Jandarforever's Custom Terrain--Ruined Stone Building

[Jandarforever]

Hey everyone! After four years of playing Heroscape, I've finally done my very first custom terrain piece. My inspiration to do this came from this awesome and extremely helpful thread by sportcult:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community...ad.php?t=22147
His first tutorial is found on page four and is very well written and easy to understand. I decided to do something basic by starting out with a few boulders. These are very simple and not too terribly special, but I wanted some opinions before I moved on to more elaborate and detailed objects. They are made with green foam and secured to a base made out of popsicle sticks. I'll admit the base is nothing to look at. I couldn't find ANY regular popsicle sticks and had to cut up and use these really weird shaped ones. The result is not the most beautiful thing to look at, but it gets the job done. I apologize in advance if the pictures are not that great. I tried some new lighting techniques that Raudulfr Shieldcrusher suggested, so they should look okay as far as that goes. I don't have a tripod though, so they might be a little blurry.






Here's some shots of the rocks in action on a small board. They are intended to be Line Of Sight blockers and I think they work pretty well, at least with the shorter figures.







With another taller figure







What I'm wanting to know is first, do they look decently painted? Second, did I use a good color for the base? I debated using brown, grey, black, or green and I settled on a really dark grey. I was afraid that the dark color would kind of offset the actual boulders. Was I right? I'm working on more terrain pieces now, and will post more pictures once they're done.

[Yodaking]

It looks like you need to put at least one coat of dry brushing on it. The dark grey base coat is fine, now use a noticably lighter grey for a dry brushing layer.

I would actually suggest two coats of dry brushing. The first one use a medium grey to dry brush over the entire dark grey base coat you already have. Then use a light grey to dry coat along the edges that purtrude out more, while leaving the recessed areas alone.

Dry brushing is very simple to do. use an older bush and dip it lightly into the paint. Then use a paper towel to wipe away the paint you just put on the brush. The brush now has only a very small amount of paint still on it, most of which should be deeper inside the brush hairs. That paint will come off very lightly as you run the dry paint brush over your object for a nice effect.

[Yodaking]

Oh and for rocks I have seen people use different shades of green, blue, peach, etc. when applying a dry brush coat with great success so you don't have to restrict yourself to different shades of grey only. After you get more familiar with the process it is sometimes fun to experiment. If you don't like it you can always just reapply the base coat and start over again.

By the way, nice job on the rocks themselves. They look good.

[Jandarforever]

Thanks Yodaking! I have a question about dry brushing. The tutorial sportcult gave said to first apply the base coat, then rub off some paint onto a paper towel which you would scrub over the subject. I at first thought that I was supposed to put on the second coat with the brush, but I kept filling the crevices in which wasn't supposed to happen. Then I scrubbed on the second coat with the paper towel and I got the desired look. My question is, will dry brushing fill in all the cracks? If it does, then an aspect of detail will be lost. Or do I just try as much as possible to stay away from the cracks when dry brushing?

[Einar's puppy]

That looks great. It reminds me a lot of Grishnak's rocks, except that he used...well...rocks. The base does seem a little dark, but I didn't notice it until your pointed it out.

I'd suggest taking Yodaking's advice with the drybrush. The piece looks awesome, so I'd only assume making looke better would make it great. Drybrushing doesn't fill in any cracks. It does the exact opposite. It makes the higher points stand out.

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by Jandarforever

Thanks Yodaking! I have a question about dry brushing. The tutorial sportcult gave said to first apply the base coat, then rub off some paint onto a paper towel which you would scrub over the subject. I at first thought that I was supposed to put on the second coat with the brush, but I kept filling the crevices in which wasn't supposed to happen. Then I scrubbed on the second coat with the paper towel and I got the desired look. My question is, will dry brushing fill in all the cracks? If it does, then an aspect of detail will be lost. Or do I just try as much as possible to stay away from the cracks when dry brushing?

It sounds like you were not doing it correctly.

First apply your base coat and let it dry. This is usually a darker hued coat of paint as it will represent the shadowed look of your object. So make sure your base coat gets into all the cracks and crevises, unless you have a black primer coat on already, then you can leave some of the deeper cracks and crevises black. Now let that coat dry completely.

The paint you wipe off with a paper towel is the paint on the old brush you will be using to dry brush with. You won't use the paper towel for anything else. You are basically cleaning off the paint brush without using any water, thus the name dry brushing. Now your dry, almost clean brush has a small amount of paint still on it. Rub the dry brush over a surface and the paint remaining on the brush will come off onto the raised portions of your object while leaving the recedded portions alone.

That is the basics and should produce a nice result. Experimenting with the technique can produce a variety of results depending upon colors used, how much paint is left on the brush, and where you chose to dry brush vs. where you chose not to dry brush.

[Jandarforever]

Okay here are the dry brushed boulders.







I hope they're okay. I think I did everything as you said, Yodaking. I might have over done it and dry brushed some receded parts, but hopefully it's not too bad. Gosh, now that I look at these, they don't look too different from the original pics. Again, this might be because of the blurriness. Also, since it's later in the day, the lighting might not be as good.
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[Carnival Man]

Naw, there is definely a difference. To make the texture more pronounced next time you could try a black or dark wash first, then after the wash dries use a white or light drybrush. Nicely done.

[Jandarforever]

Thanks guys for your help! Next time I'll be using a lighter color for the base the pieces sit on, as well as dry brushing after the first two coats are on. I'm currently working on some more rock formations with that green foam, and will be starting another terrain object as soon as I can pick up some pink foam. Can't wait to begin!

[Confred]

To me, there should be two types of customs.
One in which mimics the style of Heroscape
And the other tries to improve it (Including repainting official figures.)

Your rocks remind me of the first style
I do not own the Road to the Forgotten Forest, but looking at that picture, your rocks do closely resemble the smaller rocks next to the tree.
I would suggest trying to get your boulders as close to looking in color as the official.
Secondly, that would mean that your base should be brown.
-
However, the drybrushing pulls the custom to style 2.
I do not have any thoughts yet towards possible improvements - But it does look good.

[Jandarforever]

Originally Posted by Confred

To me, there should be two types of customs.
One in which mimics the style of Heroscape
And the other tries to improve it (Including repainting official figures.)

Your rocks remind me of the first style
I do not own the Road to the Forgotten Forest, but looking at that picture, your rocks do closely resemble the smaller rocks next to the tree.
I would suggest trying to get your boulders as close to looking in color as the official.
Secondly, that would mean that your base should be brown.
-
However, the drybrushing pulls the custom to style 2.
I do not have any thoughts yet towards possible improvements - But it does look good.

Thank you! I actually consider it a compliment to have my stuff look like either one of the styles. Heroscape itself has a great look and feel to it, and if anything is done to improve it, then what can I say? I'd like to put it out there that these boulders are darker in person. The camera really brightens the whole project up and the dry brushing seems to just jump out at you, whereas it's more subtle when you can actually look at it up close.

[Yodaking]

Looks like you did the dry brushing correctly to me. I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.