera. One of the rooms in the module is an abandoned dwarven forge, and there just isn't a lot in the way of dungeon dressing to equip such a room. I tried all over town to find something, even looked into a dollhouse fireplace and bellows...but nothing. The closest thing was a plastic representation of an outdoor brick grill I saw at a train shop, but the guy told me that it went for huge bucks because it was only made in the 50's and nobody does anything like it anymore...then he told me a million stories about model trains with a Lord of the Rings theme and I barely escaped with my sanity.

I decided that I would have to make my own out of brown stuff, and I got this toy plastic haystack for 99 cents and cut part of the bottom off for a base. Then I used the bottom part of a dice box and an upsided down metal base from Reaper and started adding on bits of brown stuff rock. I used a match to burn out the hole in the side for the fuel, and discovered that brown stuff both melts and burns.

I probably could have done a better job if I weren't in a hectic hurry, but I'm fairly pleased with the results. I stuck a couple of Reaper shields on it to make it more dwarfy, and then let it harden. I snapped the pics for the blog before painting it, figuring that if they bump into the forge again it will look different that way.

At any rate, my dwarven forge!

About to enter the Dwarven Forge

I've been thinking about it for a long time...and I'm almost ready to take what could end up being an expensive plunge.

One of the things that I most loved about playing D&D when we started back in the 1970's, was the building of 3D dungeons. I used to get core board and balsam wood and we'd construct elaborate 3D mazes that stacked in levels on top of each other.

I always wanted a good, modular 3D dungeon system but nothing good ever came on the market. I tried the DungeonWorks magnetic sets with the black plastic walls. They sucked. The tiny sheet metal base board was only 10x10, the walls never quite fit together well. The magnetic strip kept falling off the wall and door pieces.

The Mage Knight 3D Dungeon would probably work fine for my purposes...but you can't find it anywhere any more. Except on eBay for outrageous sums. It also looks like it might give me some of the same fits that Dungeonworks did.

No...I was going to need something really easy to use that looks extremely real and isn't going to involve me losing even more precious life points to this hobby. That leaves really only three options. Make my own, Hirst Arts, and Dwarven Forge.

All three choices have their up and down sides. In the end, the final decision boils down to deciding which is more valuable...my money or my time?

Time is winning.

When I was down at Reapercon they had a big Hirst Arts dungeon set up, and it was really nice looking. With the dungeon molds you can make anything you want...but you have to make it. You have to cast it, let it dry, build it out of individual bricks, let it dry, and then paint it and...you guessed it...let it dry.

The Dwarven Forge pieces come fully assembled, hand painted, and ready to play...complete with felt bottoms to keep them from scratching any surface you put them on. And...they look fantastic.

Take a look at the Tavern Accessories Set.

Take a look at the Cavern Set.

Take a look at the Cavernous Lake Set.

Take a look at the Cavernous Lake Expansion Set.

Take a look at the Den of Evil Room Set.

They come professionally hand-painted and ready to go in convenient styrofoam storage boxes.

There are a few down sides to them, which is what has taken me so long to take the plunge already. First, of course, they are really expensive.

Second, I hate the bow tie connector pieces and they look crappy without them. Well, crappy is a relative term, these things look fantastic but the divits for the bow ties do spoil the effect a little. I think I can live with it, though.

Did I mention they are expensive?

OK, so the downsides don't really outweight the upsides. Since I've started photographing re-creations of the adventures we're running (as though I were the Matthew Brady of Dungeon Delving) I've really been craving nice looking backgrounds for the photos. Dwarven Forge is the best company to give me those backgrounds, bar none.

I think if I can limit myself to buying one DF set a month, I will have a really nice collection in a very short time. Especially since I'm not going to have a huge set up, only laying down pieces as needed...like in combat situations...and relying on the battle mat for most of the dungeon creation in gaming sessions.

The underground rivers, lakes, and cavern pieces are amazing. So are the above ground building sets and the furniture to go with them. And because they are modular, you can create an infinite number for floor plans for inns and other buildings from them.

For some really interesting variations on the Dwarven Forge line, visit Fantasy Mini. That's the blog in French in my side bar. He is constantly reviewing Dwarven Forge materials and showcasing interesting add ons and repaints.

The best thing, for all of you out there who say you don't like to buy me miniatures related items because you don't know what I already have....multiple sets of Dwarven Forge items are something I plan to buy anyway...so it doesn't matter if I already have a set...I can always use as many as I can get my hands on.

Hint, hint!

Demonic Idol from Otherworld Miniatures

I first saw this miniature on the Fantasy-Mini Blog site listed in my side bar that is in French. From the mail link there I've connected with the person selling them out of the UK. That person is Richard Scott, and he also painted the idol. I'm really impressed by the warm quality of the reflected fire. I won't be able to reproduce it but maybe I can convince my friend Matt at Reaper to paint it for me.

Here is the description of the idol from Richard's store.

"This is the first miniature produced by Otherworld Miniatures. It is a 'Demon Idol', inspired by the iconic cover artwork of the AD&D Players Handbook of the late 1970s. The model was sculpted by the very talented hands of Paul Muller and cast in high quality resin by Model Design Construction. Gemstone eyes are also provided. The model is 80mm tall and supplied unpainted. The 28mm figure shown in the 2nd photo is for scale only, and is not included."



Visit his eBay store to reserve yours today!

Otherworld Miniatures Demonic Idol

Follow the link in the side bar to see the rest of his Dwarven Forge and other dungeon terrain items.

Holy Hole In The Ground!!!

Just discovered, on the back page of the new Dungeon Magazine, Dwarven Forge. They're amazing line of dungeon tiles and terrain pieces are astounding. Expensive, but astounding.

Check them out.

Hirst Arts Fantasy Architecture Inc.

I think I'll give these guys a try as well. More work, but probably greater flexibility at less expense in the long run. And they look compatible with the castle kits stuff.

Actually, they look exactly like the castle kits stuff.

Maybe castle kits is Hirst stuff just pre-made and painted.

Castle Kits are freaking awesome

I haven't been posting much, very busy with the monstrology in the basement and working on a new project for Reaper Miniatures. I'm working on one of their sourcebooks.

Still, I saw an ad in this month's Dragon Magazine and was blown away by the modular dungeon pieces I saw there. When I was in high school we built 3d dungeons with foam core board and balas wood walls. Later I did my own laminated geomorphs--very similar to what WOTC would begin doing as dungeon tiles, but mine are infinitely cooler.

I tried that crappy magnetic dungon thing with the walls and archways. Nothing was close to the ideal modular dungeon I saw in my head...until this month when I saw the ad in Dragon.

Go to their website: Castle Kits and browse.

If you want to get old Shandar something for his birthday, I'd take anything from this website...especially the dungeon sets and accessories section.

Too cool.