A perfect solution for those who have storage problems Porkins! It never even occurred to me to do something like this. Transporting the glued together buildings are a bit of a pain and your solution makes it a lot easier to do!
-
Welcome to the Heroscapers 2.0 site! We've still got some dust to clear and adjustments to make, including launching a new front page, but we hope you enjoy the improvements to the site. Please post your feedback and any issues you encounter in this thread.
Custom Terrain by Porkins
- Thread starter Porkins
- Start date
I can vouch for their stability.
Agent Minivann is Captain America in Porkins' Living Room.
I don't know, Porkins did take out his own Firestar at the ankles. That's not something someone well adjusted does. For a small fee (and airfare) I can come to NY and evaluate you, Grishnakh. 
I made a tutorial for the Shield Generator when we released it for HoSS, but forgot to mention it here. Re-posting:
The easiest way to build the Shield Generator is to use asphalt tiles from the Marvel set. Alternatively, you could use Road/Castle Walk tiles...or really any tiles you have.
But that's the boring way to have a Shield Generator! Here is the cool way:
Build your own Shield Generator following these instructions:
First cut the base out of mat board or thin cardboard using the template for the base in this file. White mat board is easiest, or you can paint it white.
You can use it as is, or for a cool effect, spray the mat with textured paint, then paint the entire thing baby blue. Lastly, overbrush with white:
Now set your base aside and start on the main disks of the Shield Generator. The most difficult part is finding the material to build it with. The material you choose should be about 1 inch thick. I've tried it with white styrofoam and with the gray foam that is depicted below. Neither worked out great, just OK. You could also do it with the pink/blue closed cell foam, cardboard or foamcore circles stacked up, etc. I used a quart sized paint can for a template to cut out two circles.
First I tried a dull razor knife, which was terrible. Then I tried the serrated kitchen knife depicted. This also was terrible, as you can see from the circle on the left. The picture on the right was a sharper razor knife. I also tried using a saber saw, which actually worked quite well. When I did it with the white styrofoam, I used a hot wire cutter. The cutting method you use will depend on what material you choose. After cutting your two circles, cut them in half.
Because the cut surface didn't turn out very smooth, I covered it with a layer of thin foam. This foam is 1/8" thick and is available at art stores and Walmarts. It comes in a good sized package, is not very expensive and is uber-useful for custom terrain projects.
Next add details to your half-circles. For the sides of the disks, press the paint can into the surface of one of the thin foam sheets and cut out the circle. Scissors are easy for this. Use a smaller circular object to mark a line for the inner circle and cut it out. Cut it in half and attack to the disks. Add strips of foam or cardstock on the outer surface. Add smaller half circles of foam on the outer ends. Cut slots, holes, notches, etc. for access panels or whatever. Tear small chunks of foam out that will look like battle damage later. Hot glue is great for gluing on the foam strips, and white glue works well for the cardstock. Here are some pictures with ideas for the details:
Next, set up your Shield Generator pieces on the base and measure the distance between them (in the background of this picture). Then cut toilet paper tube to length and slice in half.
Add details to the toilet paper tube sections as was done with the disks.
Paint everything black, then overbrush (drybrush liberally) with dark gray. For the base black coat, consider mixing white glue into your paint and a little water. This will help to "seal" the foam and harden it a little. The white glue also tends to fill in small gaps and fill in the pores of the foam, giving you a nice surface.
Drybrush with light gray (for comparison: upper piece has been drybrushed, lower one has not).
Drybrush very lightly around the edges of the details with pure white. This gives a snowy appearance (for comparison: one piece in each picture has not been brushed with white).
For the final assembly, I found it easiest to glue down one piece at a time to the base using hot glue. It also makes the finished product stiffer and stronger if you add a bead of hot glue on the end of the toilet paper tube as well. You just need to place it carefully so that you stick the bottom surfaces of the tube to the base at the same time as you stick the open end to the Shield Generator disk.
All done!
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Porkins again.
Somebody get him for me. Nice job!
Somebody get him for me. Nice job!
Ninja Status
...Something unique
Updated first post with some pictures of a store-flat version of Grish's Baxter Building.
Looks awesome man! Hope you enjoy gaming on it as much as we have!
I started on these things a loooong time ago...I had to get sick to be able to finish them off today! I used the Grishnakh hex templates for the bases, which are cut out of matte board. Then I mashed some air dry clay on top with bits of sand and gravel, along with the dowels, which are from BBQ skewers. Next paint brown, wash dark brown, drybrush with brown mixed with yellow and finally drybrush again with ivory. Lastly I attached the screen (from an old window screen) with short pieces of the wire from a twisty tie and glued on the foliage.
The nice thing about custom terrain is it doesn't have to be that complicated or difficult to do. I always wondered why the community did not embrace it more. (Honestly too many custom figures in my book, not enough stuff for them to run around in. I guess it might have something to do with wether you consider Heroscape a board game, or a miniature skirmish combat game.)
Anyway, this is a nice example of a custom piece that's easy to do and looks great on the battlefield. Nice job Porkins!
Question, did you determine what height the fences are? Just in case a figure wants to step over, or leap over, it. You could easily mark the levels with a sharpie on the poles.
Nice fences, Porkins. I also love the shield generators, they'd be a must for me if I played Star Wars Scape!
I think it has more to do with the fact that a lot of people were drawn to Heroscape because it could be played right out of the box. The game self selects for those of us who failed arts and crafts in kindergarten.
No, I think it's more than just that. I mean, how difficult is it to simply place, or even hot glue, a rock to a piece of terrain. That's much easier to do than creating a playable custom figure. I think play style has more to do with it than simply using the "I can't do arts and crafts" excuse.
Let's not hijack Porkins thread here. Perhaps I'll start a new thread to discuss this issue.
JC McMinis
Well-known member
Very nice fences Pokins +rep
If I did it again, I would move the fenceposts closer to the edge of the outer hex so that it seems like the way is blocked if you put the two together. As it is, it sort of seems like a figure should be able to walk between them. I would also put a third post in the middle, and make the fence and the posts shorter to make them in better scale to the figures. A normal chain link fence would be slightly higher than an average figure...my fences are more like two-story fences.