After finishing the revolving labyrinth, I suffered from what I always suffer from after finishing a big project; way too many ideas for the next big project. The only way to fix that: distract myself with another big project.
This does not sound very constructive, but I have my WDhex tiles. All the tiles together are a massive project, but I can do that in baby-steps. One tile at the time. And I learn something about designing in Blender with every little tile-step I make.
So, to clear my brain from all the insane labyrinth ideas I started working on my WD hex housetiles: sturdy outer walls.
When I was busy with my wood walls for the housetiles I already knew I wanted to make more sturdy walls. I just had no idea what they were supposed to look like. I looked at so many pictures of medieval walls, and I only got more frustrated.
I wanted something fantasy-medieval looking, but not only irregular stones. I like the plaster with the damaged parts where you see the stones that are inside. And yes, every self-respecting medievallian would repair that, because those damages will get worse, and your house won’t be waterproof anymore. But who cares when it is for tiny plastic house-walls that are used in a fantasy game? But only plaster with some damage here and there looks rather boring, if it is just the walls.
After a lot of pondering, googling more images of walls, asking friends for advice I concluded that I wanted a little bit of everything; the lower half would consist of sturdy stones. On top of the stones there would be a horizontal wood beam. And on top of that a wall of smaller stones with plaster.
So, great, I had a plan!
Next: getting it done.
When I make my housetiles I make them in 2 heights; 30mm and 50mm. The 30mm are half-walls, which I like to use because full-height walls block the view. When we play at the table, I think it is rather annoying if we can not properly look into the rooms because of the walls. Everyone has to half-stand-up to look where there mini is, might miss where a monster-mini is, rather annoying if you ask me. But I sometimes like full-height walls, to make clear where a house ends. Also, for windows and doors I need full height, otherwise they won’t fit.
I came with the idea to have the stone bottom-half and the wood beam be the 30mm wall, and to put the top-part (thinner wall with plaster) on top of that. And I would make undamaged plaster walls, and plaster walls with those nice-looking damages. so we can choose how well-maintained the house is.
After I had all these thoughts and ideas focussed, making the basic straight walls was a lot easier than I expected. I struggled a bit with the plaster, falling in the trap of ‘when it looks good on a big screen it won’t be visible in a small print’ trap again. But eventually I got a result that I am rather pleased with.
After the walls came the corners, which are always challenging on a hexagonal grid. Did you know that to just make a straight corner in all the variations you need to make a square room, you get 4 different corners? And I wanted to have the wood floor inside and outside as options, so that is 8 corners. And I have 2 types of wood floors… 16 options! But that is only because I did not really like my first floor-direction, but someone else did so I kept that.
With the straight walls and corners done I am now ready for the next step;
sturdy outer walls t-corners, where one of the walls is a wood inner wall, so you can make rooms.
When those are done, I have doors and windows I need to make for these walls.
I have more ideas for the house-tiles, but I also have a great idea for the next revolving labyrinth set, and some other WDhex tiles, and a long list of ideas that I regularly add things to. I also have a fulltime day-job, and I also need to print lots more housetiles and paint them so I can use them in my games.
You know, the whole reason I am making these things.
As always my creations can be downloaded (for free) at Printables and MyMiniFactory. MMF does some checking on the files before publishing so they can not be downloaded there today, that will take a few days.