144artist paints Mantic's Terrain Crate
Dungeons and Dragons Books Ready For Game Night
With all the tiny books included in the various Terrain Crate sets I found my imagination going into overdrive. The open tome with the Temple set was the spark that made me want to create a complete setup of the First Edition Dungeons and Dragons game books that had such a huge impact on my youth, an impact that continues to this day, obviously. I took one of the book stacks I had completed with a generic scheme and created a tiny Monster Manual as well as a character sheet under the stack. The final parchment I had to paint was perfect for a Chessex gaming mat which left that book to be the Players Handbook. It was my good friend @aronbc that pointed out that I needed to bisect every row I’d painted to really take it over the top. As usual, he was right. I cut the dial out of the compass to make it into a dice tray. Inspired by “Gerry Can: Blue Stuff the Basics” I sculpted a spilled dice bag over the quill pen and ink bottle and added a few dice to the tray. Ony when I neared the end of painting did I realize I would need to add dots to some die faces. Gotta say I got lucky there and I think they mostly read. Not wanting to try and carve or file the soft plastic, I tried to turn the telescope into a couple of markers but in the end gave up and kept it a telescope.
When I was a kid, polyhedral dice were hard to come by and dice bags didn't exist. It seems like everyone of my generation used a Crown Royal bag which came wrapped around a bottle of whiskey. Not sure where I got one as my parents didn't drink but that's what I tried to paint this one as.
It was pointed out that I needed a shot showing scale so here are a d20 and a US penny to help with that.
I'm rolling up a fighter...
Love the monster manual. Fantastic inspiration.
This thing blows me away every time I see it