Trivia Knight's Makes and Paints

[Trivia Knight]

Salutations, Scapers!

My name is Jack, although most of you know me as Trivia Knight. I’ve been playing since October of 2021 and am currently living in Greensboro, North Carolina with my buddy @MQ23. Although I love Heroscape as a game, my favorite thing to do is create things. I’ve grown up in the garage building Halloween costumes and weekend projects with my dad and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve leaned even more into my proclivity for DIY.

One of my favorite things about the Heroscape scene is that we are small enough that everyone can find their niche way to contribute. I’m proud to say that my contributions come in the form of prize support for not only our local tournament, Carolina Order Marker (which you should absolutely come to if you are on the lower east coast) but also Scapecon.

After lurking on here for a while, I’ve decided it’s time to share my creations. This thread is my attempt at cataloging and curating my projects for everyone to enjoy. My aim with this thread is not just to share my creations, but also encourage other creative scapers to try their hand at using their talents to enhance the game and community that we all hold so dear.

I look forward to hearing your feedback on my work.

-Jack

Gallery


Minions of Rock

Spoiler Alert!

This is probably my favorite project I've completed to date.
Fun fact: Minions are my favorite classic unit. The feeling of rolling three skulls from height, looking at your opponent and saying ""six wounds"" is so badass. I wanted to create a variant that would match this feeling of badassery so I created the Minions of Rock. The colors were chosen to match the red skin of normal minions so they all look nice on the board. In total, I created 4 sets of these guys; one for myself, and 3 squads that were given out as prizes at Scapecon 3. They are now in the hands of Dragonruler, Scared Cultist, and Loki where they have seen quite a bit of play. Personally, I think they hit harder than normal Minions, but I have no proof to back this claim.

Morgoloth

Spoiler Alert!

What's scarier than seeing your opponent's Morgoloth in their start zone? Seeing your opponent's Morgoloth in YOUR start zone.
I left Scapecon 3 with a wonderful custom Morgoloth painted by MasterRoshi complete with a snowy cliff for him to brood from. I decided to play acolytes and Morgo in the VC Delta General Wars tournament on the final day of Scapecon and I have never had more fun playing another army. Since then, I have played Acolytes and Morgoloth in 6 tournaments and I can say confidently that they are my favorite VC army. In my opinion, Morgo's original pallette reads more "ghostly" than "demonic" so I decided to go with a fire theme for my figure. Kudos to Xiegfried for the primed Morgoloth that eventually became the beauty you see above.

Lava Mezzos

Spoiler Alert!

Similarly to Morgoloth, Mezzos remind me of the bad guy in Men in Black instead of demons. To remedy this, I decided to go with a matching lava pallette to match Morgoloth. I like to imagine that their tridents shoot fire beams when they attack from range. The bases on the Mezzos and Morgo are printed with the lava texture and then painted to bring out the details.

Party Agents

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I spent my prize money from Carolina Order Marker 2 on some super bright neon airbrush paint from Army painter and I was itching to use it on something. Luckily, I have like 3 sets of Krav. You might argue that you want your Krav to "bLeNd iN" but I say why not make an annoying unit even more annoying to look at?

Redscales

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I think Greenscales roll better then they match their Lizard king. I painted these dudes recently to match Zelrig although they came out a little more orange than I would have liked. I think some more wash might bring the color down but there's a chance I go back and redo the base coat to get them a little closer in color to Mr. Z-bomb himself.

Whitescales

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Speaking of matching, Whitescales DEFINITELY roll better than Greenscales when paired with Nilf. My proof? I won a MARS tournament with these guys in 2022. No I will not hear your objections and you cannot change my mind on this.

Acolytes

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Why are VC units so expensive?
I did not feel like going on a wild goose chase for a single figure from an obscure dnd bad guys set so I ordered these guys from Trexy3D who deserves a huge shout out for his excellent work. Check him out here (https://www.trexy3d.com/)
I didn't like that the tall dark haired figure had a black cape when the other two are were primarily in red, so I gave him a red cape instead and I think it works much better.

