"We're gonna need a bigger boat."

Finished the sampan today, it's my first scratchbuilt boat. The execution is a bit bumpy here and there, but I've learned a lot about the process. The next boat will be differently built and look.

For a complete Ghost Archipelago crew two of these boats seems to be necessary, because of the rule that one boat can hold a max. of six figures.

I think the sampan design is generic enough to fit a large variety of settings e. g. Congo, Ghost Archipelago, Pulp, etc.

 

Cabin in the woods

Made from balsa wood, the rooftop is made from artificial fur (painted afterwards). I think the hut is generic enough to use it for Ghost Archipelago, Dracula's America and other wargaming systems I love to play.

Overgrown Cemetery

Not every adventurer comes back alive from his expeditions, so there are scattered small, overgrown cemeteries. Like this one.

All the small things

Sometimes it is the little things that can make a big difference. 

A signpost, that has no meaning for gameplay, but creates more ambience. Six dinosaur eggs that are needed for Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago scenario.
The eggs are cut from Styrodur and sanded with sand paper until the final shape was ok. The signpost is made from balsa wood.

Doc is right, sometimes it's the little things that make a big difference - on the gaming table at least...      

Therefore Michi has to contribute some other small things too:

There are Cybermats for Warlord's "Doctor Who - Into the Time Vortex",

as well as some more barrels to provide powder, rum, wine, beer and cover for pirates, cowboys, moonshiners and soldiers (or anybody else the dedicated reader may imagine...)

Finally Michi has painted a small herd of Oryx antelopes for Congo and the eastern African steppes:

 

Giant Mushrooms

For a long time I had a piece of ground with giant mushrooms in my mind. I wanted something like that in Jules Verne's "Journey to the center of the earth". Now, with Ghost Archipelago, the time had come to get to work.

There are prefabricated mushroom molds, but I wanted to make everything from scratch. The basic shapes I have completely cut from Styrodur, the bottom of the mushroom caps I have hollowed out with a kitchen burner. In order not to let the mushrooms look like from the fairy-tale forest, I decided against the typical red white dotted fly agaric painting, so it would fit better to a jungle.

 

 

 

A small swamp

A small swamp built from scratch. Can be used for the upcoming Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago, Congo or the deep south of Dracula's America.

An old compact disc is used as base. I use tin foil for the basic shape and paint it with variations of green and blue. Fast hardened plaster is used for the outer rims. The two little rocks are cut out of styrodur. After everything was dry I fill in a little bit of liquid resin mixed with a light brown wash. Before the resin was dried, I have sprinkled some spots of dark grass, which becomes lumps.

Generic Swashbuckling

During the vacation I started this small side-project, not to paint and tinker on Wild West stuff only. These are some swashbucklers from Wargames Foundry, laying around on my unpainted pile of shame for many years now. There are many more to paint, but it's a start.

 

If I cannot use them in the upcoming Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago (not sure because of the muskets!), I will use them for own scenarios with the Donnybrook rules I recently bought, which seems very similiar to the dice system of Dracula's America with addition of some nice, a little bit deeper stuff.

Dracula's America: Something wicked this way comes

A  zombie, a vampire fledgling and a lost soul. First weird stuff paintings for the "Unwelcome Guests" table.

Dracula's America: Scratchbuilding a Tipi

To complete my indian skinwalker posse theme, I've built a tipi terrain piece from scratch.

As base I used a good old compact disc. The basic conic shape is bend from cutout cardboard with glued on strips of cleaning rugs. Primed with a thick black coating, drybrushed with different shades of earth colors. The markings on the tipi are inspired by historic photographs.

Dracula's America: Skinwalkers

In an indian skinwalker posse two members can be shapeshifters in wolf or bear form.

The indian models are the Renegades from the Dead Man's Hand range. The wolf is from the Vampire Wars range by Westwind, the werebear is from the Otherworld range.