Interior Decorating

I've been trying to figure out how to go about doing the interior of the buildings I have for Ashvale Crossing. Laura was saying how wallpaper was a big thing during the time period, but I didn't want to go out and buy actual wallpaper to line the buildings with. The images would be too large, for one thing, and I wanted everything to look a little different.

My next idea was to go online, find pictures of wallpaper, tile it and shrink it in a paint program, and then print it all out. This came into the difficulty of getting a color printer hooked up and finding the right styles.

So for weeks, I've done nothing. This past weekend, Laura and I ended up at a crafts store, and I was looking over the scrapbooking paper. And there was some that was perfect! I bought a bunch of different ones and brought them home. Lined them up on the walls, cut out the pieces I needed, made a glue/water solution and pasted them up. Once that was done, I set in the wooden plank floors, and they're looking even better now. Next step is to get them painted so I can add in the second floors for some of them. But still, I'm pleased with how they're coming out. Take a look.

Big as New York and Just as Sophisticated

I have been building terrain for about a month now. Dan and I spent some time trying to figure out what we were going to call the new western city and we finally came to a good name last week: Ashvale Crossing. We'll be using this city as the setting for our Let me show you around the town!



From the outset, we'll need to stable your horse and start heading in. Right now, the stables are the only building I've done an interior for, though I plan to do interiors for all of them eventually. I just need to figure out how I'm going to do it.



To start out, you'll need to find a place to stay. Fortunately the tavern is just around the corner, complete with attached kitchen (sometimes the cook doesn't want people to smell what he's crafting in that place).


Just arriving, surely you'll need to grab a few things from our general store. This is the only building I did not create - props go out to Dan for his addition to Ashvale Crossing. Thanks, buddy!


For those of a religious bend, surely you'll want to know where the church is. The Ashvale graveyard is maintained by the pastor, so it's close at hand. I haven't finished the roof for this building, but it's going to have a steeple on it. Should look pretty slick once it's all done.


Now I'm no fool - certainly there are those who will want to know where the best night hotspots are. Be sure to check out the saloon, but be careful - the liquor's watered down and the girls may not all be clean.


Don't run afoul of the law, though, or they'll book you, at least for the night. Do something bad enough and you'll be sent out to visit our gallows. They're pretty strict around here.



We've got a clock tower too, though the clock is currently under construction. Just imagine a massive clock on the top of this one.


Even got some fresh water available to all.



And finally, we've got a couple of small houses, ready for purchase if you'd like to move in. We'll even throw in a good cleaning, no charge. Believe me, you won't find a better deal inside city limits.

So why not take a look around the town - see if there's anything you like.

Next Addition

Since I started putting together all the buildings for games, I've wanted to create a water well to put in the center of town. Maybe it's for the treasure hunts where there's some treasure buried deep in the well, or it's a source of pure, unpoisoned water that the Guild needs to protect from the attacking Neverborn, or something like that. Regardless, I think I'm ready to put together a water well. It'll join the gallows and the cemetary as a smaller, non-building piece of terrain that can spice things up a little.



I think I'm going to go with wooden sides for the thing. Mostly because those are the materials I currently have available.

Another Terrain Idea

So I came home from Pennsylvania and naturally had to start on a new project for terrain. Wire plus clay equals a tree, evidently. I went on to Wyrd Miniature's website (they make Malifaux) and found a guide to making your own tree. I didn't follow it step-by-step (mostly because that would bore me) and decided to see how I could make my own tree using what they said as guidelines rather than actual rules. Twisting wire for the tree, and then adding smaller gauge wire for different parts where branches come off, I set up a pretty sparse tree. I wanted one that looked pretty much dead - very little life to it. A few dead branches, but not much. Mostly just an evil looking massive piece of terrain.

Here I am at the first major break in the project. I need to wait for the clay to dry. I had a bunch of air-drying clay at my disposal, so that's what I used. It will probably take a few days to dry out. It's not going to be the best project I've done, but I'm sure I'll learn a bit from it. For example, following a lot of what they say makes a massive tree! For scale, I added Anya (of Anya and Holt) to one of the pictures.

Just a Couple Pictures

Dan and I got a quick game of Malifaux in last night. I intended to take more pictures throughout the game, but then got distracted by a very tight match. Neither Dan nor I were able to achieve our objective, and it came down to the secondary objectives that we both achieved. I got four points for them: two for kidnapping his Master and two for announcing Bodyguard and keeping Lilith alive to the end (she was pretty much all I had left at the end). Dan got four points: one for hiding Breakthrough and one for hiding his claiming of another building on my side of the map. For the second game in a row, the game extended to turn 8 for us with two flips of a face card. This time, I was losing at the end of turn 6, but a well-timed Earthquake pulled his models off his objective for turn 7 and 8 and kept me as the victor.

Ambitious?

I think I want to build one of these.





First step: find a picture that actually works, and design the full scope. Can you imagine it? Models running up and down conveyor belts, jumping from one spot to another, fighting on all levels? Now that would be awesome...

A Couple More Buildings

I'm on the way out the door in a minute or two, so I don't have much time to say anything right now. Yesterday, Dan and Ryan came over to build some terrain (with Brian and Ben coming over for a little too) for our western town. I was able to finish off the tavern I was crafting, and build up the stables I was hoping to get done this weekend. I want to make one or two more smaller buildings, then move on to things like wells and other smaller touches. I'll start building the interiors at that point, and we'll have a full-on city set to go.

Here are the two new buildings:





The tavern (with an attached kitchen)...

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...and the stables (it will have three stalls for horses, aligned with the three windows on the front there.

My New Hobby

I don't like to paint models. I tried it back in the day when I was in high school on my Britonian army, but was heavily criticized for my attempts, and the memory stuck with me. I've never felt like I wanted to paint since then. I love the idea of a fully painted army, but it's never been a part of the hobby I ever really wanted to try again. Generally I seek out others who enjoy painting more and see if I can enlist their help in painting my armies. Early in my Warmachine lifetime, Jay painted a lot of what I had. More recently, Chris has done a significant amount of painting for me, nearly finishing off my Cygnar army and working on my Legion beasts. My fiance also loves to paint and has been working on my Legion troops and was generous enough to paint my entire Dindrenzi army as well as almost all of my Warmachine terrain.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. I was listening to a podcast, the d6 Generation (which, if you don't listen to and like gaming, I strongly recommend you start), and one of the hosts gave a quick audio tutorial on how to create wild west style buildings. I figured it sounded fun and I should give it a try. I think I'm much more interested in building things than I am in painting already made things.

Here are my first attempts. I've already learned a lot in the six days I've been building terrain. So far I have three buildings crafted, one in the process of, and a gallows set up. Not too bad for a newbie, I figure. Not great work, but passable, and a lot of fun to do. Take a look for yourself.









This is the first building I put together. I didn't really have a concept for what it was going to be. I assume perhaps a post office, or maybe a school house. Haven't really decided yet. Once I finished that one, though, I thought I should try something bigger.





Pretty sweet. I really like the balcony. A 30mm model will fit on it pretty easily. I figure this will be a good saloon. After that, I pulled together the scraps of materials I had left and built another building.



I have no idea what it is. But there it is. Finally, I decided I wanted to make a gallows to put somewhere in the square.



I'm not too happy with the brace around the top. It's pretty tall - almost as tall as a two-story building. So I think I'll have to cut it off and get some smaller materials to make something more appropriate. That'll be a project for the weekend, perhaps.