Pink Rats

Spoiler Alert!

How can I make the most annoying unit in the game more annoying? PAINT THEM BRIGHT PINK OF COURSE.
Rats **** people off so I thought I'd just go the extra mile and make them more obnoxious. I swear this makes people attack them more than they would otherwise which is exactly what any rats player wants.

Marked Dice Trays

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Made a few of these laser marked dice trays to award as prizes. Pretty simple concept but super easy to execute if you have the equipment. I go use the laser cutter at my local makerspace to do my laser work.

Heroscape Card Box

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I got this idea when I saw VideoSayge's magic cube at Scapecon. I don't have a full collection myself but I thought getting a full set of cards would be a good step in that direction. I had all the vc and classic cards printed and sleeved. Then I used a Magic box to store them after I used my laser marker to etch the heroscape logo on the lid.

Metal Order Markers

Spoiler Alert!

I've always thought that metal OMs would be dope but there were a few obstacles I had to overcome to make them.

First of all, I had to learn how to work with silicone molds and pewter. I 3D printed the order marker design as well as air channels and a button to pour into. Then I created a silicon mold from these prints and started experimenting with pouring pewter. It took about 20 pours and remelts to give me 4 usable OMs but at least it was fun to do.

The second issue is the porosity (the bubbles that get trapped between the metal and the mold which leaves the surface pocked with craters.) As you know, OMs need to be indistinguishable from one another from the back and this makes them all quite identifiable. The solution was to separate the number itself from the OM by making 3D printed inserts that fit into a cavity on the front. If you think your opponent is studying your OMs to get an advantage, you can simply shuffle the numbers around. This discourages your opponent from memorizing the deformities in your OMs since they could be different next turn. Admittedly, this can be a bit cumbersome to do during a game, but it's a decent enough solution.

Caroline Order Markers

Spoiler Alert!

Picture coming soon

Our tournament in Durham NC is called Carolina Order Marker because you get a free comemorative OM just for participating! ""B-b-but Trivia Knight,"" you say "" Don't you need FOUR order markers to play?""
""Oh gee"" I say ""I guess you gotta come to four tournaments, then""

These OMs have the name of the tournament and the date etched into the bottom and the same insert design I used in the pewter OMs. If you win, you get a set of golden inserts to flex on normies with boring blue inserts.

COM Trophy

Spoiler Alert!

Sticking with the Order Markers theme, the trophy for the first two tournaments are giant OMs. I printed them in reflective gold filament and added automotive wheel balancing weights to give the trophy some heft. I also used the laser cutter to create the front plate and the "1st" lettering on the front. Moving forward, the golden inserts will be the trophy because in retrospect, making one of these every month is way too much lol.

Bluesamu

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I thought Isamu would look cool if he looked like Sub Zero from Mortal Kombat. I call him "Bluesamu" but he is also known as "Ice-amu" and Isa-blue"

Dice Tower

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One of my favorite parts of the tournament experience is seeing everyone's dice towers and rolling trays. It's a wonderful way to express yourself and enhance the play experience. I found an Etsy file of a castle style dice tower that could be made on a laser cutter but I wanted to make some modifications. I added the cobble texture to the sides and designed stained glass windows made with colored acrylic and a 3d printed frame. I also added grass (felt) and a koi pond in the "courtyard of the castle. My final touch was to add small LEDs in the base so the castle lights up from the inside and makes the windows shine.

Protectors

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This project was early in my painting career. Here are several squads of Protectors painted by me.

Dividers

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Dividers are a great example of Heroscape units being designed to be easy to paint. Basically every Marro is just a flesh tone with a red wash although there is a sweet spot you need to hit with the wash. Too little, they look flat. Too much, they look sunburnt.

Granites

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ROCKS

Face Dice

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Yeah...uh.... I wanted to try making some dice and I didn't have any better ideas so I made these. I'm sorry.

Map Rack

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Taking a page from .org (Chris Perkins) himself, I created a rack to carry up to 4 maps on pegboards. the next version of this I make will likely use aluminum L channel instead of 2x4s to reduce weight and add more slots.