Undead Wizard's Tower

There are a lot of hobby ideas that have fallen out of favor but deserve to still be part of wargaming. Much of what the indie community is doing has been happening on and off since the inception of the hobby. Time is a flat circle and all that. One thing that hasn't had its time to shine again is the humble Pringle's can tower. 

Emily and I decided to each make a tower to fill out our home gaming table and maybe lay the foundations for a future campaign between our fantasy forces. As we spitballed what we could work on together, we came up with the idea of each of us using the same materials and seeing what we came up with, how different the results would be, and document it in Portcullis. This classic build felt perfect for that since it is such a blank canvas. I wanted to build it like I would've in the 90s and Emily wanted to use more modern techniques. The article writes itself, right?

3D printing and intricate scratch building are both real popular, but you don't need to rely on that technology or throw an insane amount of time at a project to get something that looks great onto the table. Once everything is on the table and you're gaming, your imagination starts doing the heavy lifting. The impression of stone, some high contrast highlights, and a few evocative details take a 2 day build and make it feel like GW studio scenery. 

Painting this was easy and really fun. There's a ton of texture everywhere, so each part of the tower is a two to three color drybrush. The edges of the tower and graves all got black/brown washes to add some definition and depth to the relatively simple geometry. To keep the easy and quick build theme, I did my best to limit the number of colors so all stone used the same paint, I just applied it a little differently to make the gravestones look different from the tower itself. 

I also used this as an opportunity to experiment a little. Blerz and I talked a little about how he was trying to do moss or lichen and it looked so good I had to try it. I crushed up some green sidewalk chalk and added a generous amount to some watered down Mod Podge. My chalk was a little brighter than his so I also added some brown and dark green ink to dull the color a bit. Its a bit brighter than I had hoped, but it fits the old-school feel of the piece so I left it. 

I had a ton of fun doing things I hadn't since I was in high school, having flashes of inspiration and diving into our recycling bin for materials. Social media, Youtube, and influencers can make it seem like you need to spend a lot of time or money to have the perfect scenery to have a great narrative game or campaign. You don't! This was all spare stuff I had lying around and garbage painted primarily with $2 craft paints. If you want to know all the steps to create this, the details of my build and Emily's will both be in Portcullis #2 this fall!