Bar or Inn table prototype...


Miniatures


I've decided to start concentrating on terrain. But not the huge table-sized dioramas that people put together. Instead I am trying to focus on non-biological elements of the game that enhance the gaming experience but are compact, reusable, modular and easily portable. That includes items like barrels, crates, wagons, tables, chests, bookshelves, gravestones... well, just about anything that fits the "compact, reusable, modular and easily portable" category.

For example, here is a link to my first prototype table. Once I get all the details worked out, I would likely have a dozen or so of these in my miniature box and then I can place them down on the gaming table when the party is in an inn or a bar or a dining room, etc. The real point of having this done in this manner is that the table could be manipulated dynamically by the party. "I push the table up against the door". OK, the table is pushed up against the door. "I tip the table over and use it as cover." OK, you're now hiding behind a tipped over table...

I'm mostly just doing this for myself, but it occurs to me that there might be others who would be interested in such items. I'd love to hear what other people think about the table (and if you roam around my blog you'll see some other things I'm working on...)


Looks good to me. Nice job!

We have a large collection of this sort of stuff in our game room and it's awesome to have on-hand when you're setting up a map on the table. We generally throw down some D&D dungeon tiles as a base and then add in furniture, rubble, piles of skulls (yes, we have some), and whatever else seems appropriate to build up the scenery. I think it lends some interest and sometimes lets us do what you describe...incorporate the scenery into the story/battle.
M

Sovereign Court

you should be able to use some math to figure out what should look right with most models given the kind of scale ratio they have and what you consider to be an average hieght. depends on the minis you use of course.

Not a bad table still, and even nicer if that's your first attempt! :)


Your table looks very good. If your looking to buy the stuff premade, Dwarven forge has nice packs of mugs and tables and set dressing you may be interested in. They aren't super expensive and you get agood amount in them, just as an other option.

How did you make the table?


heh, math..... "but they assured me there would be no math!"

I've got considerable math in my background, but for some reason I tend to avoid using math when I'm fiddling around with making stuff. My attitude on this table was that it would be virtually impossible to make it the "wrong" size since it could end up as anything from a halfling coffee table to an ogre's dinner table. Mostly I was just interested in whether the prototype would end up with a halfway decently realistic wooden look.

I've been working at home and while on conference calls I've made four more of these... They really aren't any trouble to make at all. I'll post some pics after work on my blog.

How are they made? Well, I have done a couple of versions, so I'll just cover the high points.

First I have a big box of wooden coffee stirrer sticks I bought a long, long time ago from a restaurant supply store. While they are highly variable in quality with a lot of warped ones, there are still a lot of usable mostly straight ones. So I pulled out a handfull and separated out the straightest of them. One stick is about six inches long and an eighth of an inch wide, and they are just dried pine sticks that are really just toothpicks on steroids.

I got a couple dozen of them and glued them as tightly together as I could on a piece of origami paper. That was just to try to even out the warping as much as possible, as well as a way to just work with them as a big unit instead of a bunch of little pieces. Once that dried I cut out a rectangle for a tabletop. I ended up cutting the initial sheet of glued sticks into seven tabletops.

The prototype I took a photo of is the first one. On that once I had cut the top, I then took a couple more of the sticks and I made some pi shaped "feet" measured to fit on each edge. Well, "measured" is a really scientific word for what I did, "eyeballed" is probably closer to the mark. I made four of the pi-shaped units and then glued them in a rectangle such that it ended up with four legs and a bracing rectangle to hold the top. (I know that nobody could possibly visualize this....) Then I glued the top on, let it dry and dipped it in a can of Minwax Polyshade Pecan. That's it.

The legs were a real pain to make though, taking up probably 80% of the total time spent on the table. So I didn't like that. So I cut a couple more rectangles out and just made a wide open paper cylinder (using a chapstick to roll the paper around). Once that dried I then glued that to the bottom of the table, and when those dried I varnished them too.

In those the top came out fine, and you can hardly beat the price and speed of making the table "legs" that way. But it leaves something to be desired from a verisimilitude perspective.

