Mesa we will see you again?

Climbing up the side of the mesaLarge terrain pieces are the lifeblood of any good gaming table and in a fit of boredom late one night at my old job (after my work was done for the day, honest), I set out to create such a piece.

Enter the mesa. Like many such projects, there was absolutely no prior design, just some scribblings on a pad before I set off to construct it. I knew I wanted a stone arch with a pathway up and over for characters to fight on, and I wanted a winding road up to a plateau, but everything else came as I hacked and sawed.

Continue reading Mesa we will see you again?

Old Signs for your Pulp Gaming

Old Signs for Pulp Gaming
Old Signs for Pulp Gaming

Inspired by my brother’s Fake Pulp Adverts post, I thought I would share one of my projects. Over the past few weeks I have been working on a series of old signs for pulp-era 28mm gaming. Designed for any era from the 1900’s to the 1940’s and in any part of the English-speaking world, these signs are fairly versatile.

You can also download the PDF version (Old Signs for Pulp Gaming) if you want a vectorized copy for scaling. As usual, these are designed in the superlative Inkscape, an Open Source vector editing program. The fonts used largely come from DaFont, which has a large set of free and Open Source fonts for use.

Where did the idea come from? The initial inspiration was this image of a locksmith shop in Winnipeg by one of my Flickr contacts:

Old locksmith shop in Winnipeg. Picture by rpaterso
Old locksmith shop in Winnipeg. Picture by rpaterso

After that I started to dive into the Shorpy image archive and came up with some gold. Images such as the one below are great for mining for re-creation:

Old Corner Bookstore: 1900 on Shorpy
Old Corner Bookstore: 1900 on Shorpy

The files are currently licensed for non-commercial, personal use, largely because not all the fonts used allow commercial publication.

Random Pulp Fake Adverts.

I’ve posted these on various forums, but never collected them into one place before. For your amusement, a batch of fake 1930s ads – grab the full size versions off Flickr to reproduce for your personal use on the sides of buildings, on billboards, or whatever!
Continue reading Random Pulp Fake Adverts.

The Amulet of Fire

Fighting Tales: The Amulet Of Fire

After running last year’s .45 Adventures convention scenario at least six times, it was time to retire it. Few things worse than a bored gamemaster, trust me.

So this year’s convention scenario is going to be a two-act thing (two smaller scenarios instead of one larger one), and because my mind works in strange ways sometimes, the first thing I’ve finished is another “Fighting Tales” faux cover. (First three together here)

The rest of the scenario should be finished, first draft at least, this weekend, then it’s a playtest and on to it’s first public showing at GottaCon 2011, 4-6 Feb.

Repainting Commercial Stone Walls

Pegasus produce a range of prepainted plastic 28mm wargaming scenery; all the stuff I’ve seen has been well cast but mostly badly painted. The stone wall sections are good value for money, though, with six 6″ sections for $10 at my Friendly Local Gaming Store.

I picked up a pack, took them home and while repainting them, took enough photos to assemble into a quick, hopefully inspirational, how-to.

Stone Wall Painting Tutorial
(Click the image to see the full-size version at Flickr)

Wargaming & Such (formerly Brian's Wargaming Pages)