Frank Branham: Craft 301 - Descent Road to Legend - Kitty Puke

One of the puzzles I've been trying to work out is how to make a Hirst Arts-style outdoor tile set to match the dungeon tile set. I've worked out the basic techniques.

Sadly, Bruce Hirst doesn't make anything useable for outdoor tiles. After looking over lots of the miniature stuff on the web, I've found the base structure and techniques for outdoors tiles.


In part one, I'm just going to go over the basic landscaping part. I'm still building my set, and haven't worked out all of the details yet. The pics are pretty much the current stage of the project, and do not cover all of the tiles.

I'm basing my set on 1/4" thick cork tile. I based my main set on it, and the extra bit of thickness will help the water elements look a little deeper.

I've been mostly playing with techniques ripped from model railroad sources. This pic shows my first two tile attempts:



These were made with stuff called Sculptamold. It consists of plant cellulose mixed with a bit of plaster. There is similar stuff you can buy called Celluclay. The interesting thing is, it mixes to a fairly stiff, goopy mixture that you can spread to anything almost like frosting a cake with particularly lumpy batter.

Sculptamold is fairly smooth, is supposed to set in 30 minutes, and dry in about 24 hours. I'm pretty sure this is a lie. In my tests, it set in about 6 hours, and took over a week to fully dry. I believe that this is because I'm trying to do a 1/4" layer....and general use is 1/8" or less. I'm also mixing in some paint to color it, which is a common use--but does slow drying time.

The final substance is surprisingly sturdy, and very light. The other big problem with Sculptmold is that it shrinks. It is impossible to see in this pic, but there are a few cracks, and the tile was warped by the substance.

That's when I discovered....Kitty Puke.



Yeah.....That's pretty stuff. I was going to refer to this as Baby Vomit, but one of our cats kindly provided a sample that looked EXACTLY like this. Officially, this substance is called "Ground Goop". Recipes vary, but this one is composed of:

1 Cup Interior Latex Paint
1 Cup Sculptamold
1 Cup Perlite
3/4 Cup Elmer's Glue-all (Not School Glue. Never use School Glue)
1 "capful" of Lysol

The two commonly replaced items are sand or fine vermiculite for the Perlite, and Celluclay instead of the Sculptamold.

Don't make more than this at once, as you only have an hour or so of working time. I was able to do the entire tile set with about 2.5 batches.

(Notice also that I am making two copies of the starting tile. One is the normal starting tile, and the second will be a replacement tile containing the ambush campsite. I couldn't work out a good way to make an overlay that sat on top of the starting tile....)

The formula is credit to Lou Sassi, who wrote a lot of articles on terrain for various model railroad magazines. It is nice stuff, doesn't shrink that much, coloring goes all the way through, it is rather lightweight, and has a nice plastic flexibility after setting that makes it easy to cut and carve.

Perlite is a potting soil additive that is use to add texture. The traditional recipe asks for fine (1-2mm paritcle size) vermiculite. Apparently, that is getting hard to find, so people are drifting toward other substances.

The Lysol is mostly to help prevent mold formation from the paper mache (and the vermiculite). It does give the kitty puke that funky hospital sterile smell covered over with a fresh pine scent. Perlite is a sterile silica-based lumpy sand substance.

For the Perlite, I'm doing some sifting and crushing out the larger particles. You might be able to use gritty play sand.

For paint, you may wish to choose a color slightly darker than your desired color. The Elmer's and Sculptamold are bright white and will lighten it. In my case, I am fixing this with a paint wash, which gives the ground slightly more texture.

Kitty puke works quite well for this application. It is slower to work with than plaster. You have about an hour or two before it sets, and you really should leave it to dry for about 2-3 days. In the Georgia humidity, I'm finding that the surface is dry after 2 days, but the material fully hardens after about 5 days.



To apply, grab a plastic spoon or knife and smear over your tiles. I'm going 1/4" thick. It is actually hard to spread this stuff thinner, as it is gritty. Make sure you cover the edge of the tiles well, and just let the goop fall over the edges of the cork. A Dremel cut-off wheel slices through this stuff pretty well, and the extra goop will help keep the top surface of the tile a (mostly) uniform height.

To make lines, you mostly just need a texturing tool. I'm using a funky thing I found at Home Depot designed for making copies of contours. A bit of wood or cardboard and a few tiny nails or pins spaced at one inch intervals would to the same thing. Make your line tool at least 6 inches wide. Having pins on the edges will help you keep the lines reasonably straight.




To use, just drag it through the muck on the tiles. You'll make a mess. I have a set of dental tools I use for sculpting that I use to reinforce the lines, clean them up, and fix the really obvious tears. You'll need to smooth the edges back down just a little bit.

Before the kitty puke sets. You might want to add decor. I grabbed some twigs and small stones and shoved them mostly in the cracks to help reinforce the terrain lines (and cover some of the more ugly holes and tears caused by the line sculpting). I also peppered the entire surface with some very tiny rocks made from model railroad ballast. (Same stuff I glued on my Descent mini bases.) Basically, you are placing these bits into a massive blob of glue. They won't come loose.



Sandi was worried that I probably shouldn't use sticks from the yard because of bugs and microbes that might start eating the cork. I'm using Woodland Scenics Dead Fall which are sterilized. If you do use stuff from the backyard, it might be worth a bit of a soak in rubbing alcohol.

Also notice that in my plan I'm not worrying so much about mud, trees, water. I'll cut cut out anything I don't with a Dremel. The only terrain feature I'm sculpting into the kitty puke is exit trails. I'm basically taking a small sculpting tool and forming a rut in one side of the 1x2 exit tiles. I'm also etching in some wagon track kinds of ruts. During the painting stage, I'm also painting that section of the tile a darker brown to help it stand out. Check the top picture for a shot of a pair of finished exit tiles.

...to be continued.





© 2008 Frank Branham

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Comments:

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Wow… Those look awesome! Will they be done for a test run at the next Gulf Games? Dale Posted by Dale Yu on May 19, 2008 at 07:17 AM | #

Almost edible looking. Almost. While I like the idea of tiles (always) wouldn’t this be easier with a textured terrain mat with a grid? Posted by Mike Siggins on May 24, 2008 at 04:15 PM | #

I’m not sure what you mean by a textured terrain mat with a grid. It would be far easier to just use the tiles that come with the game… I don’t think you could use a generic mat with any sanity. The borders are the most critical terrain feature on most of the outdoor encounter areas, and it would take you a ton of time to set up, and add the extra mud and water spots. These are actually a less work overall than making a Hirst Arts Dungeon set. The entire casting step is gone, and the bulk of the painting is (in my case) a quick darker brown wash. The above base tile making is probably....4 hours work? 30 minutes to cut the cork, 2.5 hours of sculpting (about an hour per batch), and about an hour of trimming with a dremel. Posted by Frank Branham on May 24, 2008 at 05:02 PM | #

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