So for the final four tables I cut out the rectangle, then I glued down a cross-brace perpendicular to the "boards" making the tabletop, and about 1/8 inch from the edge. Once that dried I used that as a brace to glue another cross-brace perpendicular to the first brace creating an "L" shape. Then I cut some legs and glued them to the vertical edge of the "L" cross-brace. Then I dunked them in varnish.

The last technique is pretty quick, easy and sturdy, especially after you dunk them in varnish. It has much of the strength of the original prototype and some of the simplicity of the paper tube. But it's still just a bit more effort than I really want to do, so I think I'm going to try one more with just the single flat cross brace and maybe some rolled up paper (very tight this time) for legs.

I dunno, by the time I finish prototyping I'll probably have all the tables I'll ever need, they just won't match each other. :)

As far as buying stuff like this from Dwarven Forge? Well.... if you read my blog or most of my posts here, you'd probably know that I'd rather light my ear hairs on fire than spend money on something I can make cheaper myself. :)


... Moar Tabuls...


Here's what I settled on for the final design. I'll make about nine more of these...

That would give me 16 tables of various sizes. I should be OK for a while. I can always make more, they're very simple to make.

Dark Archive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzqbiLQvVrg


Are you planning to do chairs/benches for the tables? Or just assume that the chair is whereever the mini is?


Excellent question Hallidan...

Some of you may recall that a few months ago I posted some examples of origami furniture, including some origami tables and chairs. I used them and they worked fine, but left something to be desired in the verisimilitude department, which is why I decided to make some out of the wooden sticks.

But chairs... It turned out for our game that chairs were more of a problem than a solution. You can't really sit most, if not all, game miniatures in chairs, and even if you could, you can't slide their knees under the table.

I ended up using small foam circles to indicate chairs, so that when a character was sitting down, their miniature was on the circle, much like I used foam circles for statuses during combat (like dazed, stunned, etc...)

So for these tables I deliberately did not make any chairs. I don't want to go to a lot of effort and end up just getting frustrated trying to use them. I have my origami chairs if I really have some need to show the location of unoccupied chairs.

I did make two benches, and have benches on my list of items to make. But I have some of the same concerns about benches.

Today, during the NFL games I was listening to on the radio, I made fourteen chests of drawers. I'll do a base paint job on them tonight and post a photo on my blog.


wellsmv wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzqbiLQvVrg

Heh... I'm kinda like the trailer park trash version of DungeonMasterMark in that video... I do most of the same sorts of stuff... but my budget and quality control is somewhat less... :)


OK, here's my chests of drawers...

No, they aren't artwork, but they ought to round out a village inn room pretty nicely.


You guys have inspired me to give it a try to build some stuff. Here's what I made:
Shelf and Table
Cabinet, Coffin/Crate, Tables

I was just using these to make them:Wood slates

I still need to paint them.

Dark Archive

very nice


pres man wrote:

You guys have inspired me to give it a try to build some stuff. Here's what I made:

Shelf and Table
Cabinet, Coffin/Crate, Tables

I was just using these to make them:Wood slates

I still need to paint them.

I've been using a very similar plastic bag of wood chips from Hobby Lobby. I don't think it's exactly the same, but close. I also use coffee stirrer sticks, wooden dowels, bamboo skewers and craft sticks (plus a whole bunch of non-wood stuff).

Very nice stuff. I hope you stick with it for a while and add a bunch of stuff to your gaming collection.

Shadow Lodge

Have you guys ever seen this site. Its for those that like Hirst Art's stuff, but don't have the time/mats/patience to do it themselves.


Eric Clingenpeel wrote:
Have you guys ever seen this site. Its for those that like Hirst Art's stuff, but don't have the time/mats/patience to do it themselves.

That's a great site Eric. I've bookmarked it.

Shadow Lodge

brassbaboon wrote:
Eric Clingenpeel wrote:
Have you guys ever seen this site. Its for those that like Hirst Art's stuff, but don't have the time/mats/patience to do it themselves.
That's a great site Eric. I've bookmarked it.

Yeah, they're a Michigan based company, and had a booth at the local con I went to. You can get a good amount of dressing for pretty cheap. I got a couple of dozen pieces for around $5 I believe.

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