mavfire's underground

Originally posted some pics of these modular dungeons with some of my mini's and more pics of the tiles were requested. Here they are. Hope you enjoy, comments are most welcome.

(Miniature included for scale)

I use either 2" or 1" pink polystyrene on 1/2" plywood for stability. Plywood is cut to 12"x12" gives a nice managable size to work with. Block/stone work is drawn on with ballpoint pen (painstakingly) and all hand created then a good thick black latex paint is applied to the entire thing. Then the walls are drybrushed. The floor tiles are cereal boxes, I cut them in varying strips and then just nip the size tiles I wish, then lay them out and glue them, I work a small spot at a time with watered down elmers (pva) glue. Then they too are dry brushed.

This is the first 9 modules I created. There are more in the works.


This is the "green tile" room, tried for a marbled/glassy look. I hope it worked.


Few more looks at the "green tile" room. You will notice that the outside walls are textured to look like block as well, that is so that I can end passages into them giving a realistic "dead" end to a corridor.








Here is a corner section. I tried to work on getting the torch on the wall to reflect the "glow" onto the wall and floor. Achieved slightly.




This shot is a good representation of the stonework on the "outside" of the tile. I would just butt another tile to it and end a corridor or room.


Here is a cave/collapse section. I went with a brown theme anywhere that bare earth was shown. Again the stone tile floor continues into this area, so that it meshes up well with the other modules.


The stalactites are egg carton (cardboard). Stones are...Stones. I use a hot knife to carve/cut the polystyrene to shape. The cutter runs on two "D" sized batteries and can be bought at most craft stores or online.


This pic is a good shot of the edges "outside" the tiles. I found that if I didnt extend the "stonework" around the corners, it didnt look realistic when two tiles butted up against eachother.


More to come....

Continued...

Here is a pic of a straight corridor with two doors. I rather like the way this one plays. The small alcoves work as either closets (when butted against an outside wall) or as a nice transition when joined with a corridor or room.


The doors are WIP.


I tried to vary the different types of stonework too. That accomplised two things...One I didnt get bored drawing all of those stones, and two it creates a feel of many years of work by different stone masons...




Here is a good shot showing different stonework walls. Also a good shot of the "alcove" doorways.


This one is a cross roads, where two straight corridors could meet, I gave it a unique "earthy" feel. Maybe the dwarves were digging one way, and the humans the other, and when they met up there was a giant skirmish here.






I wanted to show where the walls met up, the square stonework and the fieldstone, as well as where the tiles met earth.


Here is a T section. I collapsed some of the wall and carved the blocks out of polystyrene. To show that the blocks are deep if you look closely at the hole they fell out of there are blocks hinted at there as well. Several floor tiles were chipped when those heavy blocks fell too.


All for now...wife is bugging me to go. I will post more sometime this week, hope you enjoyed and got some inspiration. ta-ta.

Looking very nice, good work!

These are really nice. Great job on the floor where the blocks fell and smashed some tiles, in fact I like the way you've done the floor throughout.
Doing the outside of the modules and the edges of the cave colapse section shows good attention to detail.
Show us a wip of the bottom right module please, it looks interesting....don't be shy now
Any plansfor a "feature" room?

VERY NICE! This is the sort of terrain everyone whose gone crawling through the Underdark envisions. I especially like the transition from natural tunnels to the man-made sections. BEAUTIFULLY MODELED & PAINTED!

Good job, I like the painting on the tiles (first picture).

Thanks for the comments, I will try and do some WIP too as I get going again.

Here are some more.....(sorry some are blurry)

This is the T corridor with the fallen blocks, just more detail....


And from reverse...


A square room.... Not totally finished yet


More of the square room showing wall detail where the masons merged fieldstone with block.


Here is the WIP of the lower right....Hope it is ok for this thread....


A little detail of the "toothpick" grates, and stonework.


This pic looks in from the "outside". I plan on bending some of the portcullis bars and filling the area with a water effect.


This shows good detail of the "channel" I actually got the router out for this one and routed out the trough about 1/4" deep. The black edging is foamcore with one paper edge pulled off and bricks cut into it.


Here is a detail pic of the "pool/fountain", I had to raise it up so that it would fit into and above the floor of another corridor module. I think I will put a statue in the center of it and fill it with water effect.


Another pic of the pool, this time with another modular peice butted up to it.


Here is the stack of plywood for the next 18 modules.


I just realized I have a ton of work left to do.

Thanks for looking, as always comments welcome.

This is a very nice project.

I love the caverns.

The other tiles i like too, but i think they are too "clean". The broken wall is a very nice detail.

Keep up the good work

Thanks, but expand on "too clean"...I know I didnt put in alot of debris, but I didnt want to detract from where models could stand....Plus I have plans to make "filler" if you will, with crates, barrels, junk...

Thanks for looking.

That's looking pretty darn good, I'd say. Sure, you might have a ton of work left to do, but you've done lots as well! Let's hope you will have the energy to proceed, because I would very much like to see the rest done.