Sewage Tunnel Entrance - Part I

This is my first project since at least December 2012.  My work has been consuming a lot of time up to even just now.  And at night my youngest daughter though now a year old still requires lots of baby sitting.  Albeit so for both conditions on my available time; I've recommitted to getting some more stuff out!

I put the word out to my co-workers that I'm looking for big pieces of Styrofoam - the white stuff - and I got a huge bag of molded goodness. Of the pieces I received, I saw tremendous potential for new terrain bits.

The big bag of foam.  It's lotsa lotsa stuff!

One of the interesting pieces.  I think these larger ones
take up too much real-estate but if shaped
properly could form the basis for a tunnel
adventure.  That's a lot of work though ... !

That round piece at the left is what I decided
to keep as my first project.
 I'm going to build a sewer tunnel entrance!
 I'll need to make it non-genre specific.

I started breaking off parts of foam to get
some debris for later use.  You can see this
tunnel front; its about 4" [ 10 cm ] in diameter.

The ledge for the entrance.  Needs some shaping.

I used a hot iron.  Be sure to have the fan on
and the windows open; melted foam will damage
your brain and lungs.

Here's the sides of the tunnel exterior melted.

After placing the ledge down.  I used a hot-glue
gun to fix things into place.  Probably tile glue
for flooring is better for this task.

Here are those bits again.

But first, I added some deco to the top of the
tunnel exterior.  This should give the effect
of being large masonry.

The bits are laid out here to form a
foundation for moss and flocking to
add 'character' to the overall display.

Here's the front of the tunnel with more shaping.
The figure is about 33mm tall.  Sort of huge [ 1:48 scale ]

More deco.  I'm laying out the top of the tunnel
with corkboard.  It will look like cement when finished.

Here's what I got so far.  Stay tuned!

Some Finished Old School Citadel Minis

Here's some proof that I am still alive.
Real life stuff has been pretty crazy lately so I haven't been painting much.
I did manage to get a little work done recently and thought I'd post some of the results.
The photos are okay. Some of the subtle color shades aren't too apparent.

Version 1.5

I've been a terrible host.  Surgery and recovery for my deviated septum, change in parenting duties, and dealing with the flu has sort of kept me out of the blogging process for some time.  In those mild periods of lucidity I've been able to cobble together some old notes from Aggro84 and build MEST Basic Game Rules version 1.5*.  This would not have occurred hadn't a new user ssendam didn't gently prod me to look at what I had writ.

Wow.  It needed some work.

The latest version has several dozen changes and some additions.  Of note are the following:

• Split STR attribute into STR and FOR.  This is planning ahead for the Advanced Game.
• Update BP values of all archetypes, weapons, armor, and equipment.
• Add Glossary of Terms near the end of the rules.
• Correct glaring errors in regards to Armor X trait, and Hidden status.
• Clarified many passages by adding more text; such as for describing what ACC and I represent on the Weapons Chart.
• Armor Ratings for Light, Medium, and Heavy armor is +1 higher.
• Revolvers have Impact 2 and Rifles have Impact 3.  This is "design for effect".
• Bunches of other stuff.

Download the latest version here: https://sites.google.com/site/mesttactics/downloads

In some time - I don't know when - I'll have version 1.6 out which will add a limited magic system.  The bigger change is that I'll have to re-flow the document content to make sure everything is in the proper order.  In the mean time rest assured that version 1.5 is pretty much the standard.

* formerly known as version 1.4.1.  I decided that splitting STR into STR and FOR was a minor change though labor-intensive and went for it.

New Downloads Section

UPDATE:

I've added a Downloads gadget at the bottom of the navigation panel (at the right). Any files that are specific to Noble Pursuit's tutorials I'll list there.  I've made available the 'Small Cottage' files (minus assembly instructions for now).

Small Cottage

See the Small Cottage tutorial on this blog:
http://matter-energy-space-time.blogspot.com/2012/12/small-cottage-tutorial.html

See the Small Cottage templates:
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0Bye3wyX639RGTnBRb0ZsLWdNdEU/edit

I made an earlier version of the templates available but they were at 66 MB!  I remembered this time to use the [smallest] setting within Adobe Illustrator and got them down to about 1 MB each.

MEST Dice stickers and cubes

MEST Dice Labels

EDIT 2013.02.04: I've updated the MEST designs.  There are stickers for blank 16 mm dice, and slightly larger ones for indented 19 mm dice.  There is even a set of 25 mm print-and-play dice.  

The PDF is here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bye3wyX639RGZEM5NkYtZDM5Sms/edit?usp=sharing

16 mm dice will use the 0.5" (12.7 mm) stickers. The 19 mm indented dice will use the 14.3 mm stickers.  The print-and-play 25 mm dice might be a little light.  With some effort these could possibly be cut-out and applied to 25 mm cubes as well.

Within the MEST rules (beta version 1.4); White is "Base" dice, red is "Modifier" dice, and yellow is "Wild" dice.  Successes are the small dark circles.  Carry-over conditions apply when the large cog-wheel is dark black instead of faded-gray.

Utility

If you'll note the sticker art, I tried to make the faces cross-system.  So, all faces are numbered 1 thru 6; actually 4, 5, 6 are not necessarily clearly identified because of the aforementioned art.  But the design is yet systematic; the face with a square is a '6'. It is also marked with a small 6 at one corner.  The face that is a '5' shows a small five at one corner.  The remaining face that is not identified with a small number has to be and is indeed the '4' face.  This lets me have these ranges: 1 - 6, odd/even (with or without black artwork), one-third (shows a small 5 or 6 in the corner), or one-sixth (has a small square).  I admit that the utility of most of those features is probably limited, but it does make for some interesting art without too much clutter.

Indented Dice

Here are two places to order six-sided dice with indented faces.

USA via Indented Blank Dice at http://indentedblankdice.com/

Over the Pond via Blank Dice UK at http://blankdice.co.uk/Buy_Dice/10/

Once my order comes in I'll show them decorated with those stickers.