Sunday, November 20, 2011

Building the Ominous Storeroom (Part 1)

Kev, of Kev's Lounge fame, helped me out a while back with my One Page Dungeon design.

Since then, he and I have chatted online and via Skype about gaming and also about his latest projects at the Papercraft Dungeon.  Here's a previous post.

His first set is the Ominous Storeroom and it's very cool.  In my game, there are always dank, dangerous warehouses near the wharf of cities like Ravenport.  Crimelords use these warehouses to plot and plan their next job.  Greedy merchants protect their warehouses with Box Golems.

What better than some 3D scenery to make it all come to life?

Well, I've printed out all the stacks of boxes and crates and I've begun the process of building.  There are several levels of difficulty within the set.  I've started with the basic.  As I progress, I'll post more picture and more comments about the build.

I began by gathering my materials:

I have a copy of the crates boxes, scissors, a ruler, a hobby knife and a cutting mat.

I started cutting, using the ruler and the hobby knife to make straight lines.  I actually never used the scissors.  The hobby knife turned out to be too flimsy and I made some sloppy cuts.  It's also possible that the tip of the blade was a bit dull.  I was going to need a bigger knife...

This made the process go a lot faster.  I used the ruler for the long, straight lines.  I was able to freehand the little triangular notches.

When it was cut out, I flipped it over and I scored the back on the folding lines using the ruler and a black ballpoint pen.  This works very well for scoring, regardless of whether you fold forward or backward.

I prefolded all the corners and I worked to make sure the folds were matching up where the box pattern started.  Ideally, I wanted all the corners to join up so you couldn't see any of the white paper.  I didn't succeed terribly well, but it isn't too bad.  In the future, I might use a brown marker PRIOR to glueing to make the white paper a bit more invisible.

I used a toothpick to apply a little white glue to each flap.  The paper I used (non-glossy cardstock) glued very quickly.  I didn't have to hold the flaps very long at all.

In the end, here's the first part of the Ominous Storeroom...


More boxes to come!!

2 comments:

Lounge Lizard Kev said...

Looking good Jim. :) Find knives like this http://www.olfa.com/UtilityKnivesDetail.aspx?C=61&Id=42 work best for the cutting, though I occasionally use my X-acto knife for the more complicated cut outs.

Also, doing the edges with a marker before gluing is a great idea, just because the glue tends to resist the ink making it tricky if you leave it for after.

Jim said...

@Kev -- thanks! I'm going to do some more of the OS today! Christmas lights and Thanksgiving have been taking all my time... :)