Making a plinth for use with your Backdrops Book: Part Two

If you missed Part One you can catch up with it here.

And you can now download the whole walkthrough as a free PDF here on our webstore.

We’re starting part two with our full dry plinth and the modelling is all done. It’s now finishing time, and we’ll see this unlikely potato transformed into a useful and naturalistic looking plinth! Keep the faith!

Tools for Part Two

For the final steps we’ll need:

  • PVA glue
  • An old brush
  • Some basing supplies like flock and mini rocks.
  • Tufts
  • Paint for final finishing
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Unboxing the Lavender Box

“What’s in the box” quoth the reference-monger.

Jon got a box. what’s in it? Stuff that might be of interest to fans of Jon Hodgson Backdrop Books and Miniatures! That’s what!

Cold City: Hot War Report Two is out!

The second Cold City/Hot War report is out now! These regular free PDF reports will bring you behind-the-scenes info, extra historical inspiration, and ideas on things to read to learn more about the Cold War period in the run up to the release of Cold City/Hot War Second Edition.
In Report Two author Malcolm Craig talks answers the question “Will there be any changes?” in the new edition. And the answer is yes. And in History Report Two, Malcolm has further reading recommendations on the topic of all history being provisional…

Making a plinth for use with your Backdrops Book: Part One

(You can now download the whole walkthrough as a free PDF here on our webstore!)

In the Jon Hodgson Backdrops books we mention that there’s a guide to making a scenic plinth to use with your backdrops on our website. And here it is!

In all of our own shots we boost up the model on a small piece of scenery to more easily cut the bottom of the book out of shot. There’s a guide to setting up your shots here, which includes the use of just such a plinth.

In this article we’ll run through the initial steps of hand-making a plinth. We should say in advance there are many, many ways to make such a thing. This isn’t necessarily the very best, or quickest way – it’s just how we do it. And you are of course to alter any of these steps, replacing any you see fit, or doing things in a different order. We find this way works well for beginners and is quite inexpensive. It also makes a great project to try with younger gamers/modellers. It’s a very forgiving technique.

Continue reading “Making a plinth for use with your Backdrops Book: Part One”

BEOWULF Digital Pack 14 is out now!

In this Fourteenth Digital Pack of bonus content for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, we bring you an Old Ways special!:

  • An article about some of what we know about historical pre-christian beliefs
  • Three sample Old Ways sacred locations
  • Three NPCs dedicated to the Old Ways
  • 3 VTT tokens for NPCs 
  • Two location maps to use in your own adventures

Using Jon Hodgson Backdrops

Let’s take a look at some tips for how to make good use of the Jon Hodgson Backdrops books.
It’s actually amazingly convenient and easy to take some really good shots of your miniatures with these books. And once you have your set up in place, it’s simplicity itself to grab the book, turn a few pages and select a different backdrop!

So for this walkthrough we’re shooting outside. We’re using a digital SLR, but if you’re using a phone camera nothing changes – the principles remain the same. You might like to find something to lean your camera on to keep it as steady as possible. Here we shot hand-held because there was plenty of sunlight. Remember, the gloomier it is, the longer it will take for your camera to gather the necessary light, so you’re more likely to get shakey shots.

Here’s the equipment we need for maximum convenience. Technical stuff!

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