Sunday 20 November 2016

Let it Snow...

Introduction

Earlier this year, I completed some stepped pyramids as scenery for my games.  So far, they've been used exactly once in an arid setting (Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Venus), but hopefully that will change soon.

Even at the time I made them, I intended the pyramids to be used in multiple different types of terrain, such as in frozen wastelands and steaming jungles.  However, the bare masonry wouldn't look quite right anywhere other than a desert, would it?


Snowdrifts


Fortunately, I still had a large number of offcuts of the blue polystyrene from when the pyramids were built.  Even better, the edges of these scraps were already cut to the same angle as the sloping sides of the models.



It was a simple matter to take my hot wire cutter to the fragments of polystyrene and sculpt them into irregular shapes.  I cut the ends on some of them square so that they could fit against the staircases; the remainder were rounded off all along their lengths.



Once the pieces were cut to size, they were painted white, with a little fine sand added to the paint for texture.  This took rather longer than cutting the pieces out, as I needed several coats of paint and had to wait for each one to dry before applying the next.  Still, it wasn't exactly an onerous task!


Conclusion

Although I haven't used them in a game yet, I think these add-ons should hold in position fairly well.  They are very light, but there's still quite a lot of friction between them and the main building so I don't think they'll be knocked out of position too easily.

The white drifts will allow me to use the pyramids in a snow-and-ice setting.  I'm wondering now if I could do something in this line for jungle?  I could use similar offcuts and paint them brown, then cover them with vegetation.  To look effective, I suspect that such jungle "drifts" would need rather more effort than the piles of snow, but maybe it could work...

20 comments:

  1. Great idea, they look wonderful.

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    1. Thanks, Michael. Easy and cheap, but it seems to work!

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  2. Terrific idea, simple but oh so effective :-)

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    1. Thanks. It's surprising how many of these "drifts" are needed to cover the 3 pyramids. Even now I think I might need a few more...

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  3. Very good use of offcuts for some variation

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    1. I'm so glad that I hadn't simply binned the offcuts :-) .

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  4. Clever. You could make some covered in Sand as well for any desert adventures, to make it look like the wind has just uncovered them.

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    1. Yes, sand drifts had occurred to me as well. They should also be extremely simple to make.

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  5. That is very clever- I'd be tempted to try some very small blobs of blu tack to keep them in place.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

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    1. I don't think that anything adhesive will be necessary, but we'll see when I get around to using these in a real game for the first time.

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  6. Nice add-ons C6 they certainly look the part.

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    1. Thanks, dGG! I'm sure that real snow wouldn't lie in exactly these patterns, but that doesn't really matter, does it :-) ?

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  7. Excellent work! They look effective and you've multiplied the possibilities for the terrain pieces.

    Some internet searches will show that jungle pyramids tend to develop a shallow green covering on their horizontal surfaces - though of course the sample is limited to known pyramids.
    Lost pyramids could be as overgrown as you desire.

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    1. I'm having visions of lost structures covered with jungle vines and other vegetation, but I'm not sure how that could be achieved. Hmm, thinking...

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  8. Excellent idea! Being of a frugal nature, I like to see off-cuts used up.

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    1. I'm right with you on that, Edwin! Mind you, sometimes offcuts really are too small or misshaped to be of any use. Not this time!

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  9. Very good idea and looks rather effective.

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    1. Thanks, Simon. For a relatively small amount of time, I'm quite pleased with the result!

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  10. The overall effect is excellent imho and a great use of thoes off-cuts. A quick and fairly easy 'conversion !

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    1. Thanks, Joe! Sometimes the simplest projects are the most effective.

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