It's only been a week since my last painting blog - something's gone wrong with the world!

I have more scenery to blog about, this time some scenery from Crooked Dice.

Below are some pillars they produce that come in 3 sets of 2 pieces each. They're pretty standard looking and thus, were painted as pretty standard stone which led to a quick turnaround.

Crooked Dice also produce a 'monolith set' which have a weird fantasy theme and can double as unsettling looking pillars.
There's obviously more detail here which consequently took longer to complete but I'm happy with the outcome and look forward to making players feel apprehensive when they encounter them.

Finally, here are a pair of 'dungeon arches', also from Crooked dice.

They're pretty standard arches, fairly nondescript and could be used as arches for almost anything.
They're also a standard stone colour which were quick and easy to paint.
They felt a little wobbly when being handled so I based them to improve stability. I'm not sure it was the right decision since it'll now make them harder to store.

I do also have one small criticism though -  which is the gap between the 2 pillars on the arch is not quite 50mm or just wider. Yes, it's a minor grumble but not being able to slide a 50mm based figure through one of the arches niggles me a little bit.

That's it for now.
​Hopefully I'll be back with painted stuff to blog about soon.

It's been more than 6 months - so it's time for another painting blog! This time about terrain, dungeon tiles specifically.

Here are dungeon tiles from Modular Realms, a small British business that have been painted.

What's so special about them? Well, the tiles are magnetic and snap together in an incredibly satisfying way!
More than that - they can be rotated, turned and twisted in pretty any way desired and will still snap together in a way that seems to taunt the laws of magnetism.
However, when you play with the tiles for a little bit, you'll discover this is achieved by having magnets on spinners inside the tiles which will correctly align as needed.
It's clever stuff.

​Painting them was a little bit more of a mission than I expected due to using having to also use a black ink wash (As well as a normal black wash.) to emphasise the gaps between flagstone but ultimately I'm happy with the results.
I also used the 'sponge method' as espoused by Annabelle, owner of Modular Realms for highlighting instead of the usual dry brushing. It was something I'd not done before and was a bit stressful but as stated above I'm happy with the results.

One of the other great things about Modular Terrain is that it's double-sided!
There are various different combinations of terrain that are available (When not out of stock!) and I bought the flagstone/wood combo.
Conversely to the flagstone side, the wooden sides were dry brushed.

There are also a number of double sided cobblestone styled tiles which can be used as... well cobblestones or walls.

The two rooms below were put together in literally seconds and wont easily come apart.
​Fantastic!

​If you look at the Modular Realms website, you'll see a lot of interesting ways to use the tiles.
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Finally, it all comes wrapped up in a neat package that uses - wait for it... magnets to hold it closed (Magnets FTW!).

I think personally I might have preferred more 2x2 tiles than 3x3 as I've found a lot of dungeon maps use double-width corridors between rooms and they'd have found use there.
And while I understand why the cobblestone tiles are the size they are to retaining size  compatibility, I'm 50/50 about using them as walls because they're a bit too tall for my preference.

These are minor quibbles though and overall if you don't mind a little effort to paint them (And I didn't.) they're worth considering, I think these are excellent and I'm looking forward to using them (Which hopefully will be soon!).

Finally, I'll add that I backed a recent kickstarter which adds differently shaped and themed tiles as well as dressing to the mix.