I've been lurking on the forums here for the past month or so while I worked on my first project - getting ideas, reading tips and tricks, and generally learning what I could. This weekend I finally got to unveil my work to the guys in my gaming group and I thought I'd share some quick pictures here...









Little backstory on my build...

As many of you will recognize, this is the first level of the Keep on the Shadowfell. Our gaming group just started playing a couple months ago and a couple guys are completely new to D&D and I haven't played since High Shcool! So 4.0 is a great system for us - very user friendly. Much easier than I remember AD&D being!

I liked the look of the mini-chunk dungeon set more than the thin walled sets, but I didn't like that the walls were so tall. It made it very difficult to actually move and see the minis inside, especially if you were sitting instead of standing over the table. So I brushed off my VERY crude Paint Shop Pro skills and "kitbashed" the mini-chunk walls so they were only 1" tall.

Next I wanted a way to do corners easier. After folding about a dozen corners (and realizing I needed about 150 of them to do the entire dungeon...) I wanted a way to do them faster. Hence you see my solution: 1"x1" corners. I eneded up making them just slightly taller than the walls to give it a nice little effect. I was happy with the results.

Most important to me was a way to make the pieces reuseable. I didn't want to have to re-make all these walls every time we did a new dungeon. So what I did was make all the base tiles 1" wider around the edges. I used double sided removable scrapbooking tape to secure the walls to the tiles. So when we're done with this dungeon all the walls, corners, doors, etc... pull right off and all I'll have to do is make new floor tiles for the next dungeon we do and I can reuse all the walls.

All in all the guys really enjoyed the dungeon. One of the guys in the group is fantastic at painting mini's and he made up a mini for everyone in the group. He even made me a "DM" mini - to catch my evil personality for trying to kill the group! I put picutres of all the minis in my photo album here on the Worldworks web site to show off his awesome work.

Thanks to the Worldworks gang for your great products - we had a blast. I've already bought my second set - the Caveworks - so I can start building the cave area of this dungeon for our next gaming session! Thanks to all the guys on the forums too for all the great tips and advice you unknowingly gave me!

Very nice. That's a great first build. Congratulations and welcome to the forums.

I like your solution or the corners. They do look nice. And that's a great idea to use the removable double-sided tape. Do the ground tiles hold up okay when the tape is removed? I have used the permanent tape and it has damaged the tiles when I didn't get it in the right place and needed to move something.

I'm looking forward to more pics.

Luckyjoe

Thanks for the comments!

The tape came off very easily with no damage to either the tiles or the walls. I'll have to take a pic of the tape I used and post it for you - it specifically said "removeable" which is why I used it. It came off easy by just lifting the edge with my cutting knife and pulling it off.

Thanks for sharing Buck! Its great to see your unique take on Minichunk and the 1" high walls seem to do the trick quite well. I'm sure a few people will latch onto that concept and try their own conversions.

Thanks as well for your support and kind words. It really does mean a lot to us.

Very nice. The lower walls are an interesting idea.

What kind of removable tape are you using? I've tried some before and found it had almost no hold. Thats why I switched to removable poster gum.

Here's the tape I used:



Don't get me wrong - this stuff isn't super-glue. It won't take a real beating. But it does have enough hold that you can turn a tile upside down, or bump it during normal game-play and the walls won't move. And the really nice part is the walls come off easily with no damage and the tape peels off the tiles without damage as well.

Biggest drawback I found is it's a little expensive (about $5 a roll) and you go thru it pretty quick. Also it takes a bit of time to tape things down so you definitely want to build your rooms before your gaming session - nothing kills the mood like stopping for 10 minutes while you build a section.

Also posted a few more pics of my build process:

The work area:


Using AutoCAD to design everything:


Here's how I store my walls when they aren't taped down:


A few pics with minis for scale:

ha ha ha! those are the tables from HEROQUEST! rock on.

Yeah one of the guys from our group still has all the old props from Heroquest - tables, bookcases, doors, etc... He's even got a lot of the mini's as well! We've been using the goblins! I'll have to get some pics of them during our next session.

Thanks for the update on the tape. I'll have to pick some of that up. I've used the Scotch permanent tape to hold down ground tiles, now I'll try the removable. I think I'll probably use it to hold down complete rooms or corridors for a place as you play. And thanks for the additional pics on storage.

Luckyjoe

I just noticed that you aren't edging your walls BAD BOY!

Seriously, it makes things look much, much better and doesn't really take very long

Now look closely - SOME are edged and some aren't.

There just wasn't enough time to get them all done before the gaming session but I do plan to keep working on all the pieces until they are all eventually edged. I agree, it does give the pieces a nice touch.

You know, having the corner bits just be 1"x1" may be the best way I have seen to make building both easier and less specialized. Was thinking of doing a 2"x2" based chunky dungeon myself. Makes the pieces big enough to use my KaneLinx but can still use 1"xY" for filler bits in between the linked bits for smaller areas or odd areas.

Really like the short walls, too. They look good and the taller corner bits give enough variety to offset any repitition...repitition...repitition. *ahem* I think any Chunky Dungeon would do well with having some taller corner bits like that for variety and visual interest. Great work!

Wow!

Great build, and a lot of it! You're a machine!!!

I glued the sticky part of a post-it pad to the bottom of my stuff with some pretty decent results, but the best part is that it's real cheap!

A lot of time to make this layout.... ....looks fantastic!...keep updating please. i like your idea to doing the walls with 1" high.

I updated my album with a few more pics from our last gaming session last week. The group entered the caverns area of the keep and it gave me a chance to use my Caveworks kit...











These are just a few pics - there are more in my photo album.

Nice build.

Great job! I love the water room. And that DM mini is nice.

Luckyjoe

Thanks! I have to say, I had the most fun putting these builds together - especially the water room. It was much less tedious than the chunky dungeons and honestly the guys liked it better. I'm seriously thinking of switching all my builds to this style. (It just pains me to do it after all the time I put into the 1" chunky walls! )

The only drawback I can see is that there isn't a really good storage solution for these rooms. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them now that that section of the campaign is finished. I glued everything down, so it's not really reuseable. I'll have to figure out a more modular way of doing it in the future.

I just built my first set of cave pieces for my son and his friends to play on--their going to use a rule set called Dungeoneer. I built a master board and then some wall and riser pieces, kitbashed a set of stairs, added some props and other pieces. It looks good, but I may have to copy some of your build style if I decide to build some more. Yours look very good.

Thanks for the pics and the inspiration!

I keep meaning to build something from that set...Great